While we’d love to be able to put every book that comes into our library right on the shelf, there is usually a bit of a wait. When a book first comes in, we check to see if anyone has placed a hold. If so, we take that book and process it right away. That’s why, when you search our catalog, some of the books show up as “in processing”.
Our office with all of the new books that are waiting to be processed. (Yes, it looks a little helter-skelter, but there actually is some organization there!)
After we catalog a book, it moves on to the next step: spine label creation and covering. Sheila creates our spine labels, usually doing a whole cart load of books at once. From there, the books go in one of our two areas to be covered. We have several volunteers who come in and spend an hour or so doing covers and what we call “stickies” (the thick, clear covering on most of our paperback books).
Paperbacks, hardcovers, picture books and more……
After the books are covered, we make them available right away. Did you know we add on approximately 200+ books each month? You might think the shelves would be too full, but we also judiciously weed our shelves of “old” books. Most of those end up on our sale table, and the money raised goes toward buying new books. It’s a win-win situation!
So, the next time you see “in processing” on our catalog, just hang in there. The book is in the system and getting ready to go on the shelf. (You can still place a hold on one of these books. That way, we’ll get it ready even faster!)
