Inventory Commands in Alexandria 5.5.1 and later

This document describes the traditional and new inventory commands available in Alexandria 5.5.1 and later versions. 

Any time a book is scanned or otherwise entered into Alexandria, its Inventory Date is updated.  Books checked in, checked out, bookdropped, inventoried, or scanned for statistical purposes are effectively inventoried.  In this way, Alexandria keeps a running inventory on your collection.  However, we still recommend performing a full collection inventory once a year as described by the ‘Performing Inventory in Alexandria V5'  technote.  To help with your Inventory, Alexandria provides the Inventory and Inventory Bookdrop modes in all Alexandria versions.  Alexandria 5.5.1, however, introduces the Inventory Suppressed and Inventory Bookdrop Suppressed modes to make performing an inventory with a wireless scanner or remote method faster and easier.

The Inventory (I) mode will update the Inventory Date for each copy that is scanned.  This mode does not change the circulation status of a book and is designed to inventory books that need to remain checked out, On Repair, or in another such state.  The Inventory Suppressed (IS) mode available in 5.5.1 and later, functions exactly the same as the Inventory (I) mode, but suppresses any dialog boxes that would normally pop up.  For instance, if the Alexandria record for a particular book had a Copy Alert Note of ‘For Library Use Only!' and that book was scanned in Inventory (I) mode, a dialog box would come up immediately with the ‘For Library Use Only!' message which would force you to click the OK button before continuing inventory.  With the Inventory Suppressed (IS) mode, a Copy Alert Note or other dialog boxes will not come up and you would not have to click ‘OK' before continuing inventory.  A message will appear in the transaction log, but the dialog box is suppressed.

Inventory Bookdrop (IB) mode updates the Inventory Date for each book that is scanned and checks the book back in if it was not available.  This means that In-stock holds may be cleared or could skip a person in the hold queue and lost items would be found and made available.  We recommend using the Inventory Bookdrop (IB) mode and/or the Inventory Bookdrop Suppressed (IBS) mode when performing an inventory after all books have been returned.  As with the Inventory (I) mode, the Inventory Bookdrop (IB) mode will allow dialog boxes to pop up and require you to click something to clear the message.  The Inventory Bookdrop Suppressed (IBS) mode, available in 5.5.1 and later, prevents those dialog boxes from coming up.  However, because both the Inventory Bookdrop (IB) and Inventory Bookdrop Suppressed (IBS) modes check items in if they are not available, there is the potential that a fine may need to be processed or forgiven for a book.  Therefore, if you scan in a book in the Inventory Bookdrop Suppressed (IBS) mode that is overdue at the time of the inventory, Alexandria will assign the fine to the patron.  If the fine should have been forgiven, you will have to look up the student and remove the fine manually.

Alexandria 5.5.1 and later also includes an enhancement to the +++ command.  The normal +++ command in the Circulation window will print out the last 1000 entries in the log file. You can use a +++e command to print out exceptions in the transaction log.  Exceptions are events that would normally either require user interaction (assessing a fine, clearing a dialog box) or an item was scanned out of Call Number order (as denoted by a double question mark in the log).  Prior to starting Inventory, you should set Alexandria to archive your Log file every day.  This can be done by clicking on Edit, then Preferences.  Change ‘Library Information' to Circulation and ‘Local' to Global.  The Transaction Log Save Frequency should be set to Daily.  At the end of your inventory, you can run a +++e [date] command to print out a list of items that generated an exception and check them.  For instance, if you started your inventory on June 5, 2006 and finished on June 9, 2006, you can enter in the command ‘+++e 6/5/2006:6/9/2006' to get a list of all the exceptions generated during inventory that you should double-check.

In conclusion, we recommend using the Inventory Suppressed (IS) and Inventory Bookdrop Suppressed (IBS) modes in Alexandria 5.5.1 and later if you are using a wireless scanner, a scanner with a long cord, or are otherwise entering in books away from a system running Alexandria.  We also recommend running the Exceptions report using the +++e command periodically in order to check your work.  For additional questions or concerns, please contact our Technical Support department at 1-800-347-4942.