Sarahlibrarina

How do you value a library collection? I’m probably going to have to do this soon. I’d really like some advice about this if anyone has been through a disaster recently and can shed some light for me.

While there has been no official word on our building, there is a possibility at sometime soon, at short notice, four of my colleagues may get a limited amount of access to our building. By limited access, I mean they get to make one trip in and one out, climbing a cracked stairwell to the 6th and 7th floors. They’ll be in the dark, with torches, wearing hard-hats and high-vis vests. Only two people will be permitted on each floor. They won’t have a wheelie bin to fill. They might be allowed to take a back pack (I don’t know, I hope so). They’ll hold lists in their hands of important priority items to find. My priority list includes Brookers Resource Management Looseleaf Service, and our new collection of NZ topo maps for the South Island. 

However, I’m realistic about the situation. It is unlikely that there will time or space in my colleagues’ arms or back packs to carry library items. Or that they will be able to safely access the library. Here’s my bog post, and a photo, of the library after the September 4 quake. Apparently this area was completely blocked after the February quake hit, no one could get passed the shelves or my desk (I write this feeling extremely grateful not to have been sitting in there).

So, while I remain hopeful we may be able to get back in and retrieve the library I feel I need to be prepared for the worst. I feel I need to at least have a plan in the event that I receive an email from our GM or CFO asking for a current valuation of our collection.

So, where do I start … 

• talk to our CFO about our insurance policy and what the library has been insured for
• run a report on all our company reports and estimate the cost of re-printing each one
• pull my acquisitions records from the period of time I’ve been working (I’ve details of all purchases)
• add a ‘value’ field into the online catalogue in preparation for inputting replacement values
• check titles on www.abebooks.com and input the values into the catalogue
• run a valuation report

As I was finishing this post I received an update from work about the state of our building …

Remoting it index 

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