Before we begin the carnival this week and to celebrate my first blogiversary (yes Connecting Librarian is 1 year old – didn’t think I’d get this far!), I thought I would share the inventions for our public library that I have made up in my head over the years. They are really a combination of dreaming and wishful thinking, but you never know, one day the technology may be available and cheap enough to enable us to do it.

First off – we have feral runs – where we go around the library during the day and pick up books that have not been returned to shelf or sometimes have just fallen off the shelves. If we only do it once, it can be easily close on 100 items, if not more. We collect them, take them back to the desk, check them in (just in case) and put them on the trolleys to be reshelved. My first invention would solve this problem. At the end of the day, just as staff head out the door, they would push a button next to the door which would start the reshelving process. Any book that is not on shelf would be magnetically attracted back to its correct position on shelf. This would of course, need to be done when the building is empty, to avoid having someone being hit with a flying book!

My second invention goes hand in hand with the first. It would also help to avoid some of the mess resulting from books falling off shelves. We use bookends, as libraries do, to keep books on shelves. However, when people take one or more books out, unless the bookend is straightened, the books start to lean and taking enough books, can cause them to spill onto the ground. It can be hard to straighten the books up, as leaning books can be quite heavy. In keeping with the magnetic book return above, if a book is removed from the shelf, the bookend straightens the rest of the books up automatically. If the person then decides to put the book back, with the approach of the book, a space is opened up for it to be inserted. If however, the person tries to put the back book in the wrong space, it would be repelled (idea of magnets again). Just think how much time would be saved, staff would not have to shelf read or perfect order, because books would never be in the wrong place!

Finally, my third invention is aimed at problem patrons who have been barred from the library. (we have had the odd one or two, who then tried to come back in again during the banned time). When they are banned, we would get a sample of their DNA which would be registered for the period of the ban. Then if they tried to come into the library, a forcefield at the door would register their DNA as belonging to a banned person and would stop them from entering, whilst letting other people freely enter and exit around them.

These are my longest term ideas that are a little out of reach at this time. However, I am sure that I am not the only one with such wild ideas for the library situation. Please leave your ideas in the comments, or challenge me – come up with a problem in your library and I will see if I can come up with a wild solution!

Happy Blogiversary to Me!