Destiny Inventory Guide Conducting a Library Media Collection Inventory Library Media Education Department, Cobb County School District http://www.cobbk12.org/librarymedia/destiny/inventory/ Updated May 2012, Destiny 9.9
Table of Contents Why Conduct a Collection Inventory?... 2 Preparing for Inventory... 3 Preparing Yourself... 3 Preparing Your Faculty & Students... 3 Preparing Your Collection... 4 Preparing Your Software... 4 Print Preliminary Reports... 4 Clear Out Old Inventories... 4 Set Up a New Full Inventory for the Current Year... 5 Set Up Inventory Sections... 6 Preparing Your Hardware... 7 Accounting for Items in your Collection... 8 Understanding Inventory Status... 8 Scan, Hunt, Finalize, Repeat... 9 Scan Items into Inventory... 9 What the [Beep]?... 10 Reviewing Your Progress in a Section... 12 Looking for Missing Items... 13 Finalizing a Section Inventory... 14 Reviewing Your Overall Inventory Progress... 15 List In-Progress Inventories... 15 View Full Inventory Progress Details... 15 Completing the Inventory Process... 16 Review Remaining Unaccounted For Items... 16 Finalize the Full Inventory... 16 Inventory Wrap Up... 17 Celebrate!... 17 CCSD Destiny Inventory Guide May 2012 Page 1 of 17
Why Conduct a Collection Inventory? Inventory. The systematic process of ensuring that every item in your Destiny database is accounted for (and that every item on your shelves is in the database) probably everyone s least favorite part of being a library media specialist. Why would you take time away from your student-centered library media program to do such a collection-centered chore? Sure, it s required by board policy (Admin Rule IFBC-R) to conduct a full inventory every other year, but performing a regular collection inventory also has a number of direct and indirect benefits for students and staff: Inventory Makes Your Collection More Accessible Identifying lost items makes Destiny catalog searches more accurate. Adding uncataloged items makes them accessible through Destiny. Finding mis-shelved items makes them available again. Inventory Makes Your Collection Better Identifying lost items lets you know what replacement items need to be purchased. Identifying patterns of loss can suggest changes that need to be made in terms of purchasing, circulation policies, patron privacy, etc. Handling each item helps identify copies that need to be discarded or re-cataloged and makes you more familiar with the collection. Inventory Helps Build Trust and Support for Your Program Maintaining accurate records of your holdings allows you to show that you have been a good steward of the public funding used to purchase materials. Responsible use of past funding helps ensure future funding! CCSD Destiny Inventory Guide May 2012 Page 2 of 17
Preparing for Inventory Before beginning the actual inventory process, there are significant preparations that need to be made. Preparing Yourself Read this document in its entirety. Review the documentation and training videos on the Follett Software web site. o Go to http://www.follettsoftware.com/, create an account, and log in. o Locate the Inventory Resource Center for Destiny Library Manager. Review the Inventory items in Destiny Help: o Online Help: Conducting a library or district media center inventory. o Online Help: Starting a library or district media center inventory. o Online Help: Inventory reports for the library or district media center. o On-Screen Help: How do I conduct an inventory at my library or district media center? Contact Follett Technical Support if you have specific questions. Preparing Your Faculty & Students Develop a draft inventory plan and timeline. o o o Decide whether you will conduct a complete inventory or a partial inventory. (Full inventory is required every two years. It s also best to conduct a full inventory just before and just after any major changes to your collection, including moving or rearranging.) Determine when to perform the inventory. You don t have to close circulation or have all items returned, but you (and your parapro) do need to be able to focus fully on the task for several consecutive days. Find a time when demand for library media resources and services are lowest. Many schools perform inventory during CRCT testing. Some high schools on block schedule do inventory during final exam week of the first semester (December). Be sure to consider the availability of your parapro, student helpers, and volunteers. If your library media center will be moved or renovated during the summer, be sure to allow time for packing up the collection and other tasks that must be completed before the end of the year. Develop a timeline for the major tasks of inventory, including Time for initial preparations and setup Which sections will be scanned when, and by whom Time to search for missing items and finalize inventory CCSD Destiny Inventory Guide May 2012 Page 3 of 17
Meet with your administration and your library media committee. Make sure they understand that performing a collection inventory is both required and why it is beneficial (see above). Review your draft plan and timeline with them, and adjust as necessary based on their feedback. Communicate the plan to students and staff well in advance. Make sure they understand that performing a collection inventory is both required and why it is beneficial (see above), and make sure everyone understands that access to resources and services will be limited while you are conducting inventory. Preparing Your Collection Before beginning inventory, it is best to tidy up the collection a bit: Review the Destiny Collection Summary Report and look for any call number prefixes that might need clean-up before inventory begins. Verify that all ebooks have the EBOOK call number prefix. Import records for any book orders that have arrived and shelve the items. Reshelve items that are in promotional displays Reshelve reserves or other items that no longer need to be pulled out. Straighten up shelves as needed. Preparing Your Software There are a number of tasks that must be done in Destiny before you begin scanning items. These tasks can be done well in advance, but they should be completed in the order listed below. Print Preliminary Reports Collection Statistics Summary: Reports > Library > Statistics > Collection Statistics Summary > Printable Library Statistics Snapshot: Reports > Library > Statistics > Library Statistics > Printable Clear Out Old Inventories Go to the Inventory Screen in Destiny and make sure that there are no unfinalized inventories still from previous years. 1. Go to Back Office > Inventory > View In Progress and Competed Inventories > In Progress 2. If you find any inventories in progress, finalize them, and choose the option to ignore items that are unaccounted for (do not mark them lost ). CCSD Destiny Inventory Guide May 2012 Page 4 of 17
Delete any old completed inventories. 1. Go to Back Office > Inventory > View In Progress and Competed Inventories > Completed 2. Make a note of the date of your schools last inventory. 3. Click Remove to delete any old completed inventories any that are older than the previous school year. Set Up a New Full Inventory for the Current Year Destiny allows you to divide your inventory into sections for easier organization and management. In order to take advantage of this feature, you must set up a Full inventory, then create individual section inventories with it. Even if you are not conducting a complete inventory of your collection, you still begin by setting up a Full inventory in Destiny. 1. Go to Back Office > Inventory and click Start New. 2. Type an inventory name that identifies the type of inventory and date (e.g., Full April 2010 ) 3. Leave Call Numbers from selection open so all media center items will be included. 4. Verify that the current date is entered beside Except for copies that have been seen on or after. Full Inventory March 2009 CCSD Destiny Inventory Guide May 2012 Page 5 of 17
Set Up Inventory Sections After setting up your Full inventory, the next step is to create individual section inventories with it. (Items scanned during the section inventories will also be counted toward the Full inventory.) 1. Make sure that the Full Inventory has been set up as instructed in the previous section. 2. Print a copy of your Collection Statistics Summary report, if you do not already have one. This will provide you a list of all the sections that need to be included. 3. To create a section, go to Back Office > Inventory and click Start New. 4. Type an inventory name that clearly identifies the section and date (e.g., Professional April 2010, Nonfiction 500s April 2012 ) 5. Enter the call numbers/prefixes to identify the section being inventoried. For call numbers with a prefix (e.g., PRO), enter the same (complete) prefix in both boxes. For Dewey call numbers, enter the first three digits of the beginning call numbers and all six digits of the ending call number (e.g., Call Numbers from 000 to 299.999). 6. Verify that the current date is entered beside Except for copies that have been seen on or after 7. Repeat the steps above for every section of your collection that you plan to inventory. CCSD Destiny Inventory Guide May 2012 Page 6 of 17
Preparing Your Hardware The best way to scan items into Destiny during inventory is to create a mobile inventory workstation, consisting of the following items: One AV Cart One CCSD wireless laptop (with fully charged battery) One Destiny barcode scanner Post-it notes Pencils/pens Optional: headphones Place the laptop on the top of the cart, and plug in the scanner to a USB port. Verify that the laptop can log in and access Destiny wirelessly, and verify that the audio output is working and not muted. If you wish to use them, plug the headphones into the headphone jack of the laptop. When more than one person is working on a school s inventory, it is helpful to have a mobile inventory station for each person. (Extra scanners can be borrowed from the LME department. Contact Beverly Myers for details.) CCSD Destiny Inventory Guide May 2012 Page 7 of 17
Accounting for Items in your Collection Understanding Inventory Status The most laborious part of performing a collection inventory is accounting for each item in the collection. For most items, this means scanning their barcodes individually. Fortunately, some items are accounted for automatically, based on their circulation status. It s important to understand that in Destiny, each item has both a circulation status and an inventory status, and the relationship between the two can seem confusing, at first. Circulation status can be one of several different values, such Available, Checked Out, or Out for Repairs but Inventory status is either Accounted For or Unaccounted For. In one sense, inventory is the process of verifying the circulation status of every item. An item is Accounted For once its circulation status has been confirmed. For items with a circulation status of Available, this must be confirmed by scanning the barcodes of the items on the shelf and making sure they are, in fact, available. Fortunately, if an item s circulation status tells Destiny that it is not physically in your library, it automatically gives it an inventory status of Accounted For. You don t have to scan the item. This is a great feature, but it can seem counterintuitive at first. For example: When the inventory is started, all items that are checked out are automatically given an Accounted For status in inventory. (Even though the items are not physically in your library media center, they are accounted for in terms of inventory. Destiny doesn t expect these items to be scanned.) Lost is a circulation status, not an inventory status. Even more confusing is that an item with a circulation status of Lost automatically has an inventory status of Accounted For! (If an item was marked Lost through circulation or a previous inventory, Destiny knows not to expect that it will be scanned.) Another wonderful feature of the Destiny inventory system is that if an item is scanned at any time during inventory, it automatically updates the circulation status and the inventory status: If a book is checked in or out at the circulation desk, Destiny marks it as Accounted For in inventory. If a Lost or Checked Out book is scanned during inventory, Destiny will change its circulation status to Available and its inventory status to Accounted For. Confused yet? CCSD Destiny Inventory Guide May 2012 Page 8 of 17
Scan, Hunt, Finalize, Repeat The process of accounting for the Available items in your collection can be summarized as Scan, Hunt, Finalize, Repeat. 1. Scan the items on the shelves in each inventory section 2. Hunt for the items in that section that are still unaccounted for after scanning 3. Finalize the section inventory, marking the missing items lost 4. Repeat for each section in your inventory It is possible for one person to begin scanning a new section while another is still hunting and finalizing an earlier section stared earlier. However, it is best not to have more than a couple of sections in progress at any one time. The following sections explain this process in greater detail. Scan Items into Inventory After weeks of preparation, the time has come to start scanning the items in your collection! You have followed all the steps above to set up the new inventory in Destiny, and you have assembled one or more mobile inventory carts and maybe recruited a helper or two. Time for the fun to begin! 1. Get your mobile inventory cart ready to scan. a. Log in to Destiny, go to Back Office > Inventory. b. Use the drop-down menu to choose the section you wish to work on. c. If you want Destiny to check the order of items as you scan them, check the box for Check Shelf Order. (You may wish to turn this on or off and adjust the setting differently for scanning different sections of your collection. You can adjust the settings in Back Office > Site Configuration.) d. Finally, click in the text box beside Scan or enter one-at-a-time to make sure that the cursor is in this box and ready to begin scanning. 2. Begin scanning the item barcodes using the barcode scanner. Verify that the items appear in the Most Recently Accounted For list, and listen for the all-important beeps described below. CCSD Destiny Inventory Guide May 2012 Page 9 of 17
Scanning Tips: Scan items in the order that they are shelved to avoid missing any items. Start with the first item on the first shelf in the section you are inventorying, and work your way through in order. If you are starting a new section, make a note of where you are starting on the inventory log sheet. If you are interupted or you need to stop for any reason, turn the book you are on spine down on the shelf. Don t take your hand off of it until you have turned it spine down. If you need to step away for a moment, it will be easy to find this book and know where to resume. If you stop for a longer period, write down where you stopped on the inventory log sheet. When you start again, check the log sheet to remember where you left off, then look for the book you turned down and resume there. Experiment with how far away from the book to hold the scanner, what angle, etc. to find the most efficient scanning technique for you. What the [Beep]? When you scan an item, you will hear two beeps : The first beep will come from the scanner, and it only signals that the barcode has been read by the scanner. (If you only hear the scanner beep, verify the computer s audio settings and confirm that your cursor is in the correct place in Destiny.) The second beep comes from Destiny (via the laptop speakers or headphones), and it indicates that the barcode was entered into the Destiny inventory system. Destiny has a good beep and a bad beep. (These are the same sounds you hear during normal circulation.) The good beeps give you an audible confirmation that an item scanned sucessfully and that all is well. A bad beep indicates that there is an alert that needs your attention. If you hear the bad beep, just look at the error message on the screen to find out what the problem is. Read the message carefully, and determine what, if anything, needs to be done. Destiny will resolve many problems automatically. For example, if you scan an item that was checked out, it will check the item in (and make it accounted for in inventory). If you are checking shelf order as you scan, Destiny will alert you when it encounters an item out of order. If the correct location for the book is within arms reach, you can reshelve it as you go. Otherwise, you can put it on your cart to reshelve later. Even if you are not checking shelf order, it will notify you if it finds a book outside of the range of the section you are scanning: CCSD Destiny Inventory Guide May 2012 Page 10 of 17
(Note that if you marked the item Lost when you finalized a previous section inventory, Destiny will automatically correct the status.) If you scan and item with a fine associated, it may require further action. If a student at your school has paid for an item that is found during inventory, you will want to make a note to issue a refund. The system will give an error message if it finds a barcode it does not recognize. These items must be pulled from the shelf! Write down the error message on a Post-it note, put the Post-it note on the book, and put the book on your cart for later investigation. (Later, you will determine if the item was not in Destiny and needs to be re-cataloged, or if the barcode scanned incorrectly and needs to be replaced.) CCSD Destiny Inventory Guide May 2012 Page 11 of 17
Reviewing Your Progress in a Section As you progress through scanning the items in a given section, Destiny will show the percentage of the items in that section that have been accounted for. (Be sure to click Refresh to update the percentage.) You can click the percent complete link to get more details about your progress in this section: From the Progress Details screen, you can run printable reports listing the copies that are accounted for and/or copies that have not been accounted for. Just choose which copies you want to report on and click Run Report. CCSD Destiny Inventory Guide May 2012 Page 12 of 17
Looking for Missing Items After scanning all the items on the shelves in a section, you will often find that the percent complete is still less than 100%. In these cases, it is necessary to follow up on the items that are still unaccounted for. (TIP: The library media specialist can follow up on these items while the parapro starts scanning the shelves in a new section, especially if you have two mobile inventory stations.) 1. The first step is to go to the Progress Details screen (shown in the previous section), run the report of items that are Unaccounted For, and skim the list, looking for large blocks of consecutive call numbers that are missing. This often indicates that a shelf was skipped during the scanning. If so, just go back to that shelf and scan the items as you normally would. 2. After locating any large blocks of skipped items, run the list of missing items again and print a copy. Take the list (and your mobile scanning station) to the shelf and look for the individual items on the list. (For each item, look in the place it should be on the shelf, but also check to see if it has fallen behind the other books on the shelf!) As you locate these individual items, scan them into the inventory and mark them off the printed list. 3. After checking the shelves for missing items, also check other areas in the library media center. (Is it on display? Is it in on the shelf in your offices or workrooms to be repaired?) 4. As a final check, print a fresh copy of the Unaccounted For items and ask other library staff members and volunteers to review it to see if they have any recollection of the items and where they might be. The Items Unaccounted For details screen is another tool that can be useful when tracking down these items. It provides an interactive version of the printed report used above. From the Progress Details page, click on the See Details link beside Unaccounted For total: This screen gives a list of titles in the section that are still unaccounted for, but it offers a number of sorting and display options. This screen can also be used to mark an item Found or Lost. However, we recommend that you always use the scanner to enter found items. Also, all missing items will be marked lost when the section inventory is finalized, so it is not necessary to do it manually here. CCSD Destiny Inventory Guide May 2012 Page 13 of 17
Finalizing a Section Inventory After scanning the items on the shelves in a section and attempting to locate any missing items, you should finalize the inventory for that section. 1. Go to the main inventory screen (Back Office > Inventory) 2. Verify that the correct section is chosen in the drop-down menu. 3. Click Finalize Be sure to choose the option to Mark all unaccounted for copies lost. Don t worry; there is nothing permanent or final about changing their circulation status to lost. This does not delete them from the system. If the items are found later, they will automatically be changed to Available as soon as they are scanned. CCSD Destiny Inventory Guide May 2012 Page 14 of 17
Reviewing Your Overall Inventory Progress Destiny also offers several ways to view your overall progress as you are conducting inventory List In-Progress Inventories Go to Back Office > Inventory and click on View In-Progress & Completed Inventories link to see a table listing the full inventory and the inventory sections you set up. This table shows the number of items accounted for and unaccounted for in each section. View Full Inventory Progress Details You can also view the Progress Details for the Full inventory. From the In-Progress inventory table, click the View link beside the Full inventory (shown above). You can also access this information from the main inventory screen by choosing the Full inventory from the drop-down menu and clicking on the percent complete. The Full Inventory Progress Details screen works the same as it does for the section inventories, but it reports information from the entire collection (and includes the progress you have made in all the section inventories). CCSD Destiny Inventory Guide May 2012 Page 15 of 17
Completing the Inventory Process After you have completed and finalized all of your section inventories, it is time to finish up the inventory process. Review Remaining Unaccounted For Items As you finalized the section inventories, the Unaccounted For items in those sections should have been marked Lost thereby changing their inventory status to Accounted For. Before finalizing the full inventory, it is helpful to review any remaining Unaccounted For items. 1. Go to the Full Inventory Progress Details screen (see above). 2. Run a report of the Copies that are Unaccounted For. 3. Review the report and make sure that any items shown on the report are items that were not inventoried. (e.g., if you are conducting a partial inventory.) Finalize the Full Inventory To complete the inventory process in Destiny, you must finalize your Full inventory. 1. Go to the main inventory screen (Back Office > Inventory) 2. Select your Full Inventory from the drop-down menu. 3. Click Finalize Be sure to choose the option to Ignore copies that are Unaccounted for (don t mark them lost ). A Completed Inventory Report will be generated in the Job Manager. This report will provide complete information about your collection inventory status (for both Accounted for and Unaccounted for items.) CCSD Destiny Inventory Guide May 2012 Page 16 of 17
Inventory Wrap Up There are just a few more tasks to complete in order to wrap up the inventory process. 1. Print an updated Library Statistics Snapshot (Reports > Library > Statistics > Library Statistics > Printable) and compare it to the one you printed before starting inventory. Make sure the number of lost items is about what you expected it to be. 2. Go back to the In-Progress inventories list and make sure it is empty. 3. Delete all items marked lost more than one year ago. a. Go to Back Office > Inventory and click the View Lost button b. Scroll to the bottom of the list, and enter a date that is at least one year prior. c. Click Delete All Celebrate! Your inventory is complete! CCSD Destiny Inventory Guide May 2012 Page 17 of 17