Thursday, June 30, 2011

Inventory Basics-part 2

The next step in inventory is printing out the missing items , and trying to find most of them. In our case, we print out after we scan and look at the lists to see if we have missed scanning a section or maybe the scans did not pick up. Then we go and look for the books and check the titles into the regular circulation program.
At the end of the school year, after we have found and checked in as many as we could, I ran a second printout. This was much shorter but still disturbing as I am sure that not that many books are missing( at least I hope not)

Monday, June 13, 2011

Inventory Basics

Here's what I do for inventory. First - get all ( or as many as I can books back from students and teachers.
Second- read shelves and get books in the right order. This is helpful if your system needs correct shelf order- luckily I can turn my shelf checking off. I know some systems you can choose how specific you want the shelf checking to be- so if you have that advantage do your self a favor and just check so that it picks up the wrong category or at the very least down to the 10's ( a range of 10 off I mean- example : it will beep if there is a 630 book in the 641.5).
Third: Print out a sheet of your different holdings codes. Get your self a pad of paper and decided which you will do first. choose a small section to begin with. Write down date, time, and section you are scanning.
Fourth: Begin scanning. Keep track /mark if you must stop for any reason. Hopefully your scanner will be working better than the one I am using . It doesn't beep for each title- so I must watch the screen. It does however do a loud sound when there is a mistake- being the barcode did not scan or the book is in the wrong holdingscode. More steps to follow. Questions? Does any one have to do inventory the old fashion way- with a shelf list from the Card Catalog?? I hope not!

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Inventory time again!

We are in the second day of inventory but it doesn't seem to be going very fast. Both my aide and I are busy scanning but we are also still getting back books. Today I spent a good half hour still printing out overdue sheets from students. Luckily as soon as they got the letters - they brought them back.

But each time we start a new section/holdings-code we are writing down date and time- so when we go to print out items that are missing we will have to enter in the earliest date and time to get accurate records. Anyone else have to do this with your system? I guess it's pretty standard. What's amazing is that there have only been a couple of misfiled or mis-smarked books.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

InventoryTime!

Well it time again to think about inventory! An exhausting time but a necessary task! Start out getting all books ( or as many as you can) back into the library , checked in , and on the shelves.
I try to spend a little time reading shelves putting books in the right order. However, during the year , as I am putting books away , I take some time to check the shelves that I am replacing books on. I figure that if books were taken, there is a likely-hood that some items might be misplaced. In our library( elementary level) we only go beyond one decimal point. This helps me while shelving and also helps the student learn about the DD system without too much aggravation.
Anyway so as I am shelving, I am correcting misfiled books- so it is one time time deal . This seems to work in the library I am presently in. Past libraries, I have begun at the beginning and read the entire collection.
Does anyone have any comments on inventory? tips on reading and shelving and getting books Back? I send out over-dues to students. My staff can keep books that they are using and hopefully bring back what they do not need at the time.