The Vancouver Public Library offers a really rad service called the Inspiration Pass. It's a pass that allows free access to 25 different events and activities around Vancouver, from museums, to farms, to musical performances, to ice rinks. And it's a super popular program, which is both great and terrible.
I put a hold on an Inspiration Pass just over a year ago on February 23rd, 2013. I'm currently 224th in line (for one of five copies at that branch). There are currently 525 people on this hold list, which is (just) the shortest of any of the 21 hold lists (every branch has some passes). While it's cool that this program exists, I really have to question multiple year long wait lists. There are somewhere over 100 passes available throughout the library system (their site says 120, but I can only identify 115 on their website's catalogue). Each branch gets five, while the main branch has 15.
Unlike other hold systems where you place the hold and you can pick it up at any branch, in this case you have to pick it up at the branch specified. Since they're at every branch, this isn't really the problem.
The problem are (as I said) the massive wait lists! Here's a list of the various branches and the number of holds each has.
Carnegie - 525
Dunbar - 526
West Point Grey - 526
Strathcona - 526
Collingwood - 529
Kerrisdale - 530
Fraserview - 530
South Hill - 531
Champlain Heights - 532
Firehall - 536
Marpole - 536
Kensington - 549
Joe Fortes - 553
Britannia - 557
Kitsilano - 580
Renfrew - 589
Terry Salmon - 572
Hastings - 592
Mount Pleasant - 604
Oakridge - 625
Central Branch - 1729 (averages to ~576 per 5 passes)
Total: 12777!
Now, it is possible to place a hold on more than one of these, but once one shows up all your others get cancelled. You're also limited to borrowing only one pass a year, but that's clearly not going to be a problem any time soon. So why is it taking so long? The borrowing time for each pass is two weeks, and I have no idea how long they'll actually hold them for you. I think holds are 5 business days, but I'm not totally sure. We'll say a week total.
(one week hold) + (two weeks borrowing) x 110 (approximate number for how many holds per pass) = (how long you have to wait to pick up a pass)
That's, uh, a little over SIX YEARS. Okay, so it's not actually that bad. Some people pick up their holds on the first day, some people return their passes after a day, some people never pick up the holds in the first place. So the actual time each pass is out is in use by each patron is less than the maximum. I don't remember exactly, but I think I was in the mid 400s when I joined the hold list last year (so it looks like the hold lists have actually gotten longer), but that means they're getting through about 200 holds per branch per year, so it's really only a 2-3 year wait. Much better!
Other library systems offer similar programs, and from my anecdotal evidence they generally work on a first-come, first-serve basis and are valid for less time. Sure this means that if you can't get to the library at 10am you might not get one, but more people in total will end up using them. A friend even suggested that there should be a way to do this using technology. Upon reaching the front of the hold queue the patron gets emailed a limited use bar code that can be printed off or shown on a device. It expires in x days and the next person gets sent one immediately afterwards.
To me this sounds great, but another friend said that at this point the VPL can't change how they've been doing things as people would complain a lot. It doesn't matter that more people would get to use the service, but that whoever the complainer is _didn't_. I guess that VPL just didn't think that this program would be anywhere near this popular and didn't predict years long waiting lists. Unfortunately "owing to the agreements with our partners we are unable to expand the program at this time".
I have other problems with the waiting lists (“two adults and up to four children aged 18-years and younger” or “up to six young people aged 14 to 18 years old", bleh), but that'll have to wait until I actually get the pass. Hopefully some time next summer I'll be able to post about the awesome museums I got to visit!
Showing posts with label vpl. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vpl. Show all posts
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Stolen Books
I read a lot of graphic novels from libraries, and one thing that really frustrates me is when the next volume in a series I'm reading is unavailable because it's been stolen (or "missing", but let's be honest, it's probably been stolen). In these cases the library has actually ordered, catalogued, and shelved the book, but someone (or someones) have decided they want it forever. This is of particular issue with many comics due to their serial nature. How often is volume 4 of a series going to be checked out of volume 3 is missing? (Actually, based on the examples below the answer is still "all the time", but shhh.)
Today, I was in the Central Branch of the library and saw Wolverine and the X-Men Volume 2. I thought I'd read volume 1, but couldn't remember, but I grabbed it anyway. Just now I checked the Vancouver Public Library's (VPL) website to see if I could read the other volumes in the series. This is what I found.
Wolverine and the X-Men Volume 1: Six copies, all current have the status "Trace" (ie. "we can't find it.")
Wolverine and the X-Men Volume 2: Six copies, five have the status "Trace", the other is the one I borrowed.
Wolverine and the X-Men Volume 3: Six copies, all currently have the status "Trace".
Wolverine and the X-Men Volume 4: Six copies, three currently have the status "Trace", three are currently checked out.
Wolverine and the X-Men Alpha and Omega (a spin-off miniseries): Four copies, all currently have the status "Trace".
(More recent volumes of the series are not currently held by the VPL.)
So that's 28 separate items in total, and 24 of them are missing! Weren't RFID tags supposed to fix this problem? All of these items are less than two years old, and the longest the VPL has had any of them is just over 18 months. All volumes (except the most recent), have at least one hold request.
A librarian at Surrey Public Library said that true crime books were the most frequently stolen, while Terry Prachett used to brag that he was the author who had the most books stolen from libraries, but my incredibly biased anecdotal evidence seems to imply that the actually winners (losers?) are X-Men comics. I decided to do some research into what the most frequently stolen books in libraries were.
There are a number of articles about books stolen from bookshops (I liked this one), and it's interesting to see how much bookstore theft is motivated by people wanting to sell the books to second hand bookshops. In contrast, books stolen from libraries tend to be ones that people actually want to read (though how much reading someone does for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition I don't know...). Presumably this is because most used bookstores (hopefully) won't buy books that are clearly from libraries.
However, the references I found to books stolen from libraries didn't mention graphic novels, but to be honest I'm not that surprised. They're generally high cost items, that don't take that long to read, and frequently go out of print fairly quickly. Still, I just wish that whoever's stealing all those X-Men comics would stop so that I could read them. I mean, I generally don't want to _own_ the things, and the chances of me buying any of them are incredibly slim. That's why I want libraries to have them available!
Today, I was in the Central Branch of the library and saw Wolverine and the X-Men Volume 2. I thought I'd read volume 1, but couldn't remember, but I grabbed it anyway. Just now I checked the Vancouver Public Library's (VPL) website to see if I could read the other volumes in the series. This is what I found.
Wolverine and the X-Men Volume 1: Six copies, all current have the status "Trace" (ie. "we can't find it.")
Wolverine and the X-Men Volume 2: Six copies, five have the status "Trace", the other is the one I borrowed.
Wolverine and the X-Men Volume 3: Six copies, all currently have the status "Trace".
Wolverine and the X-Men Volume 4: Six copies, three currently have the status "Trace", three are currently checked out.
Wolverine and the X-Men Alpha and Omega (a spin-off miniseries): Four copies, all currently have the status "Trace".
(More recent volumes of the series are not currently held by the VPL.)
So that's 28 separate items in total, and 24 of them are missing! Weren't RFID tags supposed to fix this problem? All of these items are less than two years old, and the longest the VPL has had any of them is just over 18 months. All volumes (except the most recent), have at least one hold request.
A librarian at Surrey Public Library said that true crime books were the most frequently stolen, while Terry Prachett used to brag that he was the author who had the most books stolen from libraries, but my incredibly biased anecdotal evidence seems to imply that the actually winners (losers?) are X-Men comics. I decided to do some research into what the most frequently stolen books in libraries were.
There are a number of articles about books stolen from bookshops (I liked this one), and it's interesting to see how much bookstore theft is motivated by people wanting to sell the books to second hand bookshops. In contrast, books stolen from libraries tend to be ones that people actually want to read (though how much reading someone does for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition I don't know...). Presumably this is because most used bookstores (hopefully) won't buy books that are clearly from libraries.
However, the references I found to books stolen from libraries didn't mention graphic novels, but to be honest I'm not that surprised. They're generally high cost items, that don't take that long to read, and frequently go out of print fairly quickly. Still, I just wish that whoever's stealing all those X-Men comics would stop so that I could read them. I mean, I generally don't want to _own_ the things, and the chances of me buying any of them are incredibly slim. That's why I want libraries to have them available!
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