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How do you evaluate "Do Not Reshelve Books" policies relative to a given patrons needs, and the library's needs?

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Do you have a specific issue that you're trying to deal with? 'Do not reshelve' policies are generally so that we can tell what materials are being used in the library without being checked out. Of course, it has no way of differentiating between 'I found what I wanted' vs. 'This was useless'. The only problems I've experienced as a patron is when there isn't sufficient staff to reshelve the materials in a timely manner, and the book I was looking for wasn't checked out. Of course, one of the books turned out to have been mis-shelved (which is one of the things this policy helps prevent) – Joe May 23 '12 at 2:37
@Joe: Question is about best practices, not a specific issue. Believe all the points you touched on are valid, and would apply to an answer. – blunders May 23 '12 at 2:40
I'm not quite understanding the question. You want to know what factors are important when weighing whether to have such a policy? – sq33G May 23 '12 at 5:41
I understand that "do not reshelve policies" are in place to - as Joe pointed out - keep track of what books are being used even when not technically circulating, but do you think the second point (misshelving) will become moot as libraries move towards RFID? If the OPAC says the book is checked in, then someone could (feasibly) scan the entire library to locate the book in a relatively short amount of time, right? – librarianna May 24 '12 at 0:43

1 Answer

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At our site, these policies vary between sublibraries, but most and the main house as well are asking readers not to reshelve the books themselves. Misshelved books are a major problem, and regularly result in a book marked missing while it is silently gathering dust just a few shelves away. Also, since in the main house we've merged in several smaller sublibraries, there are different catalogs applying to some sets of shelves, and for the inexperienced reader, placing a book correctly can be quite a challenge.

We have mobile racks for the books to be sorted back at the end of each row of shelves, and our readers are asked to place those books on these racks once they've removed them from their place. This way, they're still within reach for other readers even while they're waiting to be reshelved.

We're not keeping statistics on what has been taken out, the sheer volume of books involved is just too prohibitive. Also, that data would be of little value, since we cannot tell if the books were actively used, scanned from, or weeded out by the reader at second glance.

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