1. 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

2. Where we were

3. Where we wanted to go

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

5. 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

6. 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

7. Use a handheld scanner Symbol Technologies P460 scanner

8. Use item statistical categories as flags

9. Create a file of scanned barcodes

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

11. Load the barcodes from the scanner

12. Save the worksheet as a text file

13. Also save the barcodes as an Excel file for later use

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

15. “Items Not Out” List created by the Access Query

16. Save the “not out” barcodes

17. Open Voyager “Pick and Scan” in the Circulation client

18. Set statistical category to “inventory missing”

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

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

21. Next, change the statistical category to “inventory present”

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

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

24. Access query for items flagged “inventory missing”

25. List of “inventory missing” items

26. 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.

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

28. Make-table Query

29. Barcodes, Items, Call Numbers, & Titles

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

31. Insert a row and add column headings

32. Import the spreadsheet into Access

33. Choose Excel file type

34. Use Excel column headings for the Access table field names

35. Index the number field with no duplicates

36. Index the item_barcode field

37. The number will be the key field

38. Save the table with a descriptive and distinctive name

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

40. Query the two tables with a left join

41. Query builder view

42. Barcodes and related information in scan order

43. Send the query to Excel

44. Insert a column labeled ‘status’

45. Function to check for errors in shelf order

46. Example shelving errors

47. Use conditional formatting to highlight problem rows

48. Problem rows highlighted

49. Final product

50. 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.

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

52. Miss-shelved item not marked

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

54. Record and spine label don’t match

55. Zero used in call number for “O”

56. Barcode not linked to an item

57. The End