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Background
Kent District Library (KDL) began in 1936 as the Kent County Library Association later becoming officially known as the Kent County Library. In 1994, the Library separated from Kent County to form Kent District Library. Today, Kent District Library’s 18 community-based branches offer a blend of traditional materials and services along with cutting edge technology to deliver electronic access to information.
KDL is unusual among libraries in that the Library does not own the physical buildings where our libraries are located. Rather, the local governmental unit has control over the buildings and KDL’s role is to provide staff, materials and equipment to make the building a library.
We are also a member of the Lakeland Library Cooperative or LLC. LLC is made up of over 40 libraries in West Michigan. LLC hosts a shared Integrated Library System (Millennium by Innovative Interfaces) and provides delivery service for inter library loans.
The library receives its primary funding via a 10-year property tax millage levied on the participating communities. Over 80% of our annual revenue is derived from this millage. In 2004, voters passed a 10-year operating millage for the library.
Business Case
KDL is the largest circulating library in the State of Michigan. With a circulation of nearly 4.5 million items in 2005, we are almost double the circulation of our next closest library. Our collection consists of almost 1 million items, an increasing portion of which are CDs, DVDs and software applications. Our circulation has had an average annual increase of approximately 5% over the last 10 years.
As with many libraries, KDL faces a shrinking level of funding support from state-level sources while also constrained by an inability to raise taxes to fund increased demand for services. Such services could be technology related such as wireless hotspots or customer service oriented such as roaming reference services or more individualized attention.
Such services require commitments in terms of staff, equipment or money -- all of which are constrained by our limited funding sources. The challenge for KDL, then, was to find a way to be able to offer these new or expanded offerings without requiring additional money.
Staff were struggling with the continuous increase in demand for books and materials and the attendant rise in checkout and check-in that means. More and more books were left unshelved on carts in the stacks. In many cases, all the returned items from the day were not checked in, resulting in a growing carryover to the next day. Finding items that had an “on-shelf” status was increasingly difficult as so many books were left on carts or in the backrooms, checked in but not moved out to the floor.
We also wanted to take a hard look at the ergonomics of providing services to our customers and to identify ways to reduce repetitive motion injuries. Additionally, reducing manual tasks that could better be performed by machines could free staff to provide more personalized attention to customers who need additional help. Automating these manual tasks could help KDL contain staff costs. Instead, existing staff would be able to handle a growing circulation rate because much of the checkout or check-in could be handled by the automation equipment.
Every organization faces similar challenges in finding ways within one’s existing resources to add services or offerings or to streamline functions. No one wants to say no to a customer or not have enough time to help someone. We also want to have the books and materials as well as programs our customers want and to continue to expand and update the collection to meet new demands.
Many of these issues were discussed at KDL’s first ever Strategic Planning retreat in November of 2003. From that retreat, KDL identified a number of critical goals the organization would pursue for the 2005-2009 timeframe. As one of its Strategic Goals for 2005-2009, KDL targeted the implementation of a self-service initiative for our checkout function. The goal set a high target of at least 50% of KDL’s check out circulation is in the form of patron self-service by 2009. The expectation of the Strategic Planning committee was that successfully reaching the goal would allow KDL to redirect its existing staff into other, more customer-focused or personalized services and allow KDL to contain staff costs.
Planning
After the Strategic Planning retreat of November 2003, KDL initiated a task force to conduct an in-depth examination of ways to achieve the 50% circulation goal. The task force included branch staff, circulation managers, technical services representatives, information technology staff and union representation. The task force was charged with identifying the means to achieving the 50% goal and then identifying key short-range objectives that would lead to successfully meeting or exceeding the goal. The task force was also required to identify options that could be considered during the implementation phase. This task force identified four key short range objectives that would be critical to the success. Listed below are the objectives and associated tasks.
Standardize checkout/check-in policies and procedures system-wide.
Task: Reduce blocks on patron cards and item records to facilitate self-service.
- Messages on patron cards
- Messages on item records
- Generic Items
- Magazines
- Holds Pickup
- Item fees - Options
- Children video checkout without parental consent
- Media Security
Market to Pilot Branch Staff
Task: Develop plan to inform and train pilot branch staff of self-service advantages and how the technology is used.
Points of Importance for staff:
- No positions will be lost.
- Increased staffing at branch for first three weeks.
- Long-term benefit in being able to provide higher-level services.
- Training provided as near to “go live” as possible.
- Close for a day to do in house training at the pilot location the day before implementation.
- Provide realistic expectation of timeframe to staff.
- Provide support to Service Center staff with increased workload over time.
- Gain as much local control as possible over system.
- As branches are converted, use existing self-service sites as training centers.
- Share long-term staffing plan with staff as soon as it is developed.
- Look to staff for input on implementation, giving them a more active role.
Market to Public
Task: Develop a plan to inform public of new technology and persuade the public of its value.
Points of Importance for Public:
- Visually appealing equipment.
- No more than 3-step process.
- Faster and easier.
- Introduce process before implementation.
- Market self-service as “Express Check.”
- Ongoing process through 2009.
Implementation and review of process
Task: Implement RFID-based self-service at pilot branch and review process
- Select Pilot Branch
- Develop Training and Publicity
- Order Equipment
- Prepare Pilot Branch
- Prepare Collection Services
- Implement Self-Service at Pilot Branch
- Evaluation
A number of other questions or issues were identified by the task force but left unresolved and were to be passed as action items to the implementation team. Some of the key issues included:
- How do we handle LLC holds – i.e. items from libraries without RFID?
- Develop plan for tagging KDL collection. What items to tag? Weed first?
- Develop an RFP
- Develop staffing plan for branch prior to, during and after conversion
- Address circulation desks or other facility issues
- Create plan to assist customers during and after transition
- Develop service guidelines for staff to use in self service branches
- Tagging guide and item tagging guidelines
- Develop security gate protocols
- Circulation procedure changes
Each of the above points was analyzed by the team and determined to be critical to successfully implementing a RFID-based solution. Identifying answers to these issues would not only help us develop an RFP, but provide a strong framework for addressing all key concerns within the organization. The concerns could be staff oriented, procedure oriented or both.
A major part of the planning phase was spending dozens of hours with our staff explaining the concepts of self-service and reassuring staff that this initiative was not a means to cut jobs but to better help both staff and customers get better service. Without the buy-in of a significant part of the staff and management too, the likelihood of success would have been greatly reduced. Over the next year, key project leaders visited every branch and spoke with all branch management and staff on the self-service initiative, what it meant to staff and the expectations for customer service improvements.
Implementation
The next step for KDL was to form the actual implementation team that would oversee the initiation of the pilot project and manage the deployment of the system to the remaining branch locations. The team began meeting in February 2004. We spent the next six months developing solutions to all of the issues raised by the planning task force. KDL felt that with the size and scope of the project as it was, we needed to identify all key points of potential problems that our staff and customers might see prior to actual implementation.
From these solutions then, we created a comprehensive Request for Proposal (RFP) that identified requirements vendors would need to address to meet our needs. By spending a significant amount of time in planning and needs analysis, we were able to write an RFP that was focused on what KDL needed to be successful. We identified over 100 different points that each vendor would have to address within the RFP. We received a number of responses and narrowed down our selection to three finalists: 3M, Checkpoint and TagSys. After scoring each of the finalists, the team recommended 3M and its RFID solution as the one that best met the needs as identified in the RFP. The solution included self-service units for checkout, staff RFID-enabled work pads that could perform check-in and checkout functions as well as act as a RFID tagging station, handheld inventory units and conversion stations to do the mass tagging necessary.
Once the RFP was issued, we needed to develop procedures to prepare the collection and tagging process. Some of the procedures included weeding the collection, changing the circulation procedures manual, creating a tagging schedule and creating tagging guidelines for items in the collection.
An aggressive weeding policy was created to eliminate as many low or non-circulating items as possible before tagging began. We created a weeding schedule that was followed with a branch tagging schedule. This allowed branches to know when they needed to be complete with there weeding as well as when tagging would begin.
Our circulation procedures needed to change to support a self-service RFID-based system. Item check-in would now be done in the backroom while checkout would take place via a self-check unit. Our customers would be required to check out all materials via the 3MTM SelfCheckTM System, but staff would be immediately available to assist or check out materials for the customers if need be. Having staff at the self-checkout stations was deemed to be the critical success factor in gaining public acceptance. Customers who refuse to use the SelfCheck System could still give their materials to a staff person. However, the staff person would check out the materials via the SelfCheck System and not at a traditional circulation checkout desk.
Another change in procedure was implementing a self help holds pickup system. If, conceptually, we want to move towards a more self-service model where staff are freer to provide more direct customer assistance, then self help holds pickup is a natural extension of the self-service model.
The team also created a tagging schedule and developed tagging guidelines and standards that ensured that all like items were tagged in an identical manner. RFID tagging conversions stations were used in the stacks to tag materials on the shelf. The Service Center began tagging all new materials beginning in early 2005 prior to tagging at the branches. This ensured that we would not miss any items as new items were added to the branch collection.
So, with the procedures mostly complete, a pilot project began at our largest library – Wyoming – in July 2005. Additional staff from other branches was brought in to support the self-service opening. Branch staff was trained the day prior so everyone was familiar and comfortable with the new equipment. With everything in place, we prepared for the first day of full self-service.
Results
The results of this project have been phenomenal. To date, we have eight branch libraries that are fully self-service with another expected to be complete by the date of this publication. Nearly 90% of our circulation at branches that have self-check units is self-service. In the year since we started the pilot at Wyoming, we have received less than five complaints. Instead, customers are ecstatic over the speed and convenience of self-service. They know staff are immediately available to assist them if needed and have more time to spend with those customers who may have special or more complex needs.
All branches have at least one staff workstation pad (Model 895) and most have two or more. Unshelved book carts are down and the check-in time has been reduced in half or more at all branches. Circulation staff are making heavy use of the handheld inventory scanner. Our staff have even taking to calling it “Darla”, Darla being a derivative of the 3MTM Digital Library Assistant or DLA. The DLA is being used for shelf checks, inventory and weeding control among other uses.
Tagging is complete at all locations and took just about one year to tag approximately 1.1 million items; both existing and new.
The change in circulation workload has been quite pronounced. With less time needed for check-in and checkout, staff have been able to spend more time shelving and collection maintenance. And, through attrition, we have been able to eliminate some circulation staff and move the money to more critical positions to meet KDL’s emerging and future needs. The bottom-line being no staff have been eliminated because of RFID, rather reassigned.
Our most recent branch remodeling is at our East Grand Rapids branch. The East Grand Rapids library is located on the shore of Reeds Lake in the City of East Grand Rapids. The branch is over 20,000 square feet. The branch is unique to KDL in that it has two separate floors with public entrances on both floors. Each floor has two doors so four sets of security gates were needed. The gates are ADA compliant, include a people counter and provide security for tagged items. An audible alarms sounds
The branch introduces a new customer service concept for KDL by combining the reference and circulation functions at one desk. The upstairs is dedicated to adults while the lower floor is the Youth area.
A total of five SelfCheck Systems are available for the public; two on the first floor and three on the second. One of the three units on the second floor is configured for single item bar code or RFID checkout rather than multiple item check-out simultaneously. Since we are a member of the LLC and just a couple of other LLC library have implemented RFID, those books and materials coming from outside KDL will usually only have a bar code.
Four Model 895 staff reader pads are installed. One is at each of the combined service desks and the others are located in the upstairs and downstairs workrooms for use in check-in. The pads at the service desks are used only for those customers who have specific exceptions that must be handled by a person such as an incorrectly tagged item. The pads are also used for check-in of materials as an overflow.
A Digital Library Assistant is used by the Circulation manager and his staff to locate misplaced or misshelved items and weeding. Shelf maintenance is a time consuming task. Staff members use the DLA to locate missing, traces or “claim returned” items. Also, staff use the DLA to scan a book cart of newly checked in materials before they leave the workroom and are placed on shelf. This last quality check ensures that every item is checked in and can be located easily on the shelf. All of these procedures results in the DLA reducing the time spent on shelf maintenance by roughly half.
Future Plans
KDL plans to continue expanding SelfCheck Systems to more of its smaller branches in the coming years. We will easily meet the 50% of system-wide self- service checkout by the end of 2007. By spending over 18 months in planning and analysis, identifying key problem areas and customer service issues and working closely with 3M, KDL has created a model implementation process for any large library undertaking a RFID project.
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