The reason this time was not only a malfunction of the central sorter, but now many things that happened at the same time piled up the boxes in Pasila.
Helsinki again there have been problems with the sorting of the region’s libraries. The reason this time was not only a malfunction of the central sorter, but now many things that happened at the same time piled up the boxes in Pasila.
The lack of personnel, maintenance breaks for the central sorter and larger than normal return volumes contributed to the freeze.
On Thursday, Helmet libraries warned of a delay of up to four weeks in the delivery of reserved material.
The news was bad for those people whose vacation was about to start. The novelty book had been queued up for perhaps months, and just when holiday reading was coming, the book got stuck somewhere on the way.
On Friday the library’s message was happier, because the malfunction had been fixed this time. Service manager Kirsi Salminen estimates that it will still take time to clear the fog.
“There were still more than 35,000 volumes in the buffer in the morning. On a daily basis, we can process around 20,000 volumes with the central sorter.”
The contents of the book boxes are now unloaded using the zipper method, which means that fresh returns are processed overlapping with the contents of the boxes that have been frozen in Pasila.
“This way, some of the bookers get their books on time,” says Salminen.
The last time there were problems with sorting half a year ago after Christmas. There have been some smaller jams in the last couple of years.
Malfunctions arises because three different systems talk to each other in the central sorter. There is a logistics system, a library system and the machine’s own software system.
The systems are of different ages, so they don’t always agree to talk to each other. Salminen describes the central sorter as a sensitive device.
“Then it’s also always possible that the machine has a mechanical fault, in which case the damaged component has to be replaced,” says Salminen.
Malfunction observed the other week. Its effects have been increased by the vacation season of librarians, and the small number of employed. Due to the lack of personnel, the situation got worse.
“In July, loan volumes are usually lower than other months, when people are at the beach. But now these rains came, and people have come to the libraries”, characterizes the head of the shared services of the library network Virva Nousiainen-Hiiri.
Salminen can well imagine how people are upset by the delay in the holiday book. He apologizes for the delay.
“On rainy days, good reading is really waiting for it, and there would be time for that on vacation.”
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