As a librarian, I have our library services company put the barcodes on the back cover. If you’re looking at the back of the book like it’s an envelope, the barcode is placed basically where you’d put a postage stamp. I don’t like to put them “in” the book, as it’s too much wear and tear on paper to scan them there. If you want statistical info, contact someone like mackin.com or follett.com –they are large opening day collection jobbers and they can tell you how many customers ask for what placement. I agree that I don’t want any front or back matter concealed by a barcode, but unfortunately it does happen.
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Moscow, Idaho public library: Inside the front cover, top and center (for the most part). How about BOOK SELLERS that put their stinkin’ price tag over the back of novels so you can’t read the blurb?! Grrr…
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Dc public library – top, back cover, left, right and centre (on diff books they don’t have 3 bar codes!). They seem to try and avoid the blurb – a 5 star library!
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I use Homewood Public Library in Homewood Alabama and their barcodes are on the back, top right corner. Blows your theory again, but I am interested in this too. I hate when you’re at the bookstore (or CD store) and the price sticker covers up the title…sometimes it’s just some random sticker advertising some other product. It annoys me to no end!
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The library that I work in puts the barcode inside the front of the
book, on the right hand side of the end papers, near the middle, close
to the top. On paperbacks or books that don’t have end papers, the
barcode goes on the first page. We try to avoid covering anything of
significance. Libraries that choose the cover placement, do so to save
a step in checking in/out and inventory.
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FWIW, the King County Library System (here in WA) seems to put barcodes
on the upper left, mostly beneath the book’s title. I just looked at the
books I’ve checked out–out of 8, one covers the first word of the
title, and another covers the author’s initials (the title’s below the
author’s name).
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Bottom right on the back cover here.
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The libraries in Maryland put their barcodes on the back of the book.
The complaints about doing that came from patrons who wanted to read the information on the back of the book and discovered that the check-out label covered a goodly portion of it.
The barcode and library identifier are now placed along the top edge of every book, left hand side, parallel to the top edge. (which means the circ staff have to turn and turn each book to find the barcode.) The processsing department has the theory that all the older books will disappear and the only thing left will be the newer books with the barcode along the top edge, but nope, we librarians tend to keep popular books in the branches and therefore the two systems.
But wait! There’s a third system being used in our libraries. RFID. Yes, all those books are still barcoded along the top back edge of the books. 0But now the circ staff simply puts four books on a “reader pad” (I have NO Idea what it’s really called, since our branch hasn’t been converted yet) and the computer reads the RFID dots and zips the books barcodes onto your patron record. And you’re done. No carpel Tunnel. Just the delay while the Reader Pad tries to read the RFID dots. (which we put inside the back cover, lower down, near the spine.) (picture book readers who enjoy looking at endpapers will now have another complaint against libraries covering the endpapers. Illustrators need to be aware of the bookcovers being taped down and now the RIFD patch which is 2 inches square. Good illustrators are now designing their endpapers to have most of the important endpaper illustratons toward the spine and only a spare flying bird or other nonessential art along the edges where it’ll be covered up by the endpapers of the cover.)
Now, other items in the library also have to be barcoded and RIFDed, but we try to follow those rules as closely as possible with them, too.
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I was a librarian for years. It was always a controversy about where
to put these bar codes. Initially they were on the inside of the
front cover. This preserved the cover, but it became a repetitive
stress and time issue on checkout, as the checkout clerks had to open
each book to scan the bar code. You wouldn’t think much of this, but
when you are doing this hundreds or thousands of times a day, it adds
up. I once had a teacher check out 200 books for a class project. I
wasn’t the checkout clerk, but I did help the teacher select the
books and put them on a book cart to take them to circulation.
Then they started putting them on the back cover. People complained
because no matter where you put them, you still have the possibility
of covering something important, cover text, author photos, whatever.
Then came the possibility of self checkout. Libraries can use the
technology just as Walmart can. Some patrons love it because they
don’t have to wait in line at circulation. However, the machines are
set up (or at least they were when I was still working) to find the
bar code in a particular position near the edge of the book. That was
another reason our library started putting them in that position on
the back of the book.
However, that still meant that either the circulation clerk had to
physically turn over each book (because patrons just about always
bring the books to the counter front cover up), or the patron at self
checkout had to look for the bar code . . . or go complain that self
checkout didn’t work because they didn’t have the book properly
positioned in the machine.
So some libraries went to putting the bar code in a readable position
on the front cover to avoid those problems. Then people (including a
lot of library employees) were upset because it disfigured the cover
and sometimes masked part of a title, author or illustrator name, or
illustration.
So there you have it. It’s driven by technology and health concerns.
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> But I agree. There’s nothing like an ill-placed barcode to ruin the
> looks of a good cover!
I agree. My local library does that, too. It drives me nuts and I have
even approached library management only to get the standard “brush-off.”
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Our barcodes are either on the back, bottom right edge (over the
books barcode) or on the front, top right edge.
We have automatic check out. There is a little pad that you can stack
up to five books on and it auto-scans for you. Except 50% of the time
you get a “please rotate items slightly” message, and then it’s up to
you to guess if you should turn them over, turn them to the right,
the left … there’s no telling. And then if that doesn’t work you
have to check them out one at a time. I have learned to stack books
of similar size together and that the machine does not like movies
stacked on top of each other. Now, I will pay more attention to the
location of the barcode, and try to only stack back code books and
front code books together.
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Interesting discussion this one. I can’t say that all California libraries do it this way but in the Sacramento City libraries (and branches), there are bar codes usually placed on the back cover of the book in no particular location except that they are parallel to the top/bottom edges of the books. The library card goes into a slot, similar to an ATM and the books are placed on the reading surface of the machine against a metal guide and pushed toward the back of the machine. The books are then scanned by a thin, red “reading” beam that is several inches wide so it will cross the bar code wherever it is located on the book cover.
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this is something i’ve never thought about — but i checked my
library books. and find that juneau, alaska, library puts our bar
codes are on the inside, on the page facing the inside cover. i didn’t
even know some libraries had self-checkout!
i guess it’s another sign of how busy life is — and how understaffed
libraries in many places are.
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Multnomah County library have the barcode placed in the upper left corner, and yes, several are plastered right on top of the author’s first name. I have both YA and adult, books, DVDs, CDs, and there’s no difference. (In the olden days they used to put the code inside the book, so an older book could be different.) If they are going to put this on the front cover, then it would be nice if the entire industry could put it in the same place and then all the covers could be designed accordingly. How about a suggestion to ALA? It’s hardly an unreasonable concern.
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