What does it take?

What does it take to barcode an entire library? Well, if the Fleece Library is any guide, then I would say it takes:

1. PEOPLE ... a great staff of 7.5 full-time employees and 3 diligent student workers;

2. TIME ... so far (since December 20), we have put in 676 hours devoted to barcodes. That is a lot of extra work added onto the regular duties each of us has had to continue working at during that time;

3. STAMINA ... our collection numbers about 120,000 individiual items but we got only 115,000 labels for this round. Every book has had to be taken off the shelf in order to apply the barcode label to it. I estimate that we have applied about 110,000 labels so far. I figure that at the average weight of 2 lb. per book, we have lifted 110 TONS since December, unless my arithmetic is faulty!!

Needless to say, I am proud of what we have done! There is still a lot to do in preparation for our new computer system, but we will be as ready as we can be on the barcode end of things.