HIT: AUTOMATION - TIME LINE - BAR CODES; PART I

[Kris Waymire <kwaymire@LINK2000.NET>]

Thank you, thank you, thank you!  For all the great info.  I am passing
this along as I have been asked.  This sure is a terrific way for
everyone to help each other as well as our schools and patrons.

Kris,
Would you please share info you receive??? I am (will be) in the same
boat.   Annie Lokrantz

We barcoded 10,000 books in 3-4 days with 3 people.  This is an average
based on barcoding in 5 different libraries.  The time differences are
because some people were faster workers!

Dear Kris,
    I spent 137 hours last summer applying barcodes to about 9,200
books. That includes time spend typing info for barcodes not produced
because on the inadequacies of the shelf list I sent to Winnebago.  It's
a rather boring job, but with a good radio not bad.  Your library will
never be more organized than when you finish the job of barcoding.
R. Otte  South Christian High School  Grand Rapids  MI

Dear Kris,
My memory is somewhat foggy but I think we bar-coded my library in
approx. 2 and 1/2 days using four teams, one barcoding the book, the
other the shelf list card.  We have approx. 10,000 books. We did about
three or four libraries one summer.  Once you get in a rhythm it really
moved right along.
When we automated several years ago I could average between 150 and 200
books an hour.  This did not hold true for student helpers or other
volunteers.  The books must be as true to shelf order as possible if
that is the way the bar codes are comming.  Encyclopedias slowed us
down, we needed to check the volume numbers to make sure that everything
matched.
Margaret Shaffer                  Easton High School
Library Media Specialist          723 Mecklenburg Ave  Easton MD 21601

When I barcoded my collection 8 years ago members of the PTA volunteered
to put the bar codes on the books.  At that time I entered all the data
myself and was able to print out a list of all the books in the
collection with the title, author, call no. and barcode number.  The
volunteers took these lists and the barcodes to the shelves and put the
barcodes on.  It took about one week with about three volunteers working
3 hours a day.

Kathy Geronzin Northeast MS-HS Librarian
Goose Lake, IA 52060 319-577-2249
FAX 319-577-2248 kgeronzin@po-1.northeast.k12.ia.us

Kris,  I just sent a message about barcoding and forgot to mention that
if you put the barcodes on the front cover in the left hand corner of
the books this helps save time.  Also, place the barcodes over the
plastic jackets with the label protector over them.
First, it would be wonderful if your software and data for your circ.
program were alresdy installed and tested.
Next, If you have a secretary or aide (full time) the two of you can
each  work with a volunteer parent or "certain" students, of your
choice, and work as two teams, in seperate areas.  It would not be a
good idea to try to work without several breaks and no longer than about
3hrs without dooing something else.  It get too tedious and it becomes
too easy to err.
Order ONLY SMART barcodes and use label protectors, you can have a
student follow each team and apply the protectors.
Time would depend on your collection size. chech barcode against the
master list at least twice before applying the barcode.
Have fun!!!
Clete Schirra                             schirrac@lis.pitt.edu
South Park High School Media Center       schirra@calvin.duq.edu
2178 Ridge Road                          Library, PA  15129
cschirra@aiu-server.aiu.k12.pa.us         (412) 655-0613 voice
Library PA 15129                          (412) 655-1463 fax

It is a time consuming process.  I can't give you a number of books per
hour because it will depend on the amount of help.  Not only must the
books be barcoded, but so must the shelf list so that it can be entered
in the data base, hopefully by someone else.  In Fort Worth we use three
bar codes per book.  One on the shelf list card, one on the front cover
of the book and one on the inside back cover of the book.  The ones on
the book are covered with tape to prevent removal, fading, etc.
After the database is loaded, you can discard the shelf list cards once
you are fairly certain that everything is set up correctly.  Last year
when I was able to spend a fairly uninterrupted day onbarcoding, I would
be able to barcode as many books as I could get on one side of a
three-shelf bookcart and maybe part of the second side if that will give
you a clue to how fast it goes.
Carl Seale, Librarian  cseale@tenet.edu *  Fort Worth ISD     Fort
Worth, TX

You may want to think about not only placing the barcode in the book but
also writing the BC number in the book in a couple of places.  We write
ours on the inside cover and the title page.  This has saved us hours of
time when we get a book returned that we have several copies of, with
the BC torn out.  It makes it easier to look up which particular copy
we're dealing with and then we can quickly just slap a new BC in the
book, rewrite the BC numbers and change the number in the database.
Make sure you weed your collection BEFORE you put barcodes in.  It may
also be unrealistic to try to BC the whole collection before you
automate.  You migh be able to get a fairly large percentage done, but
you'll also be barcoding and entering data on the fly.
When a team of library personnel went to a school in a county in which I
do consulting work, each person took a shelf and was able to BC and
write the numbers in for about 2 full shelves in the morning allotted.
It tends to go fairly slowly, but I suppose if you had a team of
volunteers to spend some weekends, you might be able to do a collection
(you didn't say how big your collection was) in a couple of months of
steady work every Saturday, all day.

Kathy Graves, IMC Director/Librarian
e-mail: kgraves@sisnet.ssku.k12.ca.us           FAX: 916-842-8436
hmpg: http://www.sisnet.ssku.k12.ca.us/~imcftp  AV:  916-842-8428
Phone:  916-842-8427                            Library: 916-842-8430

Using Follett's Alliance+, library staff and educated volunteers, and
15,000 items, it takes 2 years and then some for original marc
records.  This will give you time for running reports which point out
your errors, etc.
Phyllis

We just finished doing ours...with the exceptions of the problem books.
(We had 13,000+ to do.)  We never timed it by the book, but I'd
quesstimate that it takes a minimum of 20 seconds per book. We put
protectors over the labels, also.  That is included in the 20 seconds.
We found a number of bokks where there were mistakes, either caused by
us or by the automating company.  These problem books were set aside and
we're still working on them 2 months after the barcodes were officially
"finished".  Whatever numbers you decide on, add time to it because it
will always take longer than planned.
We had volunteer parents come for whole days, the district  librarians
were given subs one day and they came to help us finish up,   a few
teachers came on their planning times, some high school students  came
to help.  We spent our entire time supervising and answering questions
when we had about 10 people here helping--we were not able to
do any barcoding ourselves with that number of people in the library.
Hope this helps in some way.  If you have any questions that we might be
able to help with, feel free to e-mail back.

Kris,
It took a group of 10 senior citizen volunteers about one and a half
days to complete the placement of barcodes (on the backs of the books)
in my collection of about 11,000 items.  Some were missed and we just
caught them as they were checked out.  Good luck!

Kris, i am in the process of automating three libraries so here is my
experience.  every year i am moved to a different three libraries.  last
year, i was in a school that was already automated but when i took over,
the computer had crashed.  for some reason it took the repair guys three
months to return the computer.  by that time, it was after school was
out for the summer.  so i had to do an inventory without the necessary
computer information.  whoever automated had thrown away the shelf list
thinking it wasn't needed anymore.  wrong!  be sure the you have decided
where the bar code is going on the books. then the little strip that is
left i place on the shelf list card.  that way, should the computer
crash near inventory time, i can atleast do an inventory.  some
librarians put the strip on the title page but i really don't know why.
depending on the size of your collection and your library  schedule of
classes it could take just a
week or several months.  of course, even that would depend on the number
of volunteers. feel free to email me directly if you have any questions.
i would make sure that my shelf list was in excellent shape. bett

Kris,
Our PTO helped us automate our high school library   It sounds as if you
have the materials arealready typed in so your last step is barcoding.
We placed two barcodes on each book--on the front for easy inventory
scanning and in the back where the old signature card and pocket are.
(We still stamp the due date in the book.)  We placed a special
tape-like barcode protector on the front barcode.  We decided to NOT
remove plastic covers in order to place the barcode under it.  However
any new books with covers get the barcode placed on before covering with
plastic protector.  You can do many books in an hour but it is still a
long process. Perhapsyou can time yourself with one book then calculate
that by the number ofvolumes.
We placed only one barcode on the vertical file pieces, SIRS, and
magazines. Barcodes are on the front of the mags and SIRS and on the
back of the vertical file.
If you have printed labels ready for everything, you can organize a
volunteer work group and work really hard in order to be ready for
automatic check out in the fall.  Of course this depends on the number
of volumes.  We often had one or two people working in several areas of
the media center--someone in fiction, someone in 100's etc. You'll need
to decide the procedure for putting the labels on materials that are out
when a certain section is being completed.
You are almost there.  Good luck.
Virginia Meier    vmeier@evansville.net

Hi Kris
Even though its over 5 years since we barcoded our 25,000 books (plus
AV) I remember it took about 4 days, with 5 people. 2 of my staff and 2
students and I did it one holidays. I gave the students gift vouchers to
a local bookstore, and fed them take-out BBQ chicken and coke! I was
able to get extra funding for the 2 staff; me? I had to make do with the
love of the job - as usual! We turned the radio up high and bopped along
in our bare feet and jeans. Lots of fun!
Hope this helps
BTW
we barcoded on the outside of the books and did not use a covering tape
for them - I'm sure this meant that we were done quicker than otherwise.
Rhonda Bracey
Microfusion Pty Ltd (School Library Automation Specialists)
PO Box 603  Victoria Park  Western Australia  6100
Phone: +61 9 472 1477 (work)  Fax: +61 9 472 1515 (work)
email: rbracey@p085.aone.net.au