About BCB
The BCB is central to the collection. Your library sets the standards by which the system operates. A standard profile is created for your system based on the following information:
- Available space
- Current events (acquired and aged items)
- Quality
- Loan frequency
Only library staff with proper permissions can access BCB functions in the Wise client and Wise configuration manager. For more information, see Wise role functions.
Note: A license is required to use BCB. Contact OCLC Support for assistance.
Functions
The three pillars of the BCB are acquisitions, rotation, and evaluation. When your library begins using BCB, it first evaluates your collection to recommend which items should be discarded from the collection. Once the collection is cleaned up, the system can begin accurately recommending where items should be placed for optimum circulation and what kinds of items should be added to the collection.
Rotate and float collections
When the BCB is used, your collection is monitored weekly. The collection is evaluated against the system's profile. This provides insight into the best way to leverage the collection as a whole.
Each week, an action list for floating items is generated. This report indicates which items should be transported to another branch.
Discard or save
Weekly evaluation includes a process to analyze all of the shelves that are included in the BCB process. This provides information about which titles and how many copies should be held to sustain circulation.
Each week, an action list for evaluating items is generated. Titles with too much stock can be discarded or sold.
Acquisitions
Branch budgets are evaluated as a whole for the entire system. BCB recommends how many items, based on SCAT, should be added to your collection. BCB ensures that purchased items are distributed properly across participating branches. The BCB order manager monitors the budget. It is not possible to create budgets for individual branches since the entire collection is shared across all branches.
Operations
Each week at a scheduled time, the BCB group's collection is analyzed. During this analysis, the titles and items of participating BCB branches are evaluated.
The following aspects are included in the analysis:
- Performance of the title (high or low circulation)
- Title lending frequency and the lending cluster
- Number of copies of a title
- Data per location (RMT and SCAT)
- Lending frequency of items
- Possession data by shelf
- Lending frequency by shelf
- Policy set for rotation and evaluation
- Which shelves meet your BCB policies
Based on these factors, the system generates action lists. The list includes items that should be relocated to another branch or evaluated for discarding. Each week a new list is generated based on the current status of the collection. Staff must maintain the action lists weekly for successful use of the BCB.
The analysis shows a progress report in the staff client and in the Wise configuration manager. This report provides an overview of the results of the library by shelf, based on the shelf standards configured by your library. See BCB shelf progress report for more information.