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New Automatic Book Discharge System at Robarts
November 21st, 2010 by Jess | Featured Blogger
I happened to be standing around when they were doing demonstrations. The system as far as I know isn’t functional yet but will be soon. You put the book with the barcode up into the slot and the book is automatically discharged and it slides down the conveyor belt and into what I’m guessing is a book box on the other side. If the book doesn’t discharge, its get rejected and you try again.
I’m not sure what to think of this new-fangled gadget. As someone who has had to drop books off into the return box twice because the Robarts people didn’t discharge my books before putting them on the sorting shelf (I’ve had this happen to me 3 TIMES), I guess it’s a good thing. But considering that the checkout system at Robarts takes forever and is totally finicky (the old system was wayyyyyy better by the way) seeing that you spend half your time trying to get the slow and stupid machine to recognize your book after sliding it down the ramp gently, I’m not sure if this will mean a lot more frustrating minutes spent at what is the most frustrating (and ugly) library at U of T or just pure convenience. Time will tell. Thoughts?
