Cedarbrae Blog

Ladies and gentlemen, please allow us to introduce you the Cedarbrae Library SORTER!

Of course everyone knows what sorter is, but I'll remind you 🙂 To make a long story short – it's a big device that accepts, registers and sorts returned library items. At this moment we only have one in the entire Toronto Public Library system, but we do hope to add some more in other large branches.

Think of the traditional way – you give your items to one of us, we check them in, figure out where they should go next, then put them back on the shelf / send to another branch / etc. The sorter way – you press the "start" button on the display, put your items on the conveyor belt (one at a time!), wait for a second and they get checked in. You can also request the printed receipt, if you want a proof that your items were returned.

Then, the sorter puts the items in appropriate bins – for example CED holds, items to be sent to Toronto East, items to be shelved… that's why we like it so much – it saves us LOTS of mundane manual work and is incredibly accurate.

If an item does not check in properly (the tag is worn out, for example), it goes to a special "exceptions" bin and gets processed by library staff.

And, why do we call it "hadron collider"? Well, the collider is the only thing that's any close to our sorter in terms of technological sophistication 🙂