Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Behind the Scenes @ Your Library


This machine lives in Long Island City, Queens, in a renovated warehouse two-thirds the length of a football field. It sorts the books for the 132 branches of the New York Public Library. The New York Times has an article about this tremendous piece of machinery, the envy of library systems everywhere.

In contrast, our system involves sorting by hand into bins (see below), which travel by truck to the 17 branches. Not quite as high tech, but suitable for our needs. Now when you place a book on hold you can imagine its journey across town in one of these bins!


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