The Library, Again: About those DVD’s

Hmmm …

Well …

There’s a thing.

I think I’ve finally managed to get a reply about the DVD’s …

I don’t know if you remember, but a while ago, I emailed Susan Carragher about the state of a couple of DVDs I’d booked out of Brentwood Library.

Mostly to be flattering about how good the staff were, about handing out freebie loans to make up for things.

But also to ask exactly what Essex Library Services position on providing an internal DVD and CD cleaning service.

After all, they’ve already admitted they’re going to be reducing the amount of new stock they buy in. It struck me that cleaning and maintaining the current stock would be a useful way of preserving it, and reducing the need for replacements.

Hmmm …

Here’s the reply Ms Carragher sent to me, today …

“Dear Mr Downie

With regard to your most recent complaint about the quality of recently borrowed DVD’s I am happy to confirm that staff acted correctly in offering you a replacement DVD free of charge.

We do have DVD cleaning equipment, however we do not find it cost effective to clean each returned DVD as a routine task. We do check and clean any which are reported to us as being faulty or if they are not up to standard following this we withdraw them from stock.

Best wishes”

Hmmm …

I like the bit about “Not being cost-effective … ”

You seen, I know, from having worked there, that Brentwood CeX keeps the industrial-grade optical disc cleaning kit on hand: mostly where they’ve usually found enough discs on a day-to-day basis to make it pay for itself. Mostly by providing a DVD cleaning service to other branches.

What I’m wondering right now, is whether that’s something they’ve looked at doing: having one library that does the disc-cleaning for the entire service.

Maybe I should ask …