Ruminate on the management of library furniture and equipment in colleges and universities

Library assets are the indispensable material basis for its business and services and for its internal administrative work. According to the characteristics and roles of state-owned assets of university libraries, and according to the regulations on the management of assets of national institutions and the implementation measures of university assets management, the assets of university libraries can be divided into three major categories: furniture assets, equipment assets and literature resources assets.

In recent years, with the rapid development of university libraries and the increasing attention of the state to higher education institutions, the funding of university libraries has increased significantly year by year, and the hardware conditions of libraries have been improved as never before, and the total amount of fixed assets in libraries has also increased. While the fixed assets of libraries have increased significantly, some problems have emerged in the use and management of office furniture and instruments and equipment, such as imperfect asset supervision system, irregular management and low utilization rate of assets.

Therefore, to do a good job in the use and management of furniture and equipment is an important issue faced by university libraries and urgently needs to be solved.

1 Current situation and problems of furniture and equipment use and management in university libraries

1.1 The number and variety of furniture and equipment are many, and the speed of equipment renewal is fast

The number of office furniture and instruments and equipment owned by university libraries is obviously more than that of other departments in the university.

On the one hand, due to the diversification and digitalization of library services, there is a trend of diversification and modernization of library furniture and equipment.

On the other hand, with the rapid development of information technology products and electronic products, the library, as a knowledge information center of the school, needs to keep up with the trend, therefore, the speed of updating its electronic equipment is also accelerated year by year, coupled with the fact that the library furniture and equipment have a large span of use, the total number of various types of furniture and equipment is several thousand or even tens of thousands of pieces.

1.2 Serious waste of resources and low utilization rate of assets

Therefore, libraries basically do not consider the cost accounting and depreciation of assets, and apply to the school when they have the intention of demand, but once purchased, they do not care about the use, and basically do not have the awareness and sense of responsibility of maintenance.

Some furniture and equipment with a short service life are put into the warehouse for scrapping just because of some minor problems or some parts are damaged and cannot be used normally; some electronic equipment in good condition is also put aside because of outdated functions; due to the expansion of wireless network coverage and the popularity of smart phones and computers among college students, many computers in the library that were originally used for readers to check information are left idle. All these have caused a great waste of resources and low utilization rate of assets.

1.3 Weak awareness of asset management and unsound management system

Some university libraries also have the phenomenon of emphasis on acquisition but not management and lack of awareness of fixed assets management. Some university libraries have not formulated rules and regulations on the management of fixed assets, so they cannot guide the specific work in a scientific and standardized way. The asset management department usually has only one or two asset managers in the library, and they are all part-time employees of the library. Since there are many departments in the library and the offices are scattered, it is difficult for one or two part-time asset managers to complete the management of furniture and equipment in the whole library.

In addition, it is difficult to unify the consciousness of asset management because of the large number of library staffs, resulting in the changes of library furniture and equipment cannot be updated in the asset management system of the university in time, which causes the data in the asset management system does not match with the actual usage, and the usage and management of furniture and equipment is confusing.

2 Countermeasures for better management of furniture and equipment in university libraries

2.1 Improve the awareness of asset management

To do a good job of furniture and equipment management in university libraries, we need to improve the awareness of asset management among library staff, make them fully understand the importance of asset management and establish the correct concept of state-owned asset management.

Enhanced management can not only eliminate the existing chaotic situation and ensure the normal use of furniture and equipment, but also reduce the waste of resources, improve the utilization rate of furniture and equipment, and create more benefits for the university and society.

Therefore, it is necessary to enhance the sense of responsibility and initiative of library leaders and employees in asset management, so that they really realize the importance and necessity of managing furniture and equipment assets well.

2.2 Establish scientific management system and improve management rules and regulations

In accordance with the principle of “unified leadership, centralized management, hierarchical responsibility, responsibility to the person, the use of things”, the management system of furniture and equipment is established and improved. The management of furniture and equipment in our university library is under the overall responsibility of administrative leaders and the three-level responsibility system of asset managers, department directors and users, so that the management responsibilities can be implemented to specific departments and individuals, and the scope of responsibilities of relevant responsible persons can be clarified to strengthen the sense of responsibility and management.

Due to the large number of furniture and equipment, a furniture asset manager and an equipment asset manager can be arranged to manage the furniture and equipment respectively, and the furniture asset manager can be the office staff or office director, while the equipment asset manager can be the staff of the technical department or the director of the technical department. This not only realizes the centralized management, but also realizes the hierarchical management, which makes the responsibility of management clearer and the duty more explicit.

According to the specific implementation methods or statutes formulated by the school’s asset management department, we have established a set of management system for furniture and equipment assets in the library, taking into account the actual situation of our library. It includes purchase procedures, acceptance process, storage and use methods, transfer, transfer, scrapping, compensation, etc., so that furniture and equipment management can be followed by rules. In the management system, we have also added the mechanism of furniture and equipment inventory supervision and maintenance and repair tracking service.

We make a work plan to conduct regular inventory and inspection of all kinds of assets, and if we find that furniture and equipment are damaged, we will submit repair applications to the relevant departments in a timely manner; if we find that the number of assets or storage locations are incorrect, we will deal with them in a timely manner and notify the responsible personnel in the office. We take the management of furniture and equipment as one of the indicators of the year-end assessment of the librarians, so that the rewards and punishments are clear and every employee’s awareness of the responsibility of furniture and equipment management is improved.

2.3 Making full use of the asset management system to reasonably allocate the tasks of furniture and equipment management

The university library can apply to the university asset management department for different management authority according to the level of responsibility of furniture and equipment management of the staff in the library, and set up different accounts and different authority in the asset management system. Based on the actual use of furniture and equipment by each employee, all furniture and equipment management in the library will be assigned to departments and implemented to employees. The asset manager is the first level of authority and can operate all furniture and equipment information of the library.

The department director is the second level authority and can operate the information of furniture and equipment belonging to this department; the ordinary staff is the third level authority and can operate the information of furniture and equipment of this post. The department director confirms and audits the operation of the general staff, and the asset manager has the final auditing authority and the authority to manage the furniture and equipment of the whole library, so that all the personnel in the library can pay attention to the management of furniture and equipment. The ultimate goal is to make the accounts of furniture and equipment accurate and easy to maintain in the process of transferring, repairing, loaning, transferring, and scrapping.

2.4 Establish a platform for sharing furniture and equipment to realize reuse 　　

For unused furniture and equipment that have not reached the end-of-life limit or those with low utilization rate, library asset managers should have the awareness of resource sharing when disposing of assets. Libraries in higher education institutions have an advantage over other departments in terms of financial investment, building area and hardware conditions.

In general, libraries have a relatively large amount of furniture and equipment, and some even have a large surplus. By establishing furniture and equipment sharing with other departments in the university, not only can they vacate the unused furniture and equipment collection, transfer the surplus and shortage, realize the reuse of assets, and give full play to the efficiency of furniture and equipment, but more importantly, they can save money and reduce expenses for the university.

According to the information construction requirements of universities, libraries can establish furniture and equipment sharing platform on the secondary websites of asset management departments or libraries. Library asset managers can enter the furniture or equipment to be shared on this platform, which mainly includes two parts.

One part is unused furniture and equipment that can be transferred to other departments, have not reached their end-of-life and can be used normally, such as replaced tables, chairs and benches, computers, etc. These furniture and equipment have no more use value in the library, but are valuable resources for some colleges with tight funding.

The other part is non-transferable, underutilized, but shareable equipment, such as video cameras, cameras, mobile projectors, plotters, etc. If a department has a demand for transferable furniture and equipment and the asset management department agrees, the library will go through the relevant transfer procedures with them, including physical confirmation of the items to be transferred, signing a formal transfer agreement, attaching the details of each batch of transferred furniture and equipment, and the handling information of the transferred furniture and equipment. After these tasks are completed, both parties in charge will bring the relevant materials to the asset management department for the transfer of furniture and equipment on campus, and transfer all the transferred furniture and equipment to the name of the receiving unit, so that the accounts of both parties are clear and correct.

For the assets that can be shared, the using department can choose the online reservation method to reserve the use of the relevant equipment. After a successful reservation, the borrowing department needs to fill out a loan agreement, including information on the loan period and the borrower of the equipment. The opening of this sharing platform reflects the advanced, scientific, practical and sharing nature of furniture and equipment management, improves the utilization rate of resources, and also responds to the national call for energy saving and environmental protection.

3 Conclusion

The management of furniture and equipment in university libraries is a systematic project, which is comprehensive, professional, tedious and diverse. In order to do a good job, libraries must stand at a certain height, strengthen the concept and awareness of asset management of employees, establish scientific management system, improve rules and regulations, enhance the sense of responsibility of managers at all levels, give full play to the role of asset management system, realize the automation and network management of furniture and equipment information, and finally make the management of furniture and equipment of university libraries become more and more standardized and achieve the maximum use efficiency. In the end, the management of furniture and equipment in university libraries will become more and more standardized and achieve the maximum efficiency.