Home / Downtown JNF Relocation - Pilot Project

Downtown JNF Relocation - Pilot Project

We will be moving all of our JNF materials from being interfiled with the adult materials on the second floor to being shelved separately on the first floor. In order for this to happen, we will need to move the adult DVDs to the second floor and buy new shelves for the JNF collection to reside on. The JNF Relocation will require moving existing furniture and shelving and adding new shelving to house the JNF collection on the first floor. Our first step will be weeding the JNF collection down to a proportionate collection for our location and removing materials older than 10 years that have not circulated in 2 years. Two tables on the second floor will need relocating to the first floor. Library staff will move the DVDs to portable shelving while Maintenance moves the shelving to 2nd floor, and then library staff will reshelve the DVDs upstairs. A vendor will ship and install new shelving for the JNF collection. Library staff will move the JNF collection to the new shelving. Items beyond the scope of this project will be the redesign of the YA space (next to where the JNF materials will be housed), which has been budgeted for in this fiscal year. Any relocation of materials other than the DVDs and JNF materials will also be outside the scope of this project.

Location: 
Downtown Library
Priority: 
Operational
Problem Statement: 

The Juvenile Nonfiction (JNF) collection has historically been shelved within the Adult Nonfiction, making it hard to browse. Because this collection is basically hidden within a larger collection, it has also traditionally had lower circulation numbers, leading to heavy weeding of hardly used materials. At the Downtown Library, we have the additional consideration that the JNF collection is on a different floor than all of the other materials intended for youth. This physical barrier prevents our young members from encountering, browsing, and finding materials intended for their age group. This project is intended to better connect young members with materials designed for their reading levels and age group.

Objectives, Outcomes and Success Measures: 

The number of checkouts for the JNF collection will increase by 70% by the end of May compared to the same timeframes as for 2016. The percent increase was calculated based on the increase from the highest number of JNF checkouts to the midpoint between that number and the highest number of TNF checkouts. Higher numbers of checkouts will indicate increased member satisfaction with collection – a goal for Collection Anywhere. The number of on shelf browses for the JNF collection will increase by 55% by the end of May compared to the same timeframes as for 2016. The percent increase was calculated based on the increase from the highest number of JNF browses to the midpoint between that number and the highest number of TNF browses. We originally anticipated the shelving to be in place by the end of December 2016, but the quote process delayed our progress by about three months. We projected that member retention of Rising Stars and Bright Futures clusters would rise by 1% from January 1st to May 31st. These are the two clusters that are most likely to be affected by this pilot. Our new timeline to measure improvement will be the date of installation (TBD) to the end of Summer Reading as compared to the same time frame last year.

Timeline: 
Date (Month)Date (Year)Objective
November2016Approved by Leadership
November2016Prep work of moving DVDs to the second floor was complete
November2016Marketing provided a poster announcing new DVD location and banners for the JNF collection
December2016All quotes for the shelving and end caps were received and the order was placed
January2017The vendor began construction on the custom end panels
February2017The bulk of weeding the existing JNF collection was completed
April2017Shelving and end panels were installed on the 19th
April2017Estimated completion of moving JNF onto new shelves
How well did project produced meet the defined project requirements?:
The shelving arrived in early May and the collection completed its move the first week of May. John Rex Elementary (a main source of our checkouts) had one week of checkouts after the collection moved before they went on break for the summer. Since the relocation was completed later than originally planned, we waited to review success measures until John Rex had been checking out in the fall for a full month (end of September). In the 5-month period after the shelving was relocated, we saw an average increase in checkouts of 60% from 2016 to 2017 over the same period of time. While it was not the 70% we hoped for, it was a significant increase in usage, and we did see increases in checkouts year over year during the summer of 207% and 179% for June and July respectively. On Shelf Browses of JNF, on the other hand, decreased for the same period from an average of 580 per month to 366 per month. The reduction in On Shelf Browses for JNF could be correlated to a change in the access and availability of the materials. During the 2016-17 school year, librarians brought curated selections of JNF materials to the first floor and displayed them on a cart for the John Rex students. This meant the materials were browsed and pulled off the cart heavily since there was little alternative for viewing the materials on a shelf. Librarians pulled the materials that were already high circulating and high interest, so browsing was high when the collection was displayed in this manner. This could make the argument to continue pulling high interest materials for on-going displays.
To what extent were the outcomes, objectives and success measures met?:
The data clearly shows that the move was a success in increasing the overall usage of the collection. Anecdotal evidence from the teachers and parents at John Rex also indicates high customer satisfaction with the move. Weeding for age and usage will be easier with the collection co-located, which will also likely increase circulation.
Describe Lessons Learned:
A recommendation for further study would be to look at what the impact would be on interfiling TNF and JNF rather than leaving JNF as a separate collection. Future studies could also track materials displayed on the end panels to see if they have increased circulation over other materials.
What is your overall assessment of the outcome, objective, measure of this project?:
Successful
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