Psst! You wanna know about BTS? No! No! I’m not talking about my favorite musical group. I’m talking about the Behind The Scenes of the Library: all of the cool stuff that happens to your books once you turn them in and the amazing journey they take before they end up back on the shelves. 

I bet you don’t know what happens once you drop that book off in the book drop. How does it always go back to the right place? What about when you drop things off at one of our four Dillions book drops? I know you probably think there’s some crazy library magic that happens and I’m here to confirm that yes. It absolutely IS magic. 

Ok. So, here’s the brief rundown:
First: books are returned.
Second: we gather items to be checked in.
Third: we inspect and sanitize items.
Fourth: we organize.
Finally: we shelve items back where they belong.

But how in Salina Kansas does all of that actually happen?! First things first: we need to gather items back to our circulation workroom. That means that every morning we drive around Salina to our book drop locations to collect and bring them back to the library. Did you know you could do that? We have four locations that are official Salina Public Library book drops. Each of our local Dillon’s grocery stores have one and there’s another down by the North Street and Hamilton Avenue intersections by the OCCK bus stop. What you’ll see is a big blue box outside with a slot for depositing books, DVDs and CDs. So convenient! Almost everything can be returned to these boxes.  The only things that don’t do so well in these book drops are electronics and board games (our drop boxes aren’t perfectly weatherproof, so please bring these types of items to the drive-thru book drop to the side of the building or directly to the book drop inside just past the circulation desk). 

Once we gather everything, it’s time to bring it back to the library and the fun can begin! When something comes back to the library regardless of whether it was turned in through our drive-thru book drop, a Dillon’s book drop, or returned directly to the internal book drop, the first thing we do is make sure everything is accounted for and in tip-top shape. This includes counting pieces of board games, checking for missing disks, and checking for any damage that items might incur through general use. Did you know we did all that? Some of my favorite things to check in are the board games because I get to see all the cool stuff inside. 

If everything is in good condition, the items get sanitized and checked in back in our circulation workroom. But what if everything is not good? At the Salina Public Library, our items receive lots of love which means wear and tear happens. It’s unavoidable, but do you wanna know something cool? A lot of those items can be repaired. On average the library repairs over 1200 books and cleans over 1200 CDs, DVDs and games annually. Wow, that’s a lot! Our book doctors and CD specialists are saving lots of items from needing to be replaced by performing maintenance and repairs. 

“Even the things that look broken beyond repair have a chance at being whole again” Natasha Preston

So what should you do if something DOES happen to an item that you’ve checked out? Maybe a page rips or a CD case gets smashed. Maybe your dog eats a book… Don’t you laugh too hard, it’s actually happened! Never fear; we understand. Just give us a call or show us what has happened when you come in to return the item and we’ll be happy to take a look at it. You’d be surprised at the things that we can fix. Just check out this damaged book.   Looks pretty bad, huh? This is where the library magic happens. I know it looks bad, but this is no problem for our talented book doctors. Here’s the same book after some love, attention and a little bit of glue.  Good as new. Right as rain. 

Now take a look at this CD.   Pretty scratched up, huh? Probably skips a lot too. That’s not fun when you’re trying to binge your new favorite series. Whenever you borrow one of our items and it skips, stutters or otherwise doesn’t play right, be sure to mark the instance on the included slip of paper inside the case of each item. That way we know it wasn’t playing perfectly and can clean it once it gets checked back in.  Did you know we can clean CDs, DVDs and video games as well? We have a super cool machine that makes short work of scratches. 

Here’s a small reminder to please leave the cleaning to us as cleaning items in a CD-cleaning machine too often can lead to their rapid deterioration. We document every time an item has been cleaned with our machine so that you get the best experience with our media possible without damaging the items unnecessarily. This goes for our books as well. It may be tempting to try and fix a small tear yourself, but as long as all the pieces and pages are accounted for, you can rest assured that we will handle it. 

Ok! Now everything is cleaned, inspected, sanitized, repaired and ready for use. It finally makes its way back to the shelves. All of the items are placed on carts corresponding to their shelving locations for the Shelvers to disperse throughout the library.  Did you know that the Salina Public Library has 31 separate shelving locations? Everything from upstairs fiction to downstairs picture books has a specific home. But did you know that within those shelving locations, we also have many more sub-genres and neighborhoods? If it sounds like a lot, it’s because it is. That’s what makes our Shelvers so special. They’re the ones making sure everything finds its way back home and is easy to find for the next patron. 

Wow! What an adventure. I hope you enjoyed this BTS of the SPL and got to see a little bit of the library magic that happens every day. We’ll see you next time you visit us. Happy reading.

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