Innovations Award of Merit (Rock Award)
To encourage and foster new methods to be productive, the Innovations Team has developed the citywide Innovations Award program. Submissions are accepted and recognized throughout the year. Recipients of the Innovations Award are considered for the annual Award of Merit or the “Rock” award. The winning department keeps the Rock for one year and then passes it on to the next winner.

The 2011 Award of Merit goes to the Library for its RFID and Self-Check Project.

This new self-check system provides faster, more accurate check-out and check-in of library materials. Books can be checked out in stacks rather than one at a time and customers can even pay their fines at the self-check. Within a month of the system coming online, self-checkouts increased to 70 percent of all check outs. The project was a true team effort. Staff and volunteers had to retag 180,000 items in the Library’s collection before customers could begin using the system. Patrons love the new system, calling it “magic.”