BENTONVILLE — Local residents have an opportunity to christen a new machine at the Bentonville Public Library aimed at increased efficiency and better service for patrons.

Courtney Fitzgerald, the library’s senior circulation librarian, said the machine automatically sorts materials patrons return to the library into different categories through the use of radio-frequency identification technology. All items in the library have radio-frequency identification-enabled security tags. The machine reads the tags when people return items and uses them to determine which items go in which bins while also communicating with the library’s database to check the items back in.

People can feed their items into the machine through an opening inside the library’s front entrance and watch through a window as the items travel down a conveyor belt to the appropriate bin in a separate room. Staff members then check materials for damage before putting them in their correct place within the library.

Fitzgerald said the nine-bin sorter is a step up from the three-bin machine the library had at the front of the building. The new machine will save library staff members a tremendous amount of time previously spent sorting materials and allow them to focus more on interacting with and helping library patrons, she said. The library has another three-bin sorter in the back of the building.

The library had about 33,000 more checkouts in 2023 compared with 2022, an average of more than 100 additional items daily, according to a city news release Tuesday

“That number is expected to grow as the population of Benton County increases,” the release states. “The machine was selected, in part, because it can be easily upgraded to 15 bins as circulation increases with the community’s demand.”

Tara Clark, marketing specialist for the library, said the library’s total physical circulation was 617,873 in 2023 compared with 584,452 in 2022, making for an increase of 33,421 checkouts. This doesn’t include digital checkouts.

The new sorter also has more options than the previous machine for stopping its operating in case something gets stuck.

The Bentonville City Council unanimously approved authorizing the city to enter into an agreement with Tech Logic not to exceed $165,000 to purchase the nine-bin sorting machine at its meeting Jan. 9, according to the meeting minutes. The project is included in the library’s fiscal year 2024 budget.

Octavio Sanchez, Ward 4 City Council member and ex-officio member of the Library Advisory Board, said he believes the library is the happiest place in town. He said the expense for the new sorting machine is justified because it improves the library’s ability to provide good service.

“On the other hand, the location of the sorter and the visibility of it allows the patrons — especially children — to have their curiosity motivated by the operation of the machine,” Sanchez said. “It is kind of magic to see that the book comes into the sorter and it is classified in any of the nine different categories that makes it easier for the librarians to relocate the material for practically immediate reuse.”

Fitzgerald said the new machine became fully operational May 24. The installation was during a a period in which the library was closed due to its ongoing renovation project.

Monica Smith, who was at the library Monday, said the machine is really neat for her children because they can see it sort their books.

“It’s just a really fun experience, and it’s probably way more efficient,” Smith said.

She added she thinks the machine has helped give library staff more time with children as well.

Kiersten Yount, another visitor of the library Monday, likewise said her children enjoy watching the machine work, seeing where their books go and how they’re sorted.

“It’s nice to actually see the process and be able to understand how the sorting happens rather than it just going into a hole and not seeing that process,” Yount said.

David Johnson, executive director of the Fayetteville Public Library, said his library has had a Tech Logic radio-frequency identification sorting system since 2020 — the same year in which it opened an expansion of its facility. The new machine replaced the library’s previous Tech Logic system, which it had since 2004.

“A lot of that was a reaction to the fact that we also added 100,000 material items to our collection,” Johnson said. “That moved us from about 300,000 to 400,000 items in our catalog, and so we wanted to make sure we had the volume of a processor that could handle increased physical items.”

According to Circulation Manager Kathleen Lehman, the system has 14 bins.

“The sorter does save significant time in getting items back in order and returned to the shelves,” Lehman said. “Compared to how sorting was done at the library before, it greatly reduces the amount of employees who have to work on sorting and the time it takes to get books back on the shelves.”