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17/02/2005
Library Poverty
We ran out of barcodes. We don’t have enough money to buy new ones.
We are reduced to reusing an old set of barcodes that had never been thrown out (thank goodness)! They had been printed with the title and call no. of the book across the top but it seems a lot of the books had been either weeded or stolen so when the barcodes were printed from information on the catalogue the books weren’t there to barcode! The pile of barcode sheets had been sitting there for years, one of those nasty corners no one wanted to clean out but also, probably because they had cost so much, no one wanted to throw them out. In the intervening years unlabelled barcodes had been bought as needed.
Now to make use of these we have a whole process to follow. Firstly, take a sheet of barcodes, check on the shelves to see if any of the books the barcodes belonged to are actually on the shelf. Sometimes you might find an old volume that hadn’t been bar-coded or the volume with a newer barcode on it. Take those books to the computer, check to see if they are on the catalogue and repair any errors.
Next open the catalogue search module and swipe in every barcode on the sheet. Sometimes you will find the barcode on the matching record for the book but no sign of the book itself. Mark the book missing. Discard that barcode or delete it from the record.
Now you can be assured there won’t be any conflicts with that sheet of barcodes so write across the bottom margin ‘these barcodes safe to use’. To use them, take a pair of scissors and cut the top half of the strip of barcodes away that contains the title and call number. That row of barcodes can now be peeled off and used as needed. As that row is finished cut off the top half of the strip of barcodes on the next row to ready that row for use.
Handy hints or a description of pathetic?
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