I didn't plan to join in this discussion, but I found that a good reason for doing
an inventory is to be able to provide the needed statistics for accreditation
reports, beg the board for money reports, and win teachers over providing the best
materials you can collaborations.
Both Follet and Sagebrush have wonderful tools to help with collection analysis.
You can determine the age of your collection, you can easily pull out titles that
complement your curriculum, you can justify asking for 10 times your normal budget
because you still have books that talk about when man gets to the moon (the first
time).
I don't close my center. I can't I teach up until the last day of school :(. I do
call for my books 10 days before the end of school. We have a handheld scanner we
use to scan the books one section at a time. It saves me from having to hunt for
that fiction book in the biographies, because the computer tells me it is there.
My administration has never asked any more about my collection other than if we
have 10 books per child. They wouldn't care if we had 4,000 copies of the same
title, as long as we had it. I use inventory as a tool to check the book
condition, where the holes are, and what is really being used. If two books stick
together on the shelf and there is no gum between them, then they probably need to
be weeded since no one is using them.
Sorry, this turned into a mini rant. I inventory for me. I am better acquainted
with my collection because of doing this "clerical" task. I like being what the
kids call a "walking catalog".
Heidi Lewis
School Library Media Specialist
Guinyard-Butler Middle School
779 Allen Street
Barnwell, SC 29812
(803) 541-1382
(803) 541-1306 - fax
"There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes". - Dr. Who
>>> Joanne Shawhan <jshawhan@NYCAP.RR.COM> 04/21/06 1:54 PM >>>
Dear Everyone,
I think an annual inventory is very useful. I, my aide and whatever other help we
can get scan all the books (currently about 15,000) every year. Since NY schools
go to the end of June, we start our inventory around Memorial Day. We work around
the kids, since our library only closes for testing and the hand-held scanner beeps
too much to use while there is testing.
Why do we go to so much trouble:
1) It keeps our OPAC accurate. Our students expect a book to be there if it says
"on the shelf".
2) It points up misshelved books. We only care about seriously misshelved ones,
like fiction in the biography section, but we get enough of those.
3) It shows which books have cataloging problems, like missing item types and
collection codes, that need fixing.
4) I use it for the following year's ordering. If our only copy of a book turns up
missing, I try to order it.
5) I like to see how well our security system is working, since I had to do a lot
of work to convince the District to buy it. The fewer missing books the better.
I hope this helps,
Joanne
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Joanne Shawhan
Library Media Specialist
Cobleskill-Richmondville High School
1353 State Route 7--PO Box 490
Richmondville NY 12149
(518)234-3565 x1151, 1152
(518) 234-9006 (fax)
jshawhan@nycap.rr.com
shawhanj@crcs.k12.ny.us
http://www.crcs.k12.ny.us/lib/hs/index.htm
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