TapeChek Extends the Useful Life of Older Well-Used Videos

Roanoke County, VA...

E. Spencer Watts, Director of the Roanoke County Library, tells RTI that in their collection of some 1,400 videotape titles, they have a substantial number of older, well used videotapes, which have seen 200, 400 or even 500 circulations. Many of these are children’s tapes which are played over and over many times each circulation.

The condition of the tapes was unknown and, Watts reports, for that reason the library purchased a TapeChek 490 with Defect Search several months ago.

Helps us access the condition of our videotapes

The unit works really well for us. We’re pleased to say that TapeChek detailed reporting helps us access the condition of our videotapes, pointing out which ones are in need of replacement, while they are all being cleaned and rejeuvenated.

It is located at one of our branch locations, which houses 200 videos. Problem videos are sent to that location for cleaning and inspection.

We hope to soon have in place a program whereby all of our videotapes are circulated through the branch where TapeChek resides for the cleaning and inspection process.

TapeChek Helps State Library Meet Quality Objectives

Raleigh, NC...

At the North Carolina State Library, the videotape collection has over 4,000 VHS videos. Angie Suhr, Audio/Visual Libarian, knows the importance of quality in the videotapes that are circulated by the State of North Carolina. That’s why her department cleans, rejeuvenates and inspects every video circulated on their TapeChek 490 Cleaner-Inspector-Rewinder.

We want every tape to be in good condition

One of the objectives of the North Carolina State Library is to provide a quality product to its patrons. We want every tape to be in good condition when we send it out! TapeChek makes it possible for us to meet that objective.

TapeChek Helps Maintain Valuable Video Collection

Baton Rouge, LA...

The Louisiana State Library maintains a collection of over 5,000 videotapes, many of which are invaluable multi-tape sets, which have been purchased from PBS or other sources. These are made available to state employees and libraries within the state that could not otherwise afford to offer them.

Before TapeChek, we really didn’t know

Sharilynn Aucoin, Manager of the State Library A/V Resource Center, stated that the decision to purchase TapeChek was made 2 years ago because they wanted to protect their collection and the really didn’t know the condition of their tapes.

We have cleaned and inspected our entire collection of videos through our TapeChek 470P over the past two years. The printer report pinpoints any tape problems and we are confident that our videotapes will last longer and always perform better, after TapeChek cleaning and rejeuvenation.

Lake Superior Library Provides Superior Videos, Thanks to TapeChek

Marquette, MI...

On the shores of Lake Superior, the Peter White Public Library serves this Upper Peninsula community of 38,000, with a growing collection of about 1,000 videotapes.

In order to provide superior service to their patrons at an entry level price, the library first purchased a TapeChek XCL Cleaner-Inspector-Rewinder. Mary Rust, their Collection Development Reference Librarian, explained that as tapes were returned by patrons, they were cleaned and rewinded by the library staff on their XCL.

We traded up to defect inspection

Pleased with the XCL, but needing defect reports, the library recently traded up to a TapeChek Model 460 Cleaner-Inspector-Rewinder. Now the staff looks for defects when tapes are returned. We caught lots of them! If they’re not too bad, we use TapeChek Cleaned and Inspected stickers and we write on the sticker something like ‘small defect at beginning.’ This prevents patrons from thinking that it is no good and returning it unviewed.

When asked if she would recommend TapeChek equipment to others, Mary emphatically said

Yes I would!

TapeChek Automates Videotape Inspection in Retirement Community Library

Sun City, AZ...

Serving this retirement community of 25,000 is the R.H. Johnson Public Library. Library Director Marcia Lea told us why they decided to purchase TapeChek:

We first got into it because all of the work on videos is done by retired volunteers. Tapechek makes their job easy. Our volunteer workers first open the window and check the very beginning of the tape for visible damage. If it looks OK, then TapeChek does the rest.

Why do we bother? We want to be sure our videos are in good shape before we let them out! We don’t always TapeChek our inexpensive movie videos, but we always clean and rejeuvenate those expensive instructional videos that would cost $75 or $90 to replace!

What’s a tracking control

Many of our patrons would angrily to return videos claiming that they were defective. Before TapeChek we didn’t know for sure. We’d ask them if they adjusted the tracking on their VCR...but you know most people don’t know how to do that!

Asked if they’re happy with TapeChek, Marcia replied “We’re very happy! Thanks TapeChek!

TapeChek Catches Problem Tapes Before They Cause Problems

Iowa City, IA...

Talking about the Iowa City Public Library’s TapeChek 490 DS, Audio/Video librarian Beth Fisher exclaims: I love it! It’s saved me a lot of hassle...that’s for sure!

We’ve used it to clean and inspect the library’s entire video collection. We thought it would take a year, but it only took us about 7 months to do them all. We ran 50 to 75 tapes a day through it until we made it through the collection. Since we bought it, we ran close to 4,500 tapes through the machine.

Asked what kinds of problems the library was having prior to TapeChek, Beth related examples as extreme as tapes breaking in customer’s vcrs. But now we catch the problem tapes before they go out and cause problems.

Gives patrons a feeling of confidence in our quality

We have inspection stickers on all the tapes, and we just write the date on the sticker, so we know and the public knows how recently the tape was inspected. It gives them a feeling of confidence to know that we actually check the tapes on our shelves, and that they won’t chew up their machine or whatever.

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