BookWhere at Whitchurch-Stouffville
The Whitchurch-Stouffville Public Library celebrated its 100th birthday on February 17, 1999, and moved into its current home, shared jointly with Leisure Services, in 2001. We serve a growing population of more than 30,000 people.
I first saw BookWhere at a conference and thought it was a great product – and a great idea for my Library. As the single technical services person, I really appreciate the time- and cost-efficiency of BookWhere. Before we started using BookWhere and MARC Notepad, I was doing original cataloguing. It was a time-consuming way to do things, and I had quite a backlog. I got rid of that backlog very quickly as soon as we installed BookWhere.
Now, processing the new (and donated) items is a real breeze. I usually choose a day to do my cataloging and do all my searching and saving the day before. Using MARC Notepad’s macros to refine the records (stripping out unwanted tags and adding automatic holdings information), means that I’m getting ready-to-barcode records into my system. In two days, I’m done.
BookWhere is so cost-effective. If you’re not using it, you should be. It doesn’t make sense to do original cataloguing if you can avoid it and certainly not for popular titles. The records I retrieve through BookWhere are usually high-quality, and there’s simply not the time to do the same kind of full-level cataloguing in my environment without it. I’m now able to have subject headings for the fiction titles, and that greatly enhances the patron’s ability to find just the right book. I simply didn’t have the time to do that before. So, not only do I save time, but patrons get better service – BookWhere is just great!
I first saw BookWhere at a conference and thought it was a great product – and a great idea for my Library. As the single technical services person, I really appreciate the time- and cost-efficiency of BookWhere. Before we started using BookWhere and MARC Notepad, I was doing original cataloguing. It was a time-consuming way to do things, and I had quite a backlog. I got rid of that backlog very quickly as soon as we installed BookWhere.
Now, processing the new (and donated) items is a real breeze. I usually choose a day to do my cataloging and do all my searching and saving the day before. Using MARC Notepad’s macros to refine the records (stripping out unwanted tags and adding automatic holdings information), means that I’m getting ready-to-barcode records into my system. In two days, I’m done.
BookWhere is so cost-effective. If you’re not using it, you should be. It doesn’t make sense to do original cataloguing if you can avoid it and certainly not for popular titles. The records I retrieve through BookWhere are usually high-quality, and there’s simply not the time to do the same kind of full-level cataloguing in my environment without it. I’m now able to have subject headings for the fiction titles, and that greatly enhances the patron’s ability to find just the right book. I simply didn’t have the time to do that before. So, not only do I save time, but patrons get better service – BookWhere is just great!
