Thousands arrive daily on the loading dock at the Library Center. They come in plainly packaged brown boxes and disappear behind the doors of the technical services department. A staff of ten people—who together have approximately 200 years of experience—unpack the boxes and process the contents.

The next thing you know, these books, DVDs, CDs, audio books, magazines and newspapers are on the shelves of all eight branches and the bookmobile of the Springfield-Greene County Library District, ready for you to check out and enjoy.

“Basically every item that you see in the Library has been processed through our department. Every record that you view in our public catalog is a product of this department,” said Ann Gilmore, who has managed the technical services staff for more than 35 years. Her assistant, Linda Kaiser, has worked at the library for 36 years. So you know there’s expertise in this department.

Approximately 6,500 items are ordered, catalogued and physically processed each month. Sometimes you can’t find the employees who are practically rendered invisible behind the huge stacks of boxes that accumulate each month.

The books are catalogued via the Online Computer Library Center, an international database that contains more than 14 million bibliographic records. “Although we edit those records to specifically match the title that we are cataloging, 98% of our cataloging is accomplished through this database,” explains Gilmore. “We have been members of OCLC since 1977. When we edit the records and export them in our local automation system, the records are immediately visible in our local database for the public to view.”

After the items are entered into COOLcat, the library’s online catalog, the physical process begins. The staff laminate book jackets, affix labels and bar codes.

“Magazine and newspaper subscriptions for the system are also managed in the department,” said Gilmore. The library subscribes to 1,100 periodicals.

New arrivals take up the bulk of the department’s time, but a collection of 600,000 materials requires maintenance. Gilmore’s department performs database maintenance daily—as many as 12,000 monthly tasks; the employees correct information and re-classify and transfer materials. Mending and sorting materials to be sent to an outside vendor for bindery are also part of the daily chores.

It’s a satisfying job, says Gilmore. “Anyone in the department will tell you that they get a deep feeling of satisfaction when they walk through the library and see the materials that have actually passed through their hands and watch patrons at the computers viewing the records that they keyed in.”

Jeanne C. Duffey, community relations director for the Springfield-Greene County Library District, can be reached at jeanned@thelibrary.org.