Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Inventory Task Force - Another Potential Solution

Hi Folks – I’ve also posted this on the blog

I want to run past what I think the requirements are for inventory – does anyone disagree with these, or have any others to add?

1. Provide a comparison between the scanned barcodes and the items in the catalog for that call number range and identify discrepancies.
2. Support a variety of devices that a library may have available and not require specialized equipment that is used only for inventory. Supported devices should include any device that store barcodes in an ASCII text file which can be transferred to a PC.
3. Allow you to inventory a contiguous range of call numbers of any size.
4. Not require a live wireless connection to the staff network, since this is not available in all places in all libraries. Even if there is wireless coverage in the library, it may not extend to all areas of the stacks.
5. Not require extensive training for staff members conducting the physical scanning or running the reports.
6. Not require a major investment either for the libraries or eiNetwork.

Requirements #4 (wireless) and #6 (cost) eliminate Innovative’s wireless workstation product. I’ve had an opportunity to get feedback on tests of the existing telnet based Millennium Inventory module, and I’m thinking that it doesn’t meet requirement #5 for ease of use. There’s also an issue with requirement #3 because there’s a limit of 5,000 items that can be inventoried at any one time.

I’d like to suggest another potential solution, and that is to develop a small application in MS Access for inventory. This application would import a shelf list that is extracted from a review file, along with a text file of the scanned barcodes. These files could then be used to generate shelf list reports and comparison reports. There would be a standard application, but if a library has staff that works with MS Access, it could easily be customized. I have a prototype of this application available. If anyone would like to try it, please let me know. I would at least like to get you opinion on whether you think this is worth pursuing.

This is a link to the procedure for the prototype

This is a link to all the inventory task force documentation - current recommendation drafts, procedures, inventory procedures at other libraries

Regards

June