FAQ

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.

I’m not using the Inventory Management interface. How do I manually remove or permanently delete the not inventoried items which have been moved to Lost Status?

Choose Operations from the sidenav.
Select Utilities.
Add a new utility, and look under the Copies cateogry.
Under Copies, select Remove Lost Copies.
You have a few options to remove your Lost Copies.
1. If you want to remove all of them, click Run at the bottom right.
2. If you want to remove Lost Copies from a specific time period, make sure to alter the Copies Lost option under the Selections tab.
3. If you would only like to remove copies that were moved into lost during inventory, and not from patrons, you will need to specify this under the Options tab.

Tip: Weeded or discarded items can be removed using a similar Utility called Remove 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.

Is there a difference between the inventory modes in Circulation and the Inventory Management interface?

Modes: (I, IS, IB, IBS)

They are very similar but Inventory Management gives you more tools to complete and review your inventory. See Inventory.

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.

How do I create an Inventory session?

Go to Tools > Inventory, then select Session at the top. Click on either the + in the bottom left, or Create Session. Give the session a name and set the Inventory By to be how you want to split the sessions. If you use call numbers as the Inventory By, you will need to make sure that in both the From and Through fields, there are the exact same number of characters–for example, From 222.222 Through 333.333, and not from 222 through 222.999.

Do I need to create all of my sessions before I start inventorying?

Not at all. Feel free to create sessions as you need them, if that’s easier.

Should I create all of my inventory sessions on the same date?

This isn’t necessary. It may help you to keep things organized, but Alexandria is flexible enough to allow you to create any number of sessions that are staggered over whatever time period needed. Some people use this feature to slowly inventory throughout the school year.

How do I access the Inventory Management or helper screen?

Choose Tools on the far left, then choose the Inventory icon in the top middle.