ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

Barcoding: Tedious project or community party?

Broome Community College (BCC) Learning Resources staff turned a tedious barcoding project into a community party. During the holiday break, 95 retired and current BCC faculty, staff, and students participated in a barcoding party resulting in the barcoding of 65,584 titles in preparation for participation in the SUNY Library Automation Project.

Barcode volunteers were recruited from the college community to help “bring the LRC into the 21st century.” Articles were written for the staff newsletter and the student newspaper. The college president invited all college employees to participate. The director of Learning Resources demonstrated the benefits of automation to student and faculty groups. Phi Theta Kappa, the student government association, and the Retired BCC Faculty/Staff Association recruited volunteers.

Volunteers were paired with trained LRC staff to reduce training time and increase accuracy. Two trained staff members served as “floaters,” welcoming volunteers, and filling in where needed. Efforts were made to make all participants feel necessary to the project’s success.

The barcoding schedule was limited to two two-hour blocks per day, 10:00 a.m. to noon and 1:00 to 3:00 p.m., with 15-minute breaks. These shorter time periods reduced errors due to fatigue. During “tea time,” volunteers drank coffee donated by the college food service, ate donuts donated by area merchants, and socialized.

Larry Jenkins and Wanda Johnston display BCC’s barcoding project progress chart and t-shirts.

The collection was divided into sections. This enabled teams to work without interruption from other teams, while able to see and communicate with each other, occasionally engaging in mini-contests. A progress chart, updated daily, kept teams enthused about their progress.

The student government and the faculty/ student associations contributed “BCC just changed its stripes!” t-shirts designed by the Publications Center. These t-shirts and certificates of appreciation were given to all bar-coding participants. In addition, once the project was completed, participating staff and volunteers celebrated with pizza and cake.

Can barcoding be changed from a tedious task to a community party? Broome Community College proved it can. Volunteer comments included:

“I’m doing this for my children.”

“I thought I would only help out one morning, but this is so much fun I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry the project is done.”—Wanda K. Johnston, director of learning resources, Broome Community College, Binghamton, New York ■