What I want to know is why the processing will cost $7 per DVD???

Admittedly I don’t do this for a living, but I guess that a person should be able to do (at minimum) 4 DVDs per hour, and probably more depending on how extensive the database entry is. Assuming $11 per hour, which would seem a high estimate for such labor, that makes about $8K for the labor. Maybe a high estimate of $2 for each case adds on another $6K. That still only comes out to $14,000. It seems like the city should just be hiring some high school or college students looking for a summer job.

First, a big thanks to Berkeleyside and Frances for following up on this story. I’m glad to hear there isn’t a complete fraud going on, and I don’t envy Mr. Huffman’s predicament.

But let’s make explicit a point that is otherwise implicit: even though Mr. Huffman recovered $11,000+ from the sale, he will not be returning any of the money paid by customers like Zachary Williams, who were plainly misled. He will instead use the money against his own debts. The DVDs that customers will receive are, as I originally suspected, simply those not good enough to make it into the library’s collection. Those DVDs will be distributed at complete random.

Whoopee. More drink coasters.

David:

While, again, I can’t speak to practices at Oakland Public in particular, I’ll tell you generally a bit more about how cataloging works these days.

You wondered why people can’t just scan a bar code or type in a little info and copy a record from an existing database.

I’ve got some good news for you: that’s exactly what happens for most items. Most libraries (and Oakland Public appears to be an example) are members in an organization called OCLC. OCLC does many things among which is to maintain a catalog called “WoldCat”. WorldCat is, in essence, the combined catalogs of all of the member libraries. Think of it as the world’s ultimate (virtual) card catalog. (See http://www.oclc.org)

The practice called “copy cataloging” is, at heart, picking up an item, looking to see if someone has already created a record for it in WorldCat, and if so – pressing a button to make a local copy of that record. Piece of cake!

Ms. Dinkelspiel remarks that Oakland Public is outsourcing the cataloging. My wife tells me that that probably means that the outsourcing firm specializes in this and has their own private catalog of ready-to-go bibliographic records. Hopefully they are part of the OCLC system but presumably the outsourcing firm maintains its own internal efficiencies. Even better!

And, you’re partially correct that basic copy cataloging can be done rather quickly. You guesstimated four items per hour and, for just pure copy cataloging of common materials, that might even be a touch low.

There are complications, though. There is a lot more to do besides simple, blind, copy cataloging. Also, even copy cataloging has complications.

Copy cataloging is complicated by the simple seeming problem of making sure you have the right record. For example, two editions of the same item typically use two different records. You would wish that publishers would guarantee that, for example, the ISBN (the long string of numbers you find on most books) are enough to uniquely identify which record you want but, in general, you can’t rely on that.

Copy cataloging is complicated by a library’s policy based need to proof-read and correct WorldCat records. Part of WorldCat’s value comes from various libraries cross-checking and correcting the work of other libraries. When libraries send corrections back to WorldCat’s database, they get a discount from their OCLC fees. When libraries just take records, its pure fees. OCLC is basically a fee-based co-op aimed, in part, at making cataloging more efficient for everyone – but it isn’t as simple as just scanning items as at a grocery store check out line.

Of course, some items have no OCLC record already and, for those, original cataloging is required. Original cataloging is fairly time consuming and requires considerable expertise.

Even when records are simply copied from WorldCat, often “local rules” apply – database rules specific to a given library – and these require special attention. (That the Oakland Public is apparently outsourcing the processing of these DVDs suggests that local rules are not a big issue in this case.)

Beyond the complexities of even “simple” copy cataloging, there is much more to adding an item to a collection. If Oakland Public is anything like Berkeley Public then, for example, a security case must be created for the DVD. At Berkeley Public that means making a decent photocopy of the DVD jacket and inserting that into the security case. An accurate shelving label has to be created and applied. The DVD has to be inspected. All of these steps take at least a bit of training and they all add minutes to the procedure. In addition to adding minutes, these steps also add costs of material.

Above we’ve talked about copy cataloging but library databases also include “item records”. An item record is a record of a particular physical copy of an item (e.g., when you lose a library book, it is the item record for that particular copy that gets marked). Item records must obviously be created for each item acquired and this again takes time. Additionally, there are “holdings records” in which each library makes a record of what titles it holds. Holdings records are (typically) shared back with OCLC and form the basis of how Inter-Library Loan works. Again, at a minimum, yet more minutes.

You also have to consider the administrative costs such as going through (by hand with precision or “roughly” using computer assistance) a long list of contributions like a large DVD collection and figuring out what to keep and what to not keep.

That these are apparently being outsourced means that there are also the costs of packing and shipping the collection, unpacking it and sorting it out, packing it back up and shipping it back, unpacking and sending for shelving. So, add more minutes and more costs of material for that.

Can you begin to see how, quite reasonably, the costs here can easily exceed 15 minutes of unskilled labor? We’re not talking about an average day-per-DVD but neither are we talking about untrained high school students copying words into the computer for a few minutes.

I don’t know if you’ve ever lost a library book and had to pay for it. If you do, you’ll probably notice that the bill is distinctly higher than the mere cover price of the book. A large part of that excess amount is not just punitive – it reflects the real costs in time and materials to the library of replacing an item. When you lose the book you haven’t just lost the book, you’ve destroyed the value of a lot of labor that went to getting that book on a library shelf.

Two final considerations:

If you want to argue that the computing technology used by libraries for all of this is lousy and could be improved you will have some trouble finding a librarian who, when speaking frankly, would much disagree. The field for that technology is largely dominated by an oligopoly and to my eyes, you get about what you’d expect. It’s dismal. Nevertheless, you could make that software 10x better and you’d likely get less than a 2x efficiency gain because of all the unavoidably manual steps of processing materials. The crap software diminishes the quality of libraries quite a bit but it isn’t the efficiency bottleneck for the most part.

If you want to argue that that the librarians and technical staff who generally do this cataloging are bloated, uncreative, and lazy and that a smart guy like you can come and show them what’s what: you’ll give the folks in a typical library a good laugh. Typical library budgets have been getting slashed for years now and there’s just not much fat left on those bones. These days, through things like outsourcing the processing of incoming DVD collections, libraries are being forced into the uncomfortable situation of saving money at the expense of accuracy and quality. In a few cases you can even find things like academic libraries that, in order to exist at all, are deciding to not have any actual books (just to use only on-line materials). The library at Alexandria is burning – we are, as a culture, in some serious trouble. No, really. This is part of the reason why the RFID controversy around Berkeley Public is so cringe-worthy.

Again, $7/DVD – depending on the details of what they’re getting – is probably a bargain.

David,

I have two superficially self-contradictory replies for you: you’re right and you’re wrong (but either way, $7/pop is a bargain).

You’re right that a lot of library materials, especially in a big public library system, just ain’t all that precious. And, you know something else? These DVDs are probably largely in that category. And, indeed – libraries choose to cut corners on such things and save their big guns for more important things. And, outsourcing the processing of these DVDs is probably an example of such corner cutting. $7 is a good deal. What do you suppose a decent shoe shine costs these days?

(To be sure, if they wanted to be absolutely minimal about it OPL could just dump the DVDs in a bin and let people “borrow” them on the honor system, and screw the Inter-Library Loan system. That would hardly be a library collection, though – more like a free box.)

On the other hand, you know… it’s pretty easy to look at materials through contemporary eyes and say “Oh, this isn’t important. We don’t really need to preserve this. We don’t care so much about accurately inventorying it or making it discoverable through the catalog. Just make it available for people next week.” Only, the libraries we have are treasure troves in large part because over many decades past people resisted that temptation. Libraries are part of the spine of our cultural long-term memory. In a few years, there aren’t going to be all that many archived copies of most of the materials even in this humble DVD collection. When a culture loses its memory it loses any hope of having any kind of identity – we get into Orwellian territory.

It seems to me that in order to indulge their perfectionism the libraries have created a hideously expensive process that interferes with their own mission.

Evidently it does so seem to you but it seems to me that that’s because you don’t appreciate what libraries are and what they do.

Suppose there were a few errors where the wrong version of a title gets cataloged. So what? Worst case, someone notices it and points it out and it can be fixed later. Was avoiding that calamity worth an extra $20,000?

It depends on the size of “few” in “a few errors”. And it depends on the severity of the errors. Other than for the most obviously most precious materials libraries are not the perfectionists you take them to be. The system has a modest amount of redundancy built into it and is error tolerant. But when you start racking up errors that have to be fixed later, do that enough and that $20,000 starts to look like a false economy and an expensive mortgage on the future.

David,

Ok, we’re a lot closer to agreeing than disagreeing over much other than the $7 figure.

My wife now works at Cal but has previously worked at other academic libraries and at two different public libraries. One of the two public libraries was exceptionally budget-challenged and traded in a lot of materials whose preciousness seems dubious.

There are alternatives between fully professional cataloging and processing and preservation and “just dumping in a bin”. There’s a pretty smooth gradient of choices there. That Rockridge is allegedly outsourcing these items suggests that they’ve traded off some theoretical quality for quick turn-around and a decent price. It really, really doesn’t get a lot better than $7 a pop. There’s no way around it for now.

It’s a bit of adding insult to injury when you say “libraries have failed to find cost-effective ways to meet the actual needs and not the gold-plated requirements”. My gosh, you should have a look at their trade press and their internal conversations – they’ve been, for items like these DVDs, doing LITTLE MORE THAN successfully finding “cost-effective ways to meet the actual needs and not the gold-plated requirements”. Every but one of the libraries I’ve witnessed at this level is a damn sight more efficient that every corporation you’re likely to encounter dealing with anything vaguely comparable.

I remember when I was a kid and there were a bunch of books in the library with nothing more than a Dewey decimal tag on the spine. I bet they didn’t spend the equivalent of $7 for cataloging every book in my local branch library in those days, and I think they were none the worse for it.

This is an indication that, in fact, you don’t really appreciate what’s up in libraries, I’m sorry to say. I can’t speak to whatever particular library you are remembering but I’ll guess that you are not much younger or not too much older than I am. Libraries, back then, mainly used card catalogs, right? Of course, in the back room they also had other files of item record cards. Up until some time starting in the 1970s all of those cards were typed by hand with occasional handwritten annotation (in a uniform handwriting style taught in library school). Around the 1970s computer automation started to come into play via orgs like OCLC. The point is that, at least if you measure in hours per item, the labor costs have fallen dramatically since when you were a kid. They fall more year over year. The issue for libraries in general, these days, is that they are being squeezed to cut costs to levels where they can’t operate even vaguely responsibly.

You say you are on a library committee. Most excellent. May I, in good spirit, please make a suggestion for you?

There is this TV show these days – I forget what it’s called. The premise is that “bosses” of big firms go undercover and take entry level jobs at their own firms. The TV show extracts big “reality TV” drama out of the epiphanies that sometimes follow.

If you’re making or helping to make big, big executive decisions about the operations of a library: go do that (sans the cameras). Go in and get your hands dirty looking and participating in the basic operations of the machine. You will, as in any firm, find some dead weight here and there but if your library is anything other than the very worst of the lot you’ll probably be surprised. And keep an open mind to the why of why procedures are as they are. Go look around and learn. It’s cool and fascinating and, while I sympathize with your “this can’t possibly be right” take on the costs of acquiring the DVD collection – I hope you can see, if you get out in the field, that $7 is a bargain.

“Yet it seems like a step backwards, because we have these automated databases and yet it costs more to enter the 1000th copy of exactly the same DVD into that automated database than it would have cost in the old days to type up a card from scratch.”

We’re talking labor hours here, right? See, the unfortunate thing for your point is that, as far as I can tell, you’re just absolutely and rather by a large margin incorrect there. Can’t really take you up an argument where you start with a counterfactual premise.

do not believe this is more efficient than what the private sector does. I worked at Google when they were starting their books project. I don’t have any familiarity with their actual operations now, but I’m sure they handle books for less than this, and they don’t just copy a few lines from one database to another, they scan the entire text of the book.

Are you aware of the rather severe criticism Google has come under for its handling of meta-data in that process? Or of the difference between having a trained monkey or a cheap robot flip pages vs. cataloging an item? What committee are you on again, exactly?

Maybe it is not the individual Rockridge library’s fault, and I never meant to imply it was. They don’t have the scale to build a more efficient system by themselves, I am not suggesting they should go out and build their own technology if it doesn’t exist. But it sure is the case that a more efficient system could be built.

I absolutely agree that a hyper-efficient system for cataloging a fairly rare influx of a bunch of DVDs from a formal rental place. You have to way the costs of creating that system against its pay-off. In the political arena – contention of control over a public library budget – it’s all too easy to lose sight of that trade off; that potential for a false economy.

As for your other point, I’m sure there’s a huge amount of inefficiency. Major research universities are very inefficient. If you think operating a library is expensive, you don’t want to see what it costs to build or renovate one! I’m sure the public libraries are much better.

In my observations, most of the academic libraries are more efficient and do a higher quality job. And, I do have some sense on what it costs to build or renovate one.

Look, we’re wearing out this thread here on Berkeleyside. Last word is yours if you care to take unless you say something I just feel absolutely compelled to reply to. But I am, in a (hopefully) friendly way curious about and interested in your work with libraries. Maybe, some chance – no guarantee – I can say something helpful if you tell me about current concerns from your perspective. So, please do feel free to be in touch (“lord@emf.net”) and we can trade notes.

Oh my, where to begin? The $7 cost is due to the highly specialized system that the library uses to catalog. Jon Gabel and I paid $30 for the full version of a terriffic DVD cataloging program called DVDProfiler3 by Invelos, so we will have a full database listing available for perusal in about 2 weeks., but this is not a library cataloging system, merely a great home collection database.

The Oakland Public Library cannot accept volunteer help for this process as it takes place off site at one of two approved vendors who have software that interfaces with the library’s cataloging system. Thomas Lord is correct that it is the WorldCat system that is ultimately accessed. We have absolutely explored all options with the Oakland Public Library Administration, and this is the best outcome. The $7.00 cost includes $3.50 for a security case, and data entry into the cataloging software, plus the physical transfer of the DVD from one case to another and copies of the cover art. What all this will do is let patrons use the computers of the Oakland Public Library to see what DVDs there are, and which are in or out. It is not so simple as just a list.

This cost does not reflect the time librarians spent vetting the initially selected 3,000 DVDs for suitability and duplicates, nor will it reflect the cost of shelving them when they have been cataloged and cased.

The OPL administration has been fantastic, lending us their collections manager and allowing him and staff from the Rockridge branch to assist in the selection of the 2,877 videos from the initial approximately 3,000 chosen by Jon and helpers. They have also lent us the use of a bar code scanner for the initial database that Jon and I will be using for fundraising purposes.

There were 10,000 DVDs in Videots’ inventory. Those chosen for the library were chosen to fill out catagories already developed by the Rockridge Branch staff. All are family friendly, many are for children and young people.

For film buffs, there will be many old friends, both by genre and director. In answer to David’s concern about the ephemeral nature of such a collection – libraries over time have had many ephemeral collections such as the no longer archived VHS collection. The question must be, is the collection any less valuable for being available only as long as the format (DVD) is viable?

Much of what is currently available on DVD is not licensed for streaming delivery yet, and some of it may never be. There are still famous movies that are not licensed for reproduction to anything and are therefore unavailable except through the Motion Picture Academy’s Film Archive – and then only to scholars.

It was our hope to bring a very expensive, and therefore financially unattainble, collection to the library at a very modest cost. We seized the opportunity because the Rockridge Branch Library is used by patrons throughout the city of Oakland, and some of them cannot afford Netflix, cable movies on demand (a very limited selection there too) and most no longer have access to video stores which have gone the way of the dodo. Video kiosks like Red Box do not carry classics or much else other than current movies.

The DVD collection at the Rockridge Branch Library is the most circulated collection the library has. At any given time, over half of it is checked out. Quite selfishly, we are also looking at hours and staffing for our library, both of which are dependent upon patronage and circulation. Anything we can do to boost those numbers to keep the doors open we view as a good thing.

Additionally, there are in the selected DVDs, a large number of documentaries, many of which will be a resource for our teachers at Claremont Middle School and Oakland Tech in teaching natural science and history.

Finally, while both Jon Gabel and I are boardmembers of the Rockridge Community Planning Council, the RCPC connection to this project is extremely limited. RCPC generously voted to float the Rockridge DVD Project a loan to secure purchase of the DVDs quickly, and to lend us the use of their Tax ID for fundraising purposes. We could not fundraise quickly enough to meet the deadline otherwise. RCPC also allows two other organizations in Rockridge to use its Tax ID: FROG (Friends of the Rockridge Greenbelt) and FORL (Friends of the Rockridge Library).