1. Inventory Control At Hampden-Sydney College Library Toni Hamlett Hampden-Sydney College SIUG November 13, 2008

2. Who We Are Founded in 1775 (10 th oldest college in United States) Private (Affiliated with the Presbyterian Church ) Four-year, independent liberal arts college for men 1340-acre campus 60 miles southwest of Richmond, Virginia Total Enrollment: 1120, Freshmen: 315 Student/Faculty Ratio: 11:1 Residency: 96%

3. About the Library New 86,000 sq. ft. library Opened in August 2007 FTE: 12 (5 Librarians, 7 Para-Professionals) Student Assistants Approximately 250,000 titles, 300,000 Volumes 300 print periodicals Online Electronic Resources

4. Inventory History Last Inventory in 1986 during asbestos abatement 3M Security System obtained in 1991 Innovative Interfaces ILS obtained in 1995 Items bar-coded by students as time permitted or as items were brought to the desk for circulation 44,824 items remained to be barcoded in 2006 Smart barcodes were obtained in 2006 and barcoding completed in 2007.

5. Inventory History (cont.) We moved to the new building Summer 2007 We set up inventory procedures in cataloging and used students to begin the project The project was transferred to the circulation department, and is now handled by the night circulation manager as time permits. Problems are handled in circulation and then forwarded to cataloging as necessary

6. Problems Students made many errors when barcoding –2 barcodes on 1 item record –Barcodes on books but not in item record –2 barcodes on one book (1 inside, 1 outside) –Many books still have no barcodes Smart bar-coding revealed many missing items –Many barcodes were left after students went through the collection placing barcodes on items –After inventory, we will do 1 more search –Mark as missing –Replace or Delete

7. Problems (cont.) Smart bar-coding created many problems –Only Records with no item records were sent to vendor for item/smart barcode creation –If the 300 MARC field showed multiple volumes (12 v.), that was how many item records/smart barcodes were created. Sometimes we did not own all the volumes Catalog record should show how many we did own in a note Students didn’t always notice the problem, leaving barcodes on the sheets that now need to be dealt with. –If the 300 MARC field showed an open volume field ( v.), then only 1 item/smart barcode was created, even though we may have multiple volumes. Students were supposed to bring these other volumes to us to be bar-coded, but may have missed some.

8. Procedures We use Wireless Workstation for our inventory We use a tablet PC and a wireless scanner –HP Compaq TC 4400 Tablet PC –Honeywell 4820 Cordless 2D Image Scanner

9. Procedures Wireless Workstation

10. Procedures (cont.)

17. The inventory date will be placed into INVDA in the item record

18. Procedures (cont.)

19. We work in small call number ranges We create 2 lists when we finish –Missing Items Within location specified Within call number range Do not have inventory date Are not checked out –Items incorrectly shelved in the range. With inventory date specified Are not within call number range inventoried or Are not within location inventoried

20. Missing Items List Call numbers inventoried: AE 25 – BX 9772

21. Missing Items List (cont.) Sort resulting list by call number Look at the catalog/item record for clues Check shelves in other locations where item could possibly be shelved –Shelved in alternate locations –Faded labels –Wrong call numbers on books If not found print out the record and place in a file drawer kept in circulation We have inventoried through the F range and found approximately 300 missing items.

22. Items Incorrectly Shelved

23. Items Incorrectly Shelved (cont.) These items have the inventory date, but the catalog record indicates the location or call number do not match the area inventoried. Sort list by call number Shelf read area you just inventoried to find items

24. Where We Are What We’ve Learned We have not finished the whole collection The clean-up of problems involves many people We need to make this an on-going process It has gone better than we thought it would and has been well worth the trouble