[ILL-L] handling ILLs when moving

Wed Dec 31 09:38:00 EST 2008

We've always been headquartered in the Main Library and use its materials to fill most of our lending requests.  We moved 3 years ago from a 100,000 sq ft building to a 300,000 sq ft building- a move that not only required moving of materials, but a rearrangement of materials. Originally, the plans were to conduct business as usual and we would be among the last to move. 

The moving company needed unlimited access to our loading docks.   This meant no mail delivery, no courier or UPS deliveries, and no deliveries for our in-house delivery service.  Our stuff would be moved along with everyone else's stuff.  We didn't get much advance warning that we were going to have be ready to go sooner and that we would have to shut down sooner than planned.  I had to scramble to go lower case, get change of address notices out and stop our courier service. 

 ILL was shut down from mid-August to the beginning of November.   We shut down Borrowing first, stopping new requests, and had to recall some of our items before our Loading Dock shut down. Lending shut down the last Monday of August.  I was put in charge of part of the book move and had roughly two hours a day (including lunch) to check with my staff, check e-mail, pack all but the bare essentials, and catch my breath. My staff packed and checked on the status of still unaccounted for Borrowed books.  Because of problems getting building materials after the hurricanes of 2004, our new facility was in the latter stages of construction as we moved in.  Our area was just being carpeted and the furniture and shelving hadn't arrived.  The construction people were using our supply closet as a staging spot and it was locked.  We piled everything in my office which was both the only spot with furniture (but no chair) and  is smaller than the supply closet.  Until they could get to the point where we had furniture and could move in, my staff helped interfile new books with just moved books.  I still had the responsibility of opening the old building for our Cataloging staff who stayed in the old building until their facility was ready across town. When we finally got our furniture, we moved the rest of our stuff over ourselves; that was a much larger project.  

What worked for us:

*	
	Numbering the boxes that were delivered by the moving company.  We had a check list of the numbers and were able to track down missing boxes easier.  It would have also helped to have a list of what was packed in each box.  It took us quite a while- for example- to find our coffee carafe which had been packed separately from the coffee maker.
*	
	Color coding the boxes.  Each box had a label that identified by color which floor it was to go to; we were orange.  We wrote on the label our room number and names.  Boxes still went astray but they were easier to spot.
*	
	Starting up Lending while Borrowing stayed shut.  We had a backlog of deliveries from our courier service and were able to clear that out and get Lending started at the same time. The downtime also helped us be aware of the status of still loaned out items in the aftermath of the 2005 hurricanes which hit the Southeast during that time.  We had Lending up and running a month and a half after we shut down and Borrowing up the week we opened to the public.
*	
	Starting to weed through and discard unneeded stuff when the target date (months later) for the opening was announced.   
*	
	Having a copy of the floor plan so we could plan what would go where and how we would set up our new operations.  My staff picked which workstation they'd use and we had places for everything.
*	
	My bringing a platform dolly from home to help us move and being willing to move what we needed to.  Some of our furniture didn't arrive for months after our move.  The dolly helped us move folding tables over to use as packing tables as well as boxes of the "bare essentials".
*	
	Keeping our old stuff and looking through what other areas left behind.  When we got chairs, we didn't get enough chairs- just what the architect thought we should have.  We scoured the old building and salvaged items we needed.  We never assumed that all would be provided for us in the new building.

What I wish we could have changed:

*	I would have preferred to shut down ILL sooner.  It would have given us less of a backlog for Lending for my staff and I to go through and helped us track loaned items better.  It would have given our customers a cut-off date for Borrowing and helped customer satisfaction in that instance.  It would have allowed us to give the advance notice we needed to give our Books By Mail customers that their service would be shut down.  From a customer service standpoint, it was not handled as well as it could have been.
*	The aforementioned lists of what was in each box.
*	I would have preferred someone else taking over the daily opening of Old Main sooner so I could unpack and set up my workspace.  I opened Old Main each morning for a month after the move.
*	I was recovering from surgery when part of the move plan was conducted.  Since ILL is one of those neither fish nor foul, public-support service hybrids, our needs for furniture and equipment moves weren't taken into account as they were for the public service areas.  There was a promise from Admin that we would be taken care of but we ended up moving our stuff ourselves.  

Heather Campbell
Manager, Special Services (Interlibrary Loan & Books By Mail)
Jacksonville Public Library (JPL)
Jacksonville, FL 32202-3505
(904) 630-7017; VM: (904) 630-2986

________________________________

From: ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org on behalf of Judi King
Sent: Tue 12/30/2008 2:55 PM
To: ill-l at webjunction.org
Subject: [ILL-L] handling ILLs when moving

Hi--
Our library will be moving to a new building later next year, and I am just wondering what to expect when the move is near.  How do you all handle ILL requests?  Do you temporarily shut down? If anyone could send me info on their moving experiences, I'd appreciate it. 
Thanks--and have a Happy New Year!

Judi King
judisamking at hotmail.com
jking at asl.lib.ar.us 
Interlibrary Loan
Arkansas State Library
One Capitol Mall
Little Rock, AR 72201
Little Rock, AR  72201 

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