“Physical Delivery of Library Resources” focuses on three key areas: the physical move, automation, and the management of physical delivery. While the scope of the document is limited to the external delivery of items between separately administered libraries, many of the recommendations could apply to delivery between branches of a single library system, as well.

Ranging from labeling and containers to automation and contracting with courier services, this Recommended Practice addresses both the lending and the borrowing library’s activities related to delivering and returning a physical item.

“The Working Group examined closely the workflow of resource sharing from patron to borrowing library to lending library and back,” explains Diana Sachs-Silveira, President Novare Library Services and co-chair of the Working Group. “We then identified practices at each step that would make services more efficient.”

“Our recommendations cover things as small as rubber banding and as large as automated material handling systems,” stated Valerie Horton, Executive Director, Colorado Library Consortium (CLiC) and co-chair of the Physical Delivery of Library Resources Working Group. “I think there is something for every sized delivery service in these recommendation and every delivery manager who reads these recommendations can find many ways of improving their services.”

“With so much focus on electronic information, it’s easy to forget how much libraries and their patrons depend on sharing of physical materials,” said Todd Carpenter, NISO Managing Director. “The Physical Delivery Recommended Practice identifies the best of the many innovative resource sharing and delivery practices in use today.”

Physical Delivery of Library Resources is available for free download at:
http://www.niso.org/publications/rp/rp-12-2012.pdf. All libraries involved in resource sharing, as well as delivery, sorting, courier and transportation service providers, are encouraged to adopt these recommendations.”

Cynthia Hodgson
Technical Editor / Consultant
National Information Standards Organization hodgsonca@verizon.net
301-654-2512

Please join us in Dallas for another round of discussions. The venue, day and time is as follows:   Dallas Convention Center (DCC) – Room D167 Sunday – January 22.  8:00 AM to 10:00 AM

Any concerns, topics or discussion items you have should be forwarded to:  Greg Pronevitz at greg@masslibsystem.org

See you in Dallas!”

Jim Pletz

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,200 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 37 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

This draft version is being issued to generate discussion and answer questions from stakeholders and firms who are considering responding to the final RFP.  The Empire Library Delivery planning committee would like to hear how this RFP might be improved to insure that the most efficient and innovative solutions are available to libraries in New York State. The draft will be revised and reissued at the end of January 2012, based on your comments and feedback.

Your comments, questions, and suggestions may be submitted via our web form at: http://www.empirelibrarydelivery.org/contact-questions/ and we welcome your participation in either the stakeholder or the vendor conference calls.  Registration is required, and we will post a link to register for either call at http://empirelibrarydelivery.org on or before January 3, 2012.”

Debby Emerson demerson@clrc.org

 
Library delivery service in New York is now provided through multiple contracts.  One contract is the statewide LAND delivery contract, which currently includes mainly academic libraries, three large public libraries and one public library system.  There are currently 114 participants. The LAND contract overlaps with other regional contracts that are managed by four NY 3Rs members and a number of public library systems.  Participating libraries in the regional services are of all types, i.e., public, K-12 school, special, and academic libraries.  See service summaries on our website at http://www.empirelibrarydelivery.org/summary-of-existing-services/.
 
This project is on a fast track, and NY 3Rs Association, Inc. will issue a draft RFP for bidder comment in January 2012.  The final RFP will be issued in February 2012 in order to implement the new service(s) on July 1, 2012. 
 
A web site is available to provide stakeholder and vendor information, updates, and a schedule.  Potential bidders and stakeholder libraries are invited to register for notification of site updates to stay informed about the progress of this important procurement.   We welcome your questions at the site.
 
See:   http://www.empirelibrarydelivery.org/
 
Sincerely,
 
Debby Emerson, Executive Director, Central New York Library Resources Council
Contact info:
demerson@clrc.org

Edward Guthmann, Special to The Chronicle.  San Francisco Chronicle November 1, 2011 04:00 AM Copyright San Francisco Chronicle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Tuesday, November 1, 2011

 Label-less Library Logistics: Implementing Labor-Saving Practices in Massachusetts’ High-Volume Resource Sharing System
Lori Ayre (lori.ayre@galecia.com) The Galecia Group
Greg Pronevitz (greg@masslibsystem.org) Massachusetts Library System
Catherine Utt (catherine@masslibsystem.org) Massachusetts Library System

Abstract

“This paper presents important aspects and issues related to the merging of six regional library delivery services in a single statewide system that serves more than 550 libraries, that together circulate more than 15 million items annually throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The purpose of marrying the six distinct systems was to reduce redundancies and incorporate innovative features to improve library processing efficiency. Most libraries are members of one of nine separate shared integrated library sys-tems. The paper covers the background, objectives, benefits, issues, lessons learned, and a successful re-quest for proposal procurement process for this complex project.”

I am always looking for new content.  If you’d like to do a write-up of your delivery services, I’d love to post those. 

Please send me your delivery ideas or stories.  vhorton@clicweb.org

http://www.masslibsystem.org/optima-sort-to-light-delivery-operations/

Here’s a link to the press release: http://www.masslibsystem.org/delivery/services-announcement/