The SELF project: an investigation into the provision of self‐service facilities for library users

Published date01 January 1997
Pages8-13
Date01 January 1997
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/eb040618
AuthorPeter Brophy
Subject MatterInformation & knowledge management
The SELF project: an
investigation into the
provision of
self-
service facilities for
library users
by Peter Brophy, Head of Centre for
Research in Library and Information
Management, University of Central
Lancashire
The European Commission SELF project
enabled an international team of researchers
to explore the potential for self-service
systems in libraries, to examine existing
systems in detail and to devise a generalised
functional specification for self-service
systems. In this article, the Project Director
summarises the project's findings and its
recommendations.
Introduction
There is currently considerable interest among
professional librarians around the world in the
potential of self-service systems for improving
library services and enabling improvements in
efficiency. In other sectors self-service has had
considerable impact and there is reason to believe
that libraries could benefit from well-designed
approaches derived from this experience. The
intention of this article is to discuss the impact of
research and development in general in this area,
and to provide an overview of the results of
a
recently completed European Commission funded
project, led by the University of Central Lanca-
shire, into the potential for self-service.
The most obvious examples of self-service come
from banking, retailing and transport, but many
other instances could be cited from fields ranging
from air transport to telecommunications. Exam-
ples of
the
approach include the now ubiquitous
Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), supermar-
kets (now moving into self-scanning), automatic
ticket dispensers, and many services which we
now take entirely for granted like telephone
dialling. Many of these self-service approaches are
relatively new, with histories of decades at most.
The first self-service retail outlet was a supermar-
ket trading under the name King Kullen in Jamaica,
Queens, New York, USA in 1930, while the first
shopping trolley made its appearance again in
the USA, but this time in Oklahoma City in
1937.
Only during the last two years have the first
'self-scanning systems' been installed in European
supermarkets, starting with the Heijn store in
Geldermalsen in the Netherlands, and more re-
cently making an appearance in some British
supermarkets. To use these systems each customer
is given a magnetic stripe card with their personal
identity encoded on it. They use the cards on entry
to the store to swipe through a reader which
releases to them a hand-held barcode scanner.
They then scan the barcode on each item they take
from the shelves, and place the items directly into
a shopping bag. When they have finished they
return the scanner to an exit point where a bill is
printed out and they pay. They can then leave the
store with no delay. In the banking sector less
dramatic but nonetheless significant developments
have led to multi-purpose ATMs able not only to
dispense cash but to accept loan applications, issue
theatre tickets and even (in parts of the U.S.A.)
provide a weather forecast. Drive-in ATMs are
fairly commonplace.
Self-service in libraries
Library self-service has, of
course,
a lengthy
history: books chained to monastic library shelves
bear testimony to the ever-present problem of
unauthorised help yourself
approaches!
More
recently, open access to stock with each volume
protected by an electronic security tag has become
common, and was preceded by open access to
catalogues. Modern electronic information systems
provide a new dimension to self-service, with
delivery to the desktop with no intermediary
between the user and the information or service.
However, libraries remain staff intensive organisa-
tions,
with a large investment in staff to undertake
what are often fairly routine duties. Self-service
issue systems have started to make an appearance,
but they are by no means widespread, while
self-
service returns systems are quite rare. In this
situation the time was right for an in-depth investi-
gation of the potential for self-service in the now
telematics-rich environment in which libraries
8—VINE 105

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