Hit: Inventory #4

["Sands, Michele" <MSands@ECFS.ORG>]

Again, thanks for everyone's considered replies.
Michele

Michele Sands
Media Technology Librarian
Ethical Culture Fieldston School
New York, N.Y.
msands@ecfs.org
> We need to educate our children for their future, not our past.
> Arthur C.
> Clarke
>
>
9-12  every year
During the last week of school when students are having semesters, the
library is semi-closed--can't check out materials, can use the
computers.
My library helpers (students) help with inventory. We put a computer on
a
cart, attach the scanner & go to the shelves.
I find it really helpful, I know what books are missing & need to be
deleted from the card catalog (if it's missing 2 years, I consider it
gone)--I can see patterns in WHAT is being stolen. I find books hidden
behind the shelves that were "lost". If I happen to be doing the
inventory,
I also do some weeding at that time. It also gives me an idea of how
closely I need to be watching our doors--some years we lose almost
nothing--other years some reading thief makes a real dent in our
collection
(one year a mother returned 39 books she found hidden in their garage).
Linda

We are a K-5 school and inverntory the entire collection (about 14,000
items) every year.  Because we are automated, it's an easy matter to do
it at any time of the year, but we do most of it in the last couple of
weeks.  Now that we use the automated system, it goes much faster that
when we had to go through the shelf list card by card.  My aide or a
volunteer often does most of the work.  The computer knows what books
are checked out, so we don't have to keep looking for things that are in
circulation.
         Before we were automated we inventoried 1/3 of the collection
each year.  Dewey one year, Fiction, Easy and Paperbacks one year and AV
the third year.  Some on the librarians in our district still follow
this schedule.
        I think it is important to do inventory to keep your records
current.  Every year we are missing books that have just disappeared.
Without the inventory, we would never know they were gone.
        Hope this helps.

K-2, every year
3-5, 6 years ago
6-8, every year
Close the library 2 weeks before end of year.
 helps find lost books, repair, weed

I do inventory each spring after students are released for summer
vacation. (Of course, I am on a 10 month contract!).

K-5, every year (except the years
>the school moved to another building, and then moved back)
Last 2 weeks of school; library is open for walk-in service, but no
circulation or class visits; librarian works on inventory only.  Library
clerk, usually in for 1/2 day per week, comes 1 full day per week.
Students help, plus any volunteers I can get.
It's useful for knowing what you have & what you've lost, what you need
to
replace & areas you need to build up.  It's also the time for the drive
to
get students' (and teachers') books returned, and for getting the
shelves
in order.  I don't think you're going to provide much meaningful service
anyway, unless you consider providing release time meaningful service;
students aren't doing reports at the end of the year, & everybody's
pretty
much champing at the bit to leave!


If this information is of value to you, please know that last Spring my
staff
of two and I, along with volunteers, spent three solid weeks
inventorying our
collection of approximately 20,000 print titles (we ignored the videos,
magazines, filmstrips, etc for lack of time). The purpose was to send
the
shelf list to Winnebago for data conversion.
        We closed the library and worked all day, each day.  The first
step was to
arrange all shelves in correct Dewey order.  That seems obvious, but it
saved
a lot of time during step two. At first we were slow and careful,
working in
teams and matching each card with each book, noting the hits on the
cards,
pulling books for repair, etc.  Then we realized we would run out of
time.
        Strategy two was simply to work alone, each person taking a
drawer and a shelf
and, one-by-one, verifying that the book was either there or not. The
local
public library gave us their entire supply of metal card clips (still
available from Brodart, etc.--ours are red).  Wherever we had a card but
no
book, we attached a red clip and moved on.  Multiple titles of the same
book
were recorded on the cards, but otherwise we did not take the time to
mark. In
cases where we had the same title by different publishers, we pulled the
odd
one and placed it on a shelf with other books which were found to need
catalog
corrections. You get the gist.  You'll find your own way through this,
depending on your collections' needs.
        At the end, I sent hand-written thank you notes to each of our
12 volunteers,
and purchased a book in their name on childrens' literature and authors,
for
the reference collection.
        It took Winnebago six months to convert the catalog.  But
meanwhile, we
discovered the work well worth the effort.  We knew the size of the
collection
(we'd estimated 20,000 using the rule of thumb that one inch of shelf
list
cards equals 100 titles. Winnebago returned a count of 19,235). We
pulled off
books which were miscataloged and discovered errors we can now correct
at
liesure (ha!).  With our new system we have purchased a PhD (a hand-held
barcode reader) which, in the future, we will use to do periodic
inventories.
I think the one last Spring was the first-ever done in this 30-year-old
media
center. My sense is we'll inventory every two or three years from now
on,
although many libraries do this annually. I'm not sure we'll have those
resources. Right now we're barcoding all the books, a project we began
in
January.  We have about 8 steady volunteers who give two hours a week
each,
and we think we'll have two-thirds of the library barcoded by May.  I'm
really
in no rush.  When we start using the system for real I want it to work,
and
we're taking our time learning the program (Spectrum) amongst all our
other
duties.
        Best wishes to you and your project.Ours was work, but it was
rewarding.

HS media center.  I do a complete book inventory every year in May.  We
are
a school of 1200 students and have two media specialists and a clerk.  I

don't shut down the media center, and I have my student workers help me.
I
do it because it helps me see how many books I've lost that year
(approx.
200 books are stolen from us every year) and, because we use the Follett

circulation/ catalog automated system, the missing books show as missing
in
the card catalog when I am finished.  Therefore I can replace those
books
that are used heavily and will be missed.  Otherwise I am left wondering
if
a particular books is just misshelved somewhere or is it lost.
HS media center.  I do a complete book inventory every year in May.  We
are
a school of 1200 students and have two media specialists and a clerk.  I

don't shut down the media center, and I have my student workers help me.
I
do it because it helps me see how many books I've lost that year
(approx.
200 books are stolen from us every year) and, because we use the Follett

circulation/ catalog automated system, the missing books show as missing
in
the card catalog when I am finished.  Therefore I can replace those
books
that are used heavily and will be missed.  Otherwise I am left wondering
if
a particular books is just misshelved somewhere or is it lost.


grades 9-12, inventory every year
Students help scan the books - they like to do it. (Plus they're faster
than my clerks.)
Very little research is conducted the last week of school so we close to
study hall students, making exceptions for those who really have a need.
Classes could come but basically, they're preparing for Regents exams
and
don't want to come anyway. It works well and takes less than a week to
inventory 13000 books. I like to get the list of missing items for
replacement.

Just a suggestion: if your books are being boxed and piled up, start
with
the end of the collection and work your way up to the front. This means
the
books on top or at the front of the pile will be the first to be put
back
on the shelves. I had to unbox my entire collection my first year and it
was a pain to move all the boxes first to start at the beginning.

we are a 9-12 diocesan Catholic high school. we inventory during exam
week in June. never longer than a week and if we don't finish we
pickup there the next year. students have to have all materials in
before that any way to get grades sent. It helps us to know what's
missing and especially if it's something that's heavily used. However,
with an automated system, we really do know what's missing, if it's
requested and not found and is in according to the computer. It's
awfully nice to know at one time what's missing, i don't know if you
need to do it every year. Does help with collection development in
that you do tend to weed as you go. I'd probably do it less if I had
less time to do it in.

K-6, yearly.  Realistically, it's done completely every 2 years due to
lack of paid time. The library is closed the last week of school, but
between awards assemblies, hounding students, rocket launches, talent
shows, family picnics, etc., we seldom get much done until the last
couple of days and the one paid day we have after the year is over.  We
are automated on Dynix, but since last year was the first on the system,
we did just a few collections to see where the bugs were.
New Mexico law requires "an up-to-date" shelf list, so that's one
incentive.  It's also a great time to weed and identify books in the
worst condition.  I often use the inventory time to pull areas of the
collection that need subject analytics them more accessible.

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