Plagued by Theft, Gwinnett County PL Sells Kids' Videos
-- Library Journal, 10/26/2005
The Gwinnett County Public Library, Lawrenceville, GA, does not collect home entertainment DVDs or videos for adults, just nonfiction titles, but it has long lent entertainment DVDs and videos to children—until recently. In mid-2004, said director JoAnn Pinder, "We thought we were losing DVDs, so we did an inventory, and we realized that 43.8 percent of the children's DVDs were missing." The temporary solution was to consolidate all children's DVDs at one branch, and to put them all on reserve. But that became too staff-intense, and the DVDs, library officials concluded, wouldn't work well with the RFID self-check system the library has been implementing. Circulation plummeted. "So we decided that, 'educational' DVDs were not as high a target, so we put them out in April," Pinder said. "In August, when we did an inventory, 27 percent were missing." Librarians considered a jukebox-type dispenser that manages discs securely, but it would've cost $750,000 to put in the library's 12 branches. The library board deemed that too expensive.
"We costed out all the methods to protect the collection, and told the board it was our recommendation to discontinue the collection, and the board agreed," said Pinder, whose library won LJ's Library of the Year award in 2000. Some 13,000 videos were sent to a vendor to sell, leaving 8000 extant. Last week, in response to complaints, especially from parents who home-school their kids, the board president put the video sale on hold. The issue will be addressed at the library board meeting November 14. "I don't know if there is a cost-effective alternative for us," said Pinder. "If the price of the jukeboxes comes down, or the technology that protects DVDs with RFID improves, then maybe. But I also think that this is a format that is soon to go away. This is a popular service, but if I'm supposed to be a good steward of public dollars, this is not a service that I should provide." And what would Pinder tell a patron who can't afford a video store? "I tell them that I'm sorry. While DVDs can be used to promote education and reading, the most important thing we do is give [kids] a love for reading and books."
