Different ways to inventory collections

Sierra, Millennium & Encore
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Hello.

We’re looking at conducting a large-scale inventory for a consortium during the next year. The main goal of this project is to make sure what’s on the shelves matches what’s in the catalog. On my end, I’m not so concerned about the INVDA field being updated.

I know that there is the “classic” method of doing this where the files are uploaded via data exchange and then systems staff update the INVDA (inventory date) field via the Admin Corner.

If you’ve done it this way, what happens to items that are checked out when scanning the shelves? Would the INVDA field not be updated for these items?

This seems like it could become difficult to keep up with this if there is an onslaught of files from dozens and dozens of libraries to be updated by systems staff.

Instead of using the method above, I was considering having staff at each library scan the barcodes into a COUNT USE category not already in use. Then I was thinking about creating a list of items in that collection that don’t have a value in that COUNT USE field/aren’t checked out/billed etc. and they could look for the items/mark them as missing if needed.

Is there anything I’m missing with the latter method? It would be my preference to set this project up in a way that the staff at the member libraries could do this project independently without a need for the systems office to update things in Admin Corner for them.

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@Ann, I’m a little confused by your opening statement “I’m not so concerned about the INVDA field being updated” since the two sentences which follow are devoted to this topic. Do you want to update the Inventory Date field or don’t you?

Are you able to run Python at your library? I can conceive of some automated solutions which would require Python and the Sierra REST API.

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There is also documentation for around 10 past sessions on methods of Sierra inventory on this forum: Search results for 'inventory sierra #conferences-events order:latest' - Innovative Users Group

Maybe a few of those sessions would confirm your process or spark new ideas.

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Hey Ann,
I don’t know much about the COUNT USE categories and what else that might affect as I’ve never set any up. But perhaps you could still use INVDA.
This may or may not work for you depending on how things are setup behind the scenes for Inventory Control and what sort of responsibilities and permissions your library staff have.
We don’t have the Inventory Control function in Admin Corner. We have Circa. I found Circa very unreliable as it would just randomly stop working when staff were scanning the barcodes and lose all of the details so that all the scanning had to be redone. But I found a workaround that doesn’t need Admin Corner:
We can scan barcodes to a text file.
We then Import them into a Create Lists file. (And with recent versions you can download any barcodes that don’t match finding any physical items that are no longer in the catalog - which can also be handy if weeded items sneak back into inventory sometimes)
Use Rapid Update to update the Inventory Date (not Global Update). Your staff would need Rapid Update permission and I’d still do testing to ensure they could update this specific field without Admin permission as I only ever did this as an Admin. If they can’t, maybe iii could even enable this for you in a ticket. You could check.
From there you could do similar Create lists queries to find items in the collection where the inventory date is less than the inventory date you first used and if I recall you may need eliminate blank dates as well.
INVDA would NOT be updated for checked out items but you could further narrow your query to find items with a loan rule > 0 to find checked out items. If you think being checked out counts as in inventory you could update those too, or if not put a note that item was checked out on X date when inventory was done if you want to put your focus on truly missing items.

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Hi all. Thank you for your input and time spent in sharing it!

I can understand why one would wonder why I’m not worried about updating the INVDA field. The main goal of this project is just to make sure that our catalog matches what’s on the shelves as closely as is possible. Most of our libraries haven’t done inventories before, or at least not in current staff’s recollection. If we do this in a way that updates the INVDA field, great, but if it doesn’t get updated and the project still gets done in another way, that’s fine with me too. I don’t think I’d be able to keep up with dozens of libraries sending me dozens of files a day to update in Admin Corner (they do not have access) with a lot of other competing priorities currently.

Bob, at this time, I don’t have the knowledge to use Python, unfortunately. It would be a good idea for future learning, for sure.

Wes, thank you for the comment about the presentations. I consulted them, all the Sierra documentation I could find, and read some of the manuals that generous colleagues at other consortia put on their websites that all may view. The majority use some form of updating the records via Admin Corner. There was an interesting use of Excel in another.

Julie, thank you for your input, too. I need to get Innovative to turn on the system setting to allow me to rapid or global update the INVDA field. The default is that one can’t change it through those types of updating.

After testing today with my office’s professional collection, the way I’ve decided to go forward with this is as follows:

-Using a laptop with wifi to use Sierra Web, library staff will scan each barcode into COUNT USE-COPY USE (I will check each library first to make sure they’re not using this already for something else; the majority of them don’t).

-When that’s done for a location code, then they’ll run a Create List to find all items who have a value of greater than 0 in that code and use that list to search for the missing items (if they wish) and then update their status to missing or withdraw the item as they wish. If the item is found, they’ll scan it into the COPY USE to update the record.

-I could also create a list and do some rapid updating to change the INVDA field for the items that were inventoried.

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