Where can I learn about inventory and weeding?
Take a look at Inventory and watch our Inventory Workshop.
Inventory
How do I perform a full inventory?
Performing a full inventory is easy with the help of Alexandria’s Inventory Helper. You can access all the necessary inventory information on our free online support center, HERE. Additionally, we highly recommend checking out our YouTube channel HERE to view short videos that provide more helpful tips on inventorying your collection.
Do I need to modify my session start date?
Usually this is not necessary. The session start date is set when you scan your first item. You’ll only want to adjust the start date if you scanned an item elsewhere or in the wrong session, to ensure all your items are counted correctly in this session. For that reason we recommend waiting to complete sessions until you are finished with your whole inventory.
What if I am inventorying with transaction scripts for some of my items? Can I still use Inventory Management?
Yes you can! Inventory Management sessions will allow you to run reports on anything that has been inventoried in that session range. Exceptions will only show for items scanned in the inventory window, however, you can see exceptions for your transaction script when you import it > Operations > download the summary file.
Will my inventory info disappear if I navigate out of the inventory management screen?
Nope! When running inventory either through the circulation screen or inventory management, the info is stored in the copy information. Basically, your inventory info is saved each time you scan an item!
What reports can I use to collect additional statistics about my library?
See Collection Statistics for the reports we recommend for gathering statistics.
I just finished with inventory and all of my items are showing as lost! What do I do?
Oops! To prevent this in the future, remember to always use the correct start date and double check which items will be set to lost before completing inventory.
If you caught this quickly, you can restore from a previous archive (usually one from the night before). Please contact Customer Support so they can guide you through this process.
If your library had a lot of circulation or you made significant changes to Alexandria before catching this, you may need to plan a full inventory. You could use the Inventory Bookdrop Suppressed mode in Circulation to quickly scan items back in. This allows you to run your library as usual until you have time to do inventory again.
 | Run a Copies Not Inventoried report before setting anything as lost. That will give you a list of what will be set to lost, and you can correct any mistakes before making a big change. Also be sure to run the Lost Copies report and Discarded Copies report before permanently removing lost or discarded copies. |
When I complete an inventory session in Inventory Management and the option to Declare Missing Items as Lost is checked, what items are moved to Lost?
Only the items specified by your session’s Call Number Range that were not scanned. Be very wary of this feature if you chose the session option to inventory the Entire Collection instead of a Call Number range.
If I don’t finish my inventory on the same day I start, when I go back to complete it, do I need to alter the Start Date for the session I created?
No, you do not, and most likely wouldn’t want to. When you scan an item to be inventoried, an Inventory Date is attached to that item. The date attached to those items is the actual day you scanned them. If you alter the Start Date for your inventory session, than your inventory session would not include the items you had scanned on previous days. Your inventory sessions can last as long as you need them to. Don’t worry if it goes past a day, a week, or even a month.
Is it beneficial to break down inventory into small or specific sessions?
This is only as necessary as it would be helpful for you to keep track of what parts of your collection you have inventoried and the process to do it. Some librarians find it easier to use one session to inventory the Entire Collection at once. While others use smaller sessions as they are unable to do it all at once or worry they will have trouble remembering what they have already inventoried.