Inventorying and Shelf Reading the Collection with Voyager Presenters: Doug Frazier, University Librarian & Ann Fuller, Head of Circulation & ILL Armstrong Atlantic State University May 17, 2007

Where we were

Where we wanted to go

Others who led the way Paul Johnson, Bryan College Shelley Schultz, Kirkwood Community College Richard Palladino, Iona College

Two parts of the project 1.Performing inventory on the collection, presented by Ann Fuller 2.Using inventory scans to find errors in shelving, i.e. shelf reading, presented by Doug Frazier

Inventory method in a nutshell Record what is on the shelf (scan barcodes) List what is supposed to be on the shelf (Microsoft Access query) Flag the discrepancies

Use a handheld scanner Symbol Technologies P460 scanner

Use item statistical categories as flags

Create a file of scanned barcodes

Open a blank Excel worksheet, format the first column as text

Load the barcodes from the scanner

Save the worksheet as a text file

Also save the barcodes as an Excel file for later use

Use Access Reports to create a list of items that should be on the shelf

“Items Not Out” List created by the Access Query

Save the “not out” barcodes

Open Voyager “Pick and Scan” in the Circulation client

Set statistical category to “inventory missing”

Switch to the “items” tab and select the file of “not out” barcodes

The statistical category will be set for each barcode in the file

Next, change the statistical category to “inventory present”

Switch to the “items” tab again and process the scanned barcodes file

The “inventory missing” code is cleared and replaced with “inventory present”

Access query for items flagged “inventory missing”

List of “inventory missing” items

Shelf reading in a nutshell Link shelf-order list of scanned barcodes to Voyager database information Use an Excel function to flag incorrectly shelved items.

Create a local table of item records with call numbers and titles

Make-table Query

Barcodes, Items, Call Numbers, & Titles

Open the Excel file of scanned barcodes, insert a column and number the rows

Insert a row and add column headings

Import the spreadsheet into Access

Choose Excel file type

Use Excel column headings for the Access table field names

Index the number field with no duplicates

Index the item_barcode field

The number will be the key field

Save the table with a descriptive and distinctive name

Create a query with the table you just imported and the main data table

Query the two tables with a left join

Query builder view

Barcodes and related information in scan order

Send the query to Excel

Insert a column labeled ‘status’

Function to check for errors in shelf order

Example shelving errors

Use conditional formatting to highlight problem rows

Problem rows highlighted

Final product

Problems 1.Wouldn’t scale well without some modifications in procedures 2.A lot of manual work is involved that could perhaps be automated 3.Runs of miss-shelved books won’t be labeled as problems except for the first or last book in the run.

Problems (cont.) 4.Time lag between scanning and flagging records may introduce errors.

Miss-shelved item not marked

Bonuses Requires very little training for people doing the scanning More accurate than manual shelf reading Uncovers special kinds of problems

Record and spine label don’t match

Zero used in call number for “O”

Barcode not linked to an item

The End