Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Rae's March Blog

Part II:
You’ve gathered the low-hanging fruit and tossed the sour milk. Now what?

Get your inventory game-plan started. Determine which section to start with and how long it will take. Smaller sections allow a bit more flexibility when you are interrupted through the process. Perhaps you can start with the 000-300’s. And remember you can do a shelf or two a day.

Inventory-Get'r Done!

Hints:

Be sure to use the Copy Call No range, it will be the easiest way to get a complete inventory.
Scan over the course of several days, if needed. You can always stop scanning and come back later to begin scanning again. Just use the top drop down menu to find the inventory you are working on to resume.
If you are Importing from a list, the missing items report will include books with invalid barcodes.

How-To:

1. Initialize Library System - It will ask you to name the inventory when you click Initialize Library System. Be descriptive enough to know what section you are inventorying.

2. Attach a barcode reader to your laptop and make sure the cursor is in the Scan Copy Barcode box. Start scanning. The books will show up in the list below.

3. When you have finished scanning the section* you’ll want to Finalize the Inventory by changing all unscanned items to missing. You will sleuth out the missing items next.

Do not do Step 4. It is an optional step that doesn’t work well for our district.

Troubleshooting the Inventory Process

1. Gah! Invalid barcodes or barcode not in range: what to do?

If you are scanning your inventory in Insignia (there is the option of importing a list of scanned items. Troubleshooting a scanned list will be more difficult) this is your opportunity to really make sure your data matches your shelves. When a barcode comes up invalid, open the Find/Add window. Then try these:

Try typing the barcode number instead of using the barcode reader. If that works, you might need to reprint the label. Now type the barcode into Inventory.
Type in the title. If it returns the title without a copy attached, maybe this copy has already been deleted. If you are keeping the copy, add it back in as a new copy, but use the already attached barcode.
Take a look at the Material Type, or Collection Type of the title. Perhaps the copy is attached to the wrong title. You can relink the copy to the correct title. For example: a print copy of Little Women is attached to the DVD version with the same title.
If the barcode is one of the old 6 digit codes, you might need to type “3 + school code + the old barcode” into the inventory window to get it to “read.” See this list for school codes, add zeroes in the middle as needed to make 14 digits.
Let Rae know if you have any other situations that aren’t covered here. Screenshots in an email are very helpful.

2. Grrr! The Find/Add search results show titles that I've weeded!

The Find/Add window will show titles with no copies. The reasons are various, but include: the title was originally cataloged in your library, you once owned a copy and now you don't. Don't worry about these.

Titles are held at the district level. Other schools may have copies attached to those titles. I know it's frustrating to think you've weeded yet still see these titles in a Find/Add search. The Find/Add window is geared toward cataloging: adding new books to existing titles, etc.
To see what you have on your shelves (or rather, what Insignia thinks you have on your shelves) use the Search feature. Then use the filters on the right to narrow the search down if needed. These search results will tell you at a glance what copies are In, Out, or Reserved.

Reconciling the Inventory

After Inventory is finalized for each section, you’ll want to run some reports. The Missing Items list from Inventory (or Report>Reports>Catalog>Inventory - Missing Items) allows you to track down missing books to determine whether they are really lost. If you find missing books, be sure to change their Copy Status in Insignia to “In” or if they are lost, change status to "Lost" or “To Be Deleted.”

Weeding in Earnest

The Least Circulated report is popular for weeding. It will list titles of books under a certain number of circulations within a chosen timeframe. (Report>Reports>Circulation>Least Circulated Items) It is easy to print off this list and hand it to a trusted helper to pull books for your review at a later time. Be sure to “Order By: Copy Call No” for quicker work (at the bottom left of the report window).
Consult the MUSTIE
Delete weeded items from Insignia

Use the Comments section below to reflect on these questions:

How’s the collection looking now?
Are you ready to develop the collection plan?
How will you market your collection using the space you’ve gained from weeding?

Resources

Professional Development titles in the OverDrive Teacher's Lounge

Inventory

Weeding and Deleting

Shipping label

Collection development

Collection Development PLC

BVSD Materials Selection Policy

Monday, January 30, 2017

Rae's January Blog

Part 1 Inventory Prep: Weeding as a First Pass

As BVSD's Bond and Innovation work progresses, many libraries will be undergoing remodels and renovation to create more open, flexible, and participatory spaces. Library collection sizes and shelving will be reduced to accommodate new library layouts. So, how do we prepare to reduce the size of our collections while maintaining its relevance and appeal? Think of it this way, where we used to have a large, rambling garden to tend, we will now garden by the square foot. A square foot garden has the potential to produce a huge amount of vegetables in 20% of the traditional gardening space but only if it’s curated mindfully. Mindful gardening means regular and continuous weeding of the square foot plots to ensure the plants are not crowded out by thistle, dandelions, and bindweed. Mindful collection development of the library includes regular, continuous, de-selection of the weeds!

Low Hanging Fruit

Before you start a formal inventory, conduct a quick weeding first pass. Use the Find/Add feature within Insignia and look for following Material Types; magazines, DVDs, Maps, equipment, etc. These are the large, conspicuous, and obvious weeds in your garden-the low hanging fruit. A Material Type search will also yield items you may not even realize have been cataloged. For example, Insignia searches have found AlphaSmarts, TV’s, and filmstrips in collections. Delete these items from the catalog if they are truly no longer in the collection. If these resources are in fact in your collection (occupying shelf or storage space), determine if they still provide value to your patrons or are they obsolete and can be weeded. If you are keeping these items, run an inventory on them and make sure the database and the physical item counts match.

Fuzzy Food

Weeding can be a daunting task. It takes bravery to determine the fate of a book that is still in good shape but rarely circulated, was donated by a much loved and long-retired teacher, or was your favorite title as a child. The thing to hold in mind while weeding is that a school library needs to be refreshed regularly to remain relevant and appealing to patrons. Books per student is no longer an applicable measure of a good library. The Colorado Department of Education's Highly Effective School Library Program no longer includes books per student on their evaluation rubric. The new program focuses on the quality and relevancy of the collection, not collection quantity. It's no longer about having enough books per student but having the right resources for your students.

Weeding your the collection is sort of like cleaning out the fridge. A full fridge with old lunch meat and moldy applesauce is not appealing. Who wants to browse a fridge that has fuzzy food in it, even if there’s good food among the fuzzy food? Students and staff may be put off by crowded, outdated, unappealing, and damaged books. Check out this fun blog post Crying over spilled milk, by Gail Dickinson, that summarizes this analogy beautifully.

BVSD Policy for deselecting library materials relies on the CREW Method: Continuous Review, Evaluation, and Weeding.

The CREW method relies on the MUSTIE acronym to help you identify when an item should be considered for weeding.

Misleading and/or factually inaccurate;
Ugly (worn out beyond mending or rebinding);
Superseded by a new edition or a better source;
Trivial (of no discernible literary or scientific merit);
Irrelevant to the needs and interests of your community;
Elsewhere (the material may be easily borrowed from another source).

Combine MUSTIE criteria with a formula for pulling books based on age and number of years it has been since it was last circulated. Here's the formula:

5/2/MUSTIE

5 = the age limit of relevancy for that Dewey classification

2 = If it has been two years since it has been checked out, then the MUSTIE criteria for weeding.

This formula isn't written in stone but it can serve as a guideline for you to apply to a Least Circulated Items report for Fiction, Everybody, and non-Dewey collections, and the Items To Be Weeded report from a collection analysis (from Makin or Follett) to develop a weeding plan.

Try it! Armed with the MUSTIE criteria pick a shelf and start pulling a books and use the process outlined in Best Practices: Deselected Library Materials to box up weeds for warehouse pick up. Remember, you'll need to delete all weeded books from Insignia to keep the database accurate, it'll help Inventory go smoothly as well.

Share data from reports and the MUSTIE formula with trusted aides or parent volunteers and assign them a shelf, section, or Dewey category range, and let them take a first pass at pulling potential weeds. You will make the final decision as to whether or not a resource is deselected but recruiting help will speed the process of picking the low hanging fruit.

Be sure and review the resources listed below that can aide you in the process of collection development and maintenance. The three titles highlighted below are all available in the OverDrive Teacher's Lounge Professional Development Collection. The Crash Course title is particularly timely and helpful.

Next month's blog will dive into the Inventory process. Inventory will be less frustrating after you've taken care of that low hanging fruit! Feel free to comment below about the treasures you've found, the bloopers you've weeded, and any other tips and tricks you'd like to share about weeding.