
Librarian builds self-checkout machine. Costs $1500 instead of $23000 - ippisl
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20100202/NEWS/2020311/-1/AMES/Enterprising-Ankeny-librarian-builds-money-saving-kiosk
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megamark16
"He got it up and running quickly, too. He's a hero around here; talk about
job security."

He'll have job security because he sounds like the type of guy who looks for
ways to make improvements wherever he's at, which is a trait that a large part
of the workforce seems to be missing. I'd hire this guy (and guys like him)
and find a place for him in my company (if I had a company) because they look
for ways to make things better, faster, cheaper, without it being in their job
description.

~~~
jodrellblank
He'll have job security because he hacked together a public use kiosk which
everyone loves and nobody else can support.

~~~
megamark16
My real point wasn't necessarily that he'll have job security at the library,
which of course he will, but that this type of self motivated, driven, and
creative person should have little trouble finding work with any company that
is able to recognize the worth of those traits.

~~~
ryanelkins
People generally have little trouble finding a job at any company that values
traits that they possess.

While I understand your point there are plenty of places that have more of a
"don't rock the boat" mentality. Some of that is dependent on how close or
visible your position is to people invested in the company (monetarily or
otherwise) vs those who are just trying to make it to the weekend.

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asmithmd1
Typical engineer, they just want to solve problems and don't care about making
money. Why did he tell them the fixed machine cost? He could have started a
nice side business providings these kiosks for $5k or $10k. I know O'Reilly
preaches creating more value than you capture but shouldn't he captutre some
value?

~~~
nfnaaron
"shouldn't he captutre some value?"

I think he captured a pile of spiritual value.

~~~
asmithmd1
I assume you are not joking. He could have done more "good" by investing $1500
of his own money and given them the first one for free. Each one after that is
- say - $7500. The library would be thrilled with the free one AND the
dramatically lower cost. Say the library from the next town over wants one
now, what should he tell them? They know it only costs $1500 and will balk at
paying more yet he won't want to build them for free.

~~~
jodrellblank
"The library would be thrilled with the free one AND the dramatically lower
cost"

The library would be thrilled with the free one, and tell him his company
isn't an approved supplier, sorry, but if he can offer regular maintenance
contracts and guarantee spares for the life of the contract, and a service
level agreement, and electrical safety certification and accessibility
guideline approval then they'd be happy to submit his company to the review
board...

Also, he's currently in a job where he can take 15-20 days to tinker with
something and people approve of it. In your situation he'd be in a job where
he was continually obliged to work on maintenance and support of dozens of
hacked together kiosks.

~~~
ippisl
Maybe a software sales model would be a better fit here. You give away the
instructions on what hardware they need , and how to connect it ,and then you
sell an integrated software that handles this.

This is also makes far easier for the library to try this because you can
offer trial period/monthly software subscription , and they could reuse some
hardware they have their(pc,display) , to make the initial investment
relatively small, so you need a lot less bureaucratic approvals.

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bensummers
$1500 + 15 to 20 days work. However wonderful librarians are, they don't get
paid $1000/day, so it's still a good deal. But not quite as good a deal as the
headline suggests.

~~~
rgoddard
But it only cost $1500 extra. His salary is already in the budget. No need to
do a fund raiser to pay him. At which point, since that money was going to be
spent anyways, the only real cost from his time is the opportunity cost for
what else he could have been doing.

~~~
hyperbovine
_the only real cost from his time is the opportunity cost for what else he
could have been doing_

Exactly--and since you're bringing economics into picture, the opportunity
cost should exactly equal the wages expended on developing this. OP makes a
valid point.

OTOH if the marginal cost of production is really 1/20th of the next-best
solution, then his employer should easily be able to recoup that by rolling
out a bunch of these.

~~~
camccann
_Exactly--and since you're bringing economics into picture, the opportunity
cost should exactly equal the wages expended on developing this. OP makes a
valid point._

Not necessarily, if his job includes some degree of "on demand"
responsibilities--it said he was a librarian who handles some tech support, so
chances are a lot of what he's being paid for is just being there when needed.
On a slow day, he'd be there anyway and getting paid the same, so working on
something like this is a clear win over, I don't know, dusting shelves or
something.

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rgrieselhuber
Anyone know what software, tools he used? I'm sure other libraries would like
to do the same.

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Groxx
The library in Appleton had a decent self-checkout several years ago, and it
was ridiculously simple: a fixed barcode scanner, de-magnetizing bar, card
swipe, and an off-the-shelf computer + monitor. Likely cost a lot more than
$1500, but there's no reason it wouldn't have been fairly cheap, and I've
never heard of anyone having trouble with it. It also only took up about 3
square feet of ground space.

Grocery store checkouts need to learn something from that design. Swipe card,
slide books through & listen for the beep, and walk away. _Some_ are that
simple, but most have you click through several layers of buttons just to
frickin' pay.

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BjornW
Wonderful story and it made my day. I really like it when people are fixing
problems and go above and beyond their job description.

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jdietrich
It's not so much a cost saving, more an indication that this particular
librarian is underemployed. With those skills, he shouldn't be stamping books
and clearing print jams.

~~~
mbrubeck
The people you see stamping books are probably clerks or pages. "Librarian" is
a professional job that requires at least a master's degree. Librarians these
days increasingly have degrees in "information science" which includes a wide
variety of technologies from books to the internet.

The librarian in this news story "handles technical support for the library."
Apparently this isn't just clearing print jams, either: _"I had done some Web-
application development for the library..."_

~~~
jdietrich
My mistake - I must have made a wrongful assumption based on practice in the
UK. While public librarians in Britain are also expected to have a
postgraduate qualification, that doesn't mean very much here and librarians
aren't particularly well paid unless they are heads of service. An experienced
librarian would expect to earn about half what an experienced software
developer or systems administrator would - indeed, they would be fortunate to
earn more than a junior developer on their first year in the job.

As an indication of their status here, a study published by the British
Psychological Society in 2006 suggested that librarians are amongst the most
stressed and frustrated workers. In the study, librarians themselves described
feelings of severe boredom, a lack of control over their careers and
insufficient opportunities to exercise their skills. As a heavy library user
myself, this news story gelled strongly with the perception I have of
librarians - intelligent people with very little to do, shuffling about the
place with the demeanour of a lackadaisical hound, looking for something to
puncture their tedious routine.

~~~
mbrubeck
Yeah, maybe it's different here in the U.S. Last month, Librarian ranked #46
in a "Best Jobs" list at the Wall Street Journal - with "stress" as one of the
criteria. (Software Engineer was #2!)

[http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/st_BESTJOBS...](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/st_BESTJOBS2010_20100105.html)

You do make a good distinction between public libraries and others (school
libraries, medical/law/corporate libraries). But even there, you might not
have the full picture. The people who spend most of their time at the
circulation desk in most libraries are not librarians. Meanwhile, librarians
may spend most of their time doing jobs you don't see, like collection
development (finding, selecting, and acquiring new which books or other
resources).

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ippisl
I wonder if there's similar opportunities for cost reduction in other self-
service kiosks ?

~~~
ggruschow
There's a similar opportunity almost everywhere something is sold at a massive
premium to material costs.

