Changes in Circulation Could Lead to New Look for Library

UPDATE: The original headline for this story—"Big Drops in Circulation Could Lead to New Look for Library"—was misleading, and has been changed to reflect that. A follow-up story with clarifying information will be posted on Moorestown Patch later today.

Between 2010 and 2011, the number of items—books, DVDs, CDs, books on CD—checked out from the dropped drastically.

Numbers provided by township manager Scott Carew show the number of items checked out of the library more than 10 times a year dropped from 12,842—9.85 percent of the total collection of 130,357—in 2010 to 1,740 (1.3 percent) in 2011. Items checked out six to 10 times shrank from 14,470 (11.1 percent) in 2010 to 4,211 (3.2 percent) in 2011.

Across the board the number of items circulated shrank—except for one statistic: the number of items that weren’t checked out at all jumped from 46,049 (35.3 percent) in 2010 to 83,997 (64.4 percent) in 2011.

According to Carew’s numbers, which he said he crunched with library director Joe Galbraith, a total of 37,568 items did not circulate at all in 2010 or 2011.

Carew used the stats to support his suggestion that council  and place a percentage of its undercirculated books in an unfinished (aka cheaper) section of the library, where they would be much less easily accessible, but still available to the public.

This “closed stack” method is employed at many libraries, Carew said, including Burlington County libraries. If council went this route with the library redesign, it would not include the children’s section, he said.

Galbraith argued against closed stacking at a previous council meeting because it would eliminate people’s ability to browse. While the numbers show checkouts are down, those stats don’t reflect how many times someone pulls a book off the shelf and flips through it while they’re in the library, he said.

“Public library users are browsers. They come in and say, ‘I just read this book by this author. What else do you have that they’ve written? … Oh, I’ll just go and browse,’” Galbraith explained. “You have the book stored away, you take away that component.”

Carew said the argument boils down to “convenience versus cost.”

“It will be a cost savings,” he said, and council will have to “weigh that with the convenience of just being able to walk up to a bookshelf and take a book out.”

Carew stressed he’s a library supporter and said he’s been in constant contact with Galbraith “sharing my ideas and exploring my ideas.”

As for which items would be taken off the floor, Carew said that would be up to library staff. The only guideline they’d have to adhere to would be square footage, he explained. “I would not think I would know better than the library staff.”

Mayor John Button said closed stacking “makes a lot of sense.”

He stressed the township has done its due diligence, adding, “We recognize no matter what we do, we’re not going to please everybody.”