My dreams of being a library book-sorter in New York City have been destroyed by yet another automated machine. For the past two months, the New York Library has had a gigantic book sorting machine to send books to different branches. I am not kidding when I say the machine is large- according to the NYT, one side of the machine is roughly two-thirds as long as a football field and contains 132 bins, each representing a specific branch of the New York Library System.

Perhaps because the job of sorting books is not as glamorous as other jobs at the library (ordering books or booking authors for speaking engagements), the New York Library System had a difficult time recruiting people to sort their books and purchased the sorting machine for $2.3 million, which seems expensive for a job that could be done for minimum wage by broke college students.

The book sorting machine scans each book from a conveyer belt and then drops the individual books into the correct bin to route the books to the correct branch. In essence, the book sorting machine is like a highly sophisticated baggage conveyer belt. My guess it would take longer for individuals to do the work and the fact that there are 132 different library branches in New York City almost justifies the cost of modernization. The person responsible for book sorting in the New York Library System says that the machine has reduced a typical books’ “travel time” between branches by at least a day and claims his staff of 14 “can easily sort 7,500 items per hour, or 125 a minute”.

In the past two years, the New York City Library system has cut its workforce by approximately 15% though I am uncertain whether this has to do with forced budget cuts due to insufficient funds or increased automation.

Seattle also has a book sorting machine “on staff” and has used the sorter at its Central Branch location since 2004, so in this particular instance, New York is following Seattle and not the other way around. Of course, the 11-floor Seattle Central Library has the reputation of not only being one of the most stunning libraries in the world, but one of the most automated as well.  All in all, it makes it highly unlikely that I will be hired on as a book sorter for Seattle, either.