Tip of the Week

Tip for: 03.24.03

Video clip demonstrating Inventory Reports in v5.44 (Quicktime required)

Inventory Reports

To continue our tips about inventory, this week I would like to discuss Inventory Reports. There are four different formats that can be run. They are Inventoried Items, Not Inventoried Items, Lost Items Inventoried, and Inventory Statistics Summary.

To Run Inventory Reports:

• Select Item Reports from the Reports drop-down menu.
• Using the Report Name drop-down menu, choose Inventory.
• Under Format, select the format of the report you wish to run.
• The Sort By menu can be used to select the order you would like items to appear.
  (We suggest leaving it on Copy Call Number.)
• Select By defaults to Inventory Date with a default range of one month. The dates can be changed to indicate the actual dates the inventory was done. This option is selected by default because of the fact that Alexandria is constantly doing an inventory and a date range is needed for the report to determine what was and was not inventoried. We recommend that because Alexandria is constantly doing an inventory when items are checked in or out that the end date always be today's date, otherwise items that have recently checked in or out will be excluded from the report.
• If other selection criteria are desired (i.e. copy call number or copy status), then click on the No Selection button and use the resulting drop-down menu, labeled Accession Date, to select the desired criteria.
• After indicating all of the desired selection criteria, click on Print.
• The report will print to screen.
• Once you have verified that the report looks the way you would like, select Print from the File menu to send it to the printer.

The Inventoried Items report shows a list of items that were scanned during the date range indicated - whether in inventory, inventory / bookdrop, check in / out, or bookdrop mode. The Not Inventoried Items report indicates items that were not scanned during the specified dates. Lost items that were scanned during the dates selected will show up on the Lost Items Inventoried report. For a summary of the number of items that were Inventoried, Not Inventoried, and Lost Items Inventoried, select the Inventory Statistic Summary report.

Inventory reports can be used for retrieving information other than just inventory statistics and lists. Before doing an inventory, you could use the Not Inventory Items report with a date range since the last inventory to get a list of items that haven't been checked out for a while. This can be a good place to start when deciding what items might need to be weeded from your collection or just need to be promoted.