Today’s “Someone Stole All Our DVDs” Story brought to you by The Gwinnett County Public Library system down in Georgia. They’ve decided to stop offering DVDs, saying the number of discs stolen could fill two video stores.
With nearly 17,000 DVDs stolen, the library system ended the program last month and began selling the remaining DVDs.
“It’s a shame that the small percentage of the population takes the enjoyment, the freedom and the availability of these items from everyone else,” said Beth McCloy, a Buford resident who used the DVDs as part of a home school curriculum for her three children.
proactive security
Okay, at first I was floored but then:
Librarians are not sure how the DVDs disappeared, but they assume most were slipped out of their cases inside the libraries.
They didn’t have them in any kind of security packaging? A collection of over 34,000 DVDs? I’m still floored, just for different reasons.
Where were the actual discs housed ???
The article doesn’t say explicitly; but one could infer that they were left in their original packaging in a browsable public space.
If this is true, then security packaging or tattletape wouldn’t make any difference. The disc could just be removed from its case and slipped in a coat or bag.
If the actual discs were left in any kind of packaging in a browsable public space, and I were a Gwinnett Co. taxpayer, I would demand that whoever made that inexcusably naive decision have their salary docked for the cost of the lost discs.
Our library keeps our empty DVD boxes on public display shelves and the discs themselves in a secure area. Patrons present an empty box for checkout, and get the disc to take home. This isn’t rocket science! Jeez.
Re:Where were the actual discs housed ???
Why wouldn’t secuirty packaging make a difference? We use special cases that require a heavy magnet to unlock. Granted we once had one of those stolen but I don’t believe we’ve seen anywhere near the 44% theft rate that they saw.
Re:Where were the actual discs housed ???
I agree that they discs should be behind the checkout desk, or packaged so they can’t be opened until checked out (It seems to work for the folks at Blockbuster)
As for docking the pay of the person who decided to put them out in their cases that is simply absurd. People steal the books too, but you don’t advocate docking the cataloger’s pay for cataloging them so they can circulate (I hope you don’t). Don’t accept the poor social skills of the public as a given. If you think that your patrons are thieves then why even open the doors. I hope patrons don’t steal things from the library. Of course I am a realist and I know things will be stolen from the library, but I like to have more hope in mankind than that.
Interesting to note that a free library in the Yucatan to which I bring books and on occasion volunteer has only had 2 items not returned in its several years of operation. The library carries English language materials and is open to anyone both Mexican and non-Mexican who would like to use it. I know there are a people where they don’t steal just because they want something. Of course we have let the US become the capital of instant gratification and self intrest where we live to please ourselves often and without regard for others. People who steal from libraries are the scum of the earth.
Re:Where were the actual discs housed ???
Consider me corrected. If security packaging can be as formidable as you describe, then that would indeed be more of a deterrent than a basic tattletaped box. But whatever they were using in Gwinnett Co. obviously wasn’t enough.
Re:Where were the actual discs housed ???
It doesn’t always work for BlockBuster. I’ve personally witnessed at least 2 thefts at a local franchise where “customers” have dashed through the gates with films. As GregS pointed out, security packaging can make a difference; but it won’t stop determined thieves.
Why is it absurd? The decision to leave the DVDs, the property of the taxpayers of Gwinnett Co., in an open public area and subject to easy theft was a policy decision made by a circulation librarian and/or library director. Why should they not be held responsible?
On a night’s reflection, I’ll grant you that docked pay might be a bit extreme. But the decision-makers in the county library system made a very bad decision and should be held accountable in some fashion. The consequence of their poor judgment is that the library patrons in the county no longer have access to a DVD collection.
I’m afraid your analogy is flawed. Catalogers accession materials for use in libraries. They don’t make decisions about circulation policy, or where materials are shelved or housed. Now if a cataloger or other library staffer repeatedly forgets to apply tattletape to a book, then they should have some responsibility for collection losses.
mdoneil, you sound like a very good-hearted person, and I tip my hat to you for volunteering in that free library. But I worked as an access services librarian in a US academic library for 5 years, and during that time I learned that if you don’t secure your collection appropriately it will soon be gone much like those DVDs.
Library policy makers don’t have to assume the worst about their patrons (and I don’t either); but they do have to take reasonable measures to secure their collection so that it’s always available for ALL of their patrons. Based on what I read in that article, this didn’t happen in Gwinnett Co. and everyone involved lost something.
And finally, I wonder why they think they have to stop collecting and circulating DVDs? Why don’t they simply change their policies, secure the collection and circulate the remaining discs? I think they owe that much to their law-abiding patrons
.
Re:Where were the actual discs housed ???
I work part time in a dvd department, and believe me, security cases don’t stop people who want to steal. The shoplifters in our store have specially lined bags to prevent the security tag within the case from working. We have cases that are opened with a strong magnet and others that need a special opener (or a screwdriver or hammer). Neither slow the thieves down much. It can get really frustrating sometimes.
The branch where I pick up my holds told me they had to move the dvd holds behind the counter so they’d stop disappearing.