G UIDELINES FOR AN IN - HOUSE INVENTORY PROJECT Collection Maintenance Spring Cleaning: Best Practices Rutgers University, Alexander Library, May 9, 2013 Deborah Pluss, William Paterson University

W HY DO AN INVENTORY ? Accuracy of the holdings in the online catalog We have what we say we have, where we say we have it  Patrons are able to locate materials more quickly  Circulation does fewer traces  Improved ILL operations  Automated statistics are more reliable  Collection development is enhanced

Challenges?  Labor and time intensive  Fiscal constraints  Complex process Advantages of an In-House Inventory  Minimize cost by using current staff  Clean up of problems is done in-house  Local control of all phases of the process

I NVENTORIES IN THE LIBRARY AT W ILLIAM P ATERSON U NIVERSITY Manual inventory—1980’s  Using shelf list cards, clips & post-it notes  Complex clean-up process remained incomplete into the mid-90’s. First Automated inventory—DRA  Catalog automated in late 80’s with CLSI, then migrated to DRA in  Barcodes scanned to a text file/uploaded for processing  Complex clean-up: multiple barcodes, items not found, etc.  DRA’s inventory program did not run in real time

F IRST V OYAGER I NVENTORY 2008  Coordination of scanning, running reports and clean-up done by 2 professional librarians in Bibliographic Services  Scanning done by 36 staff members of the library including professional librarians, support staff and student assistants working in 2 hour shifts  Problem books were pulled in real time. No need to go back to shelves with a report to find them  Reports easily customizable could be run much closer to real time.

Continuous Inventory of the Cheng Library Collections  Reference Collection  Curriculum Materials Collection  Utilizing a web based program  Closer to real time  2 I-Pads: 1 for Circulation and first floor collection, the other for use by Technical Services  Sections are inventoried so that within a 5 year cycle all collections will have been inventoried

Beginning an In-House Inventory GOAL: Check the barcodes on the shelf against what your database says should be there.  Method 1: Printing out a report and using the sheets to compare with what is on the shelf. Making hand written notations  Method 2: Scanning the barcodes into a file or program from which reports can be run  Status exceptions  Location inconsistencies  Barcode unknown  Not on shelf

Tips for a successful in-house inventory  Decide how you will staff the project, e.g. who will do the scanning, clean up, etc.  Meet as a group to go over the entire project so everyone knows no only their part but how it effects others  Set up a system of scanning so that you know exactly where one scanner stopped and the next is to begin  Decide how often reports will be run  Decide when you will work on cleanup… as you go along or wait until the end.

The problem of false positives aka “why does my report show many items “not on shelf” when I find them on the shelf exactly where they should be!” WPU 2008: 255, 263 barcodes scanned Initial report showed 8713 items “not on shelf” Revised report showed items ultimately marked missing  Books can be missed in scanning  Lag time between when a book is cataloged and when it is shelved  Lag time between when a book is returned and when it is shelved  On a table, under a desk, in the bathroom  In a librarians office or Technical Services  Badly miss-shelved, e.g. an HQ shelved in the Q’s  Improperly located, e.g. Reserves, Exhibits, Damaged, etc.

Learning from experience at WPU  Collections are dynamic and library functions continue even during an inventory  Time the inventory when there are fewer patrons and fewer books checked out, e.g. summer  Scanning is NOT the most time consuming part of an inventory… the clean up is!  Select a method or software program that gives you information that is as close as possible to real time  Do a pilot to see how the program works, what the reports look like and any problems that may have been missed.

 Deal with clean up as you go along, e.g. status exceptions go to Circulation, etc.  If there is a problem with a book, have the scanner pull it when it is scanned, e.g. “item not found”, or a damaged binding  Don’t mark books missing right away  Recheck the shelf, other locations, etc.  Recheck in a month  Create a way to mark the books inventory missing  Select a section to inventory if completing an entire collection is impractical.

The benefits of broad staff participation can be enormous  It can bring together people from various areas and levels of the organization, e.g. administrators, librarians, staff & student assistants, many for the first time  Large buy in for the project across all sectors of the library  Significant enhancement in library culture promoting positive interactions and creating a larger sense of community

Final Steps  Run a report of inventory missing titles sorted by call number  Send to Collection Development or appropriate selector  Replace important volumes  Use it as a weeding opportunity  Have a pizza party to celebrate!