Bücherhallen Hamburg is Germany’s largest group of municipal libraries that attract almost 5 million visitors annually. With more than 1.7 million media in stock, library staff spend many hours sorting the materials. This involves a lot of lifting and bending, which is a frequent cause of back pain and one of the main reasons Bücherhallen set out to improve the workplace ergonomics at the libraries.
Angela Rustemeier from Bücherhallen Hamburg says, “The conventional boxes feature a spring floor which moves downward in line with the media load placed on it and moves up again when the load is removed. Employees used to have to bend far down into the boxes to take out the items at the bottom, which increased the risk of back pain.” Bücherhallen therefore wanted to create a working environment that minimises the risk of harm to the staff. They approached Lyngsoe Systems, and together they designed the Ergo Box.
Apart from the need to improve the workplace ergonomics, the library also had to resolve sorting system problems. The load of a pile of light items was not heavy enough for the spring floor to move downward, which caused the sorting system to stop even though bins were not actually full. Customers who wanted to return their books at the weekend or outside the library’s opening hours could not do so because the system, which identified the bins as full, had stopped operating.