Blount County Public Library leadership wants to move its checkout and automated sorting systems into the digital age.

Tuesday night during a board of trustees meeting, members approved spending of $151,267 in BCPL Foundation money for self-checkout and auto-sorting technologies that are supposed to save money and time and potentially alleviate recent staffing strains.

Both systems would be run using what’s called radio frequency identification or RFID, a system that uses strong electromagnetic tags to track things they’re attached to — in this case, books, DVDs, magazines, etc.

Interim library Director Anjanae Brueland first presented the move to the board in September, expressing leadership’s interest in contracting with Australia-based FE Technologies. The firm would install the systems and train staff in the coming months.

The proposal wasn’t met with immediate approval, however.

Board members in September were hesitant about accepting the FE bid without comparing other companies’ prices. Brueland said it was likely the best offer BCPL would get, and that was true, but at the board’s request she reviewed three other companies whose estimates in fact were higher than the FE bid.

The vote was delayed until Tuesday’s meeting, when board members unanimously agreed to request money from the foundation.

If that request is approved at the upcoming foundation meeting in early November, the system could be operational by early 2022.

According to an email from the Tennessee Secretary of State’s office, if BCPL successfully implements the RFID system, it will join 10 other regional libraries that already are using this kind of technology, including the Sevier County system.

Major metropolitan libraries across the state including Knox County’s central library also are using RFID technology.

Brueland did her homework before presenting this systemic change to board members. One of the libraries she called was the Virginia Beach Public Library system. Support Services Administrator Clara Hudson has been overseeing RFID for about a decade in Virginia Beach.

“Staff had a really hard time giving up that public service interaction,” Hudson noted of the first few years after the implementation. It’s been a successful and useful system, she said, but switching from face-to-face interactions is a cultural change.

“We began minimizing the reference desk to more of a service desk model,” she added. “We’ve gone to more and more helping the customers serving themselves both on- and off-line.”

Hudson also confirmed what library leadership hopes the new technology will do: free up staff to do more than run the checkout desks.

Brueland said staff did a “time trial,” measuring how much time it takes to check in returned materials. The difference between the current, manual system and the new automated sorting system were dramatic, according to Brueland.

It took staff 45 minutes to get 100 items back into the first stage of circulation dropoff. With the RFID sorting system, they could process 1,500 items in the same amount of time.

“This automation will free up approximately 67 staff hours per week within the first year of operation,” Brueland concluded in a memo to the board.

Those are 67 desperately needed hours given that staff recently decreased from about 50 in January to about 40 right now, according to Brueland. Even though that decrease is part of how the library is purposefully evolving, there are still elements of stress involved.

The library needs to stay open a total 69.5 hours a week, per state and local agreements, and improvising with technology might help keep staff stress at bay. It’s currently open 57 hours and is pushing to get back to its prepandemic operation of nearly 70 hours.

“The processes and structures that we have in place to deliver library services … work, but our staff are exhausted,” Brueland said.

“Because we’re still in a pandemic and they still have face-to-face interactions with patrons about 50 times a day, they’re fearful.”

On the patron end, some are optimistic about RFID implementation for other reasons.

Homeschooling mom of four — ages 6-14 — Kaycie Smith said she used self-checkout systems in Florida where her family used to live and she loved them.

Homeschooling families often rely on library resources more than public school families who have access to school libraries. That makes Smith and other members of the Blount Home Education Association frequent fliers at the library.

“Self-checkout means I don’t have to wait in line, my kids don’t have to wait in line and we can get out faster,” Smith said in a phone interview.

Kids also get a little autonomy in the checkout process, Smith said. They get to check out the books themselves, using the scanning kiosks that are typically part of RFID implementation. “They like being able to scan their books,” Smith said. “It gives them a more hands-on perspective to what the checkout process looks like.

“I also think, in light of what’s happening right now with COVID, it makes less face-to-face interaction, which is what a lot of us are looking for right now. … I would encourage people to give it a try. Be patient.”

After Tuesday’s vote, Brueland expressed enthusiasm about the upcoming shift to RFID.

“What this means for the public is that they will have more time with out staff and there will be a quicker turnaround time for items to get back on the shelves,” she said.