[LM_NET] SHARE: End of year inventory

[R Hermans <rhermans@SHAW.CA>]

To Lori and others thinking about inventory,

The time depends on the size of your collection and the number of 
volunteers you have doing it.

Years ago, before the collection was automated, we managed to inventory a 
collection of around 6,000 books in three days, but I had parents working 
in teams. Those were the days of using Shelf cards. Ugh. Of course we 
didn't have time to hunt for any missing books at that time.

If you have a hand held scanner you don't have to wait until the end of the 
year. It's easier to inventory the library in sections. I use to start in 
March and have a volunteer scan all the reference books and special 
collections of the library. Books that are signed out at the time are 
counted as being inventoried. A scanner makes it easy to spread the task 
out over the year so the job can be done when you're less busy. Most of the 
schools in Chilliwack are using the Alexandria automation system from 
COMPanion Corporation. You can check out their scanners at 
www.goalexander.com.  I thing they could be used for other systems.

If you're doing inventory for the first time, I recommend putting the 
computer on a cart and closing the library for a couple of days. You need 
to see the titles come up as you're scanning them. This way you'll find 
mistakes in cataloging. I'm guessing this has never been done in the 
library I moved to last winter. I just scanned a dog book the other day and 
the title came up as a book about autism!

So the initial job can be done in a couple of days if you can close the 
library. Tracking down the missing books is another story.
Good Luck.
Randi



At 04:57 AM 4/21/2006, you wrote:
>I, too, am a brand new librarian and need to do an inventory soon.  Does 
>anyone have any advice about how long this will take?  I need to figure 
>out when to start it.  Also, I have a hand held scanner.  I am aware that 
>I can use it to do this inventory, but, having never done one before, I 
>don't know how to use it to do this...  I would also appreciate some 
>advice on that.
>
>Lori Feldstein-Gardner
>School Library Teacher
>The Hewitt School
>New York, NY
>lfeldstein@hewittschool.org

Randi Louise Hermans
BCTLA Vice President
Teacher-librarian
Evans Elementary K-6
Chilliwack, B.C., Canada
rhermans@shaw.ca

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