REMEMBER WHEN

The other day a colleague and I, with a combined total of 40 years at the New City Library, most of it in the Circulation Department, were being questioned by an eager “newhi” (new hire). She was curious about some of the changes we experienced over the years. Do you remember the IBM cards that we used in the eighties? We still get returns with those cards. Just to let you know, we probably don’t want those books back. Computers were introduced in the library in 1991, and we began hand-stamping due dates on index cards. I wonder who thought this was an improvement! We had four different colors to signify the different loan periods in use at the time. Yes, I know some of you still miss them. And the lines! Sometimes, especially after school and on weekends, they would stretch into what is now the comfortable seating area; there were only two terminals at the desk. Our newly renovated Circulation desk has five checkouts, two of which are express self-checks. In the early '90s, all the patron reserves were on a desktop carousel. We’d have about 30-40 reserves at a time. Customers were notified by postcard when a reserve was ready for pick up and were charged 25 cents to cover the cost of mailing. Now there are hundreds of reserves filled every day, and customers are notified by phone or email. These are some of my memories, and you probably have some of your own. We’ve changed our method of delivering service, but we hope to keep the customer satisfied. And change, well it’s what keeps us ‘oldhi’s’ eager to come to work.