Library checkout machines introduced

Two new machines unveiled last semester allow patrons to insert library cards, slide volumes under a bar code scanner and check out books on their own.

"We hope to be able to lessen our student wage budget and get our staff doing other things, not necessarily checking out books," said Marlene Alegria, library supervisor at the University of Arizona's Main Library.

"There is always something else that needs to be done that machines cannot do," she said.

When the library opened yesterday morning for the spring semester, library staff began showing borrowers how to use the new scanners.

Library officials said that if the machines catch on, they will shorten lines at the circulation desk and allow students to borrow books when the desk is closed. The library's checkout counter closes at 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, while the building remains open until 1 a.m.

Arlen Feldwick-Jones, an English literature graduate student, had mixed feelings yesterday about the machines after she used one to check out a book.

"It is a timesaving measure, but ultimately I see it as technology replacing human workers," she said. "It does away with that personal interaction that people still depend on at some level."

UA alumnus Ken Johnson, who borrows books from the library, said the machines are a step forward.

"We had a lot of resistance to ATMs at first, too, and now we can't do without them," he said.

Aside from the machines, which cost $25,000 each, the library spent more than $82,000 to affix new bar code stickers to 75 percent of the library's 4.7 million volumes, Alegria said.

"We needed 60 percent of the volumes bar coded before 3M (the manufacturer of the self-service devices) would agree to put in the machines," she said.

Thanh Dinh, a chemical engineering senior, used a self-checkout machine yesterday, but the scanner could not recognize the bar code on one of the four books he needed.

"The system is very fast and it saves a lot of time," Dinh said as he waited in line for help from library staff. "But there is a technical problem they need to work on."

Library staff members continue to affix bar codes to the remainder of the library's volumes. Alegria said every book in the library will be coded by March.

He said the coding began with the most heavily used books, those dealing with sex and human nature, with call numbers beginning with HQ. The least-used volumes, those with old Dewey Decimal System call numbers, will be the last coded, Alegria said.