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Kaaren's Corner
By Kaaren Linton, Librarian/Alexandria Trainer
Inventory Time and Help Is Here!
Inventory time is fast approaching. Wouldn't you just love to have some help? Alexandria v6 has a wonderful tool called Inventory Helper that should make doing inventory a much simpler process by providing convenient access to all of the reporting and utility tools needed to analyze and organize your collection.
With Inventory Helper, you can pause at any time and, when you resume, Alexandria will be ready for you to begin again where you left off; the Inventory Helper window remembers what tab was displayed, and when the window is closed. That tab is restored when the window is opened again.
You will need to login to Alexandria to have access to all areas of Inventory Helper. To access Inventory Helper, go to Tools on the menu bar. You will notice that there are numbered tabs across the top that relate to the steps/stages that you go through when performing inventory. Each tab has on-screen information that walks you through the inventory process and will give novices the confidence to conduct the inventory process.
Begin Inventory Tab
The Begin Inventory tab is just an introduction to Inventory Helper and instructs you to click on the Inventory Settings tab to establish your settings for the inventory.
Inventory Settings Tab
The Inventory Settings tab is used for identifying the areas to be inventoried. This is wonderful because you can select any size call number range. For instance, I might want to inventory my Fiction collection every February instead of waiting until the end of the school year to inventory it. I would select the range beginning with Fic A and ending with Fic Z. If you are in a Central Union system, you would also select your library from the Site Code drop-down window. By also setting the Copy Policy drop-down menu to the appropriate policy, I can identify any items that have been assigned to the wrong policy within the selected call number range. In the case of the example, I would choose Fiction, and any items with a fiction call number, but assigned the wrong policy will be flagged in the exceptions. New is the Ignore Call Number Order checkbox that will keep Alexandria from telling you in the log about all copies that are not in the correct call number order when they are scanned. Of course, if you intend to inventory your entire collection, or are a single site library ,or are not concerned with a particular item policy, you can leave these settings at their defaults. Leaving the call number range blank will indicate to Alexandria that you intend to inventory all call number areas and all collections.
Next, define the inventory mode you want to use. You may select from the following options: Inventory, Inventory Bookdrop (default), Inventory Suppressed, or Inventory Bookdrop Suppressed. You can change modes at any time during an inventory session.
The primary difference between the Inventory and Inventory Bookdrop modes are that Inventory mode will not change a copies status, where as Inventory Bookdrop mode will check in items that are not already available when scanned. The suppressed modes are variations of these primary inventory modes with message windows being suppressed. This can be helpful when working away from the station via wireless scanner where responding to queries or other dialogues is impractical.
Clicking the Reset Inventory button will start a new session.
Just a word of caution, verify that the settings in this window match your intentions before scanning any items. Once they are set, you will need to complete this session before you will be able to change them. Any items that do not match the criteria that you have set will cause Alexandria to flag them so you may print a list of the exceptions encountered during the inventory and deal with those items.
Once you have confirmed your settings, click Begin Inventory, located on the bottom-right of the tab. The Inventory Helper window will then display the date this process began at the top of the window and record it as the inventory date for all scanned items. For analysis purposes, an item with any date on or after this date is considered inventoried.
Scan Items Tab
In this step, you will scan or enter barcodes in the Scan Barcode field to inventory copies. You may also drag a script of barcodes here; if necessary, the Import Transaction Script may be enabled.
You may click between the Scan Items and Review tabs at any time to examine the inventory progress and run inventory-specific reports. If an item is scanned outside of the specified call number range or policy you indicated, you will be alerted; although this doesn't happen often, it does happen. If you are part of a Central Union library, items inventoried that belong to other libraries will be put In Transit to correct library.
After you have completed scanning all of the items in the defined area, you will find the tools necessary to successfully complete the inventory under the Finish tab.
Review Tab
The Review tab is used to review inventory progress and compare current results with expected results. In other words, this tab allows you to see what has been inventoried, what might have been missed and other useful data to help you determine the current status of your inventory scan.
Not only will you be able to see how many copies are in the selected range, how many were inventoried, how many not inventoried, but you will also be able to see how many lost or checked out copies were inventoried, how many from other libraries (if in a central union system) and how many were either out of call number order or call number range. In addition, there are links to generate the reports that will give you the copy/title information associated with the statistics.
Finish Tab
Once you have completed scanning all of the items for this inventory and are satisfied with the results, you will want to finish this inventory by running any final reports that may be needed and handle missing items. Select the appropriate options on the Finish tab and click on the Finish Inventory and Clear All Settings button to complete this inventory session. Based on your selections, Alexandria will prepare final reports and perform the required utilities. You can view these reports on the Review tab if you do not want to clear all settings at this time. Please be warned that all inventory settings will be cleared if you click on Finish Inventory and Clear All Settings. Copies will still be inventoried but the scanned items list will be cleared along with the inventory settings.
The Check missing items from the selection specified to the patron specified action will allow you to easily set missing copies to Lost..If you select All instead of Available from the first drop-down menu, then all copies not inventoried including those that are currently checked out will be set to Lost, so the default setting of Available is probably the best option since that will only set items that have a status of Available (should be on your shelves) but were not inventoried to Lost.
So, that's Inventory Helper in a nutshell. I think you'll agree that while we couldn't quite give you another pair of hands to do inventory, this helper is almost as good!
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