Modes: (I, IS, IB, IBS)
They are very similar but Inventory Management gives you more tools to complete and review your inventory. See Inventory.
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.
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.
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.
Not at all. Feel free to create sessions as you need them, if that’s easier.
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.
Choose Tools on the far left, then choose the Inventory icon in the top middle.
We recommend completing all of your inventory sessions when you are finished with your whole inventory. This will ensure any items that may have been misplaced on a different shelf will be found and scanned.
Don’t forget about items that aren’t on your shelves! Items in classrooms, book rooms, or on display can be easy to overlook. Inventory these items before you declare a missing item as lost. If you’re using Sessions in the Inventory module, this may mean waiting until you have finished all of your inventory, and using utilities to declare items lost.
Also, if you are running your session by a call number range, we recommend using call numbers that are the same length with only whole numbers (no decimals). Using irregular call number lengths can lead to inaccurate estimates.
Run a report. In the Review step of the inventory process, run the Inventory Items Report. And in the Reports module, run the Copies Inventoried or Copies Not Inventoried reports.