FARMINGTON—Like so many things in life, the library is often taken for granted. Patrons go in, and expect that books new and old will be on the shelves, filed, tagged, and organized properly. This kind of organization, however, takes a lot of time, effort, energy and resources to make happen, and the people of the Davis County Library system have it down to a science. 

Kim Valeika and Mary Moore from the Davis County Library Headquarters in Farmington took some time out of their busy day to explain just how the library works behind the scenes. As one might imagine, managing and organizing an entire library’s worth of books can be a daunting task, but as the old adage goes, many hands make light work.

Dividing up into genres, the team at the library tackles boxes of books, sometimes up to 30 at a time, sorting, organizing, categorizing, and more. Each new book that comes into the library system is ordered based on new book reviews, popular authors, or suggestions from patrons, of which the library usually gets 10-50 per day. 

After the books have been ordered, unpacked, and put onto carts for processing, they are cataloged, the records entered into several databases, labeled, stamped, and given appropriate stickers for the branch to which they will be headed. All of this to help library technicians around the county to be able to sort, check out, and return books in an orderly fashion.

Each of these labels, stickers, and stamps are applied meticulously, by hand, and checked and double-checked to ensure that there are no errors, and the material, be it a book, audiobook, movie, or something else, is correctly filed, and placed for patrons. Despite the intensity of the task, Moore said, “It’s always exciting to open a new box of books!”

From there, the books are taken by Tech services who shuttle not only new books and materials but also books and materials that have been put on hold from one branch to another. These are the people that make it possible to, as Moore put it, “sit at home in your jammies and put a book on hold,” while they shuttle it from place to place. 

It’s easy to see, then, that, as Moore said “there’s so much more that goes on behind the scenes,” and that, contrary to popular belief, for librarians, there’s “no reading, no napping, no petting cats” while on the job, said Valeika. As if physical books and materials weren’t enough to keep librarians busy, the digital age has ushered in a whole new level. 

Matt Goff, who works with these digital collections explained just how complicated the world of e-books, and e-audiobooks is, even with advancing technology. While many libraries can get discounts on physical books, the opposite can be true for e-books, meaning that they’re significantly more expensive.

On top of that, the publishers control the release and distribution of e-books and e-audiobooks, meaning that there is one user for one copy. Even though it’s digital, the library can only lend out these titles as if it were one physical book. Further complicating things is the concept of metered access.

With some titles, the library almost rents the book. With metered access, the publisher will allow a library to purchase the e-book or e-audiobook for a limited time, say, 48 months, after which time they’re obligated to purchase it again. This explains why patrons sometimes have to wait, even for online titles. 

Fortunately, for online patrons, libraries across the state have been able to pool their resources, granting access to many more titles than a single library would be able to on its own, “It’s really helped out,” said Goff. 

Being able to see how things work behind the scenes at the Davis County Library system grants a new respect for those books that so many just take for granted that will be on the shelves. A lot of people who care an awful lot about these books make it all possible, and likely will for years to come.