29 August 2009

BDC Schedule Change, Sept. 7 -11

All Beaufort County offices will be closed on Monday, September 7th in observance of Labor Day. This means that all the parts of the Beaufort County Library will be closed on Monday, Sept. 7th, including the Beaufort District Collection.

The rest of the week the BDC will be open only 1/2 days while staff tries to unravel the mess that the migration from SIRSI to SCLENDS has left in its wake with regard to the library's special collection, the BDC.

If you've been following Connections, you will know that the migration between automated library systems has not gone well for the Library as a whole -- and particularly badly for the BDC. With the hurricane high season rapidly approaching, we need to verify our BDC holdings within the new database -- in case we get struck by a devastating storm. (Insurance carriers like to have documentation for losses before they write the check you know.)

The inventory process requires intense concentration and a back-and-forth human eyes and brain comparison of what is on our shelves against what is in the SCLENDS database. We'll be looking for and documenting anomalies. Unfortunately, we cannot do the inventory process and serve on-site customers at the same time. (We're good, but we aren't that good.) Therefore, in the interest of continuing to provide the best local history reference service possible to our customers, we will inventory the BDC in the mornings and open to customers at 1 pm. We will continue to close as customary at 5 pm, Tuesday - Friday.

If it should turn out that the 4 days of 1/2 days isn't enough to get the job done properly, we will let you know as soon as we know.


We know that this will inconvenience some of you. I am sincerely sorry that we have to close the research room 1/2 days for 4 days. I just don't see any other way to ameliorate the migration problems.

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