Re: Barcoding periodicals Crank, Richard L 31 May 2007 19:52 UTC
I often reply off-list, but here's my reply to that question ... Rich Crank Serial Records Team Leader, Acquisitions/Serials Dept. University of Kansas Libraries (785) 864-8944 rcrank@ku.edu -----Original Message----- From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU] On Behalf Of Dawn Stephen Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2007 8:29 AM To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU Subject: Re: [SERIALST] Barcoding periodicals Yes, please post all responses to the list. I am also very interested in this. -----Original Message----- From: Crank, Richard L Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 3:52 PM To: 'connie.foster@wku.edu' Subject: RE: [SERIALST] Barcoding periodicals Hello, Connie - I just looked at WKU's opac and see that you appear to be a Voyager library. In 1999, KU Libraries went from a hodge-podge of unintegrated systems to Voyager. Previously, we didn't create "item records" for serials [sic - should be "journals" instead of "serials"] until they were bound, unless someone wanted to circulate an unbound issue. When I heard that we would switch from that approach to barcoding (and creating an item record for) nearly every item that was rec'd in Voyager, I thought that was nuts. But that was in 1999 ... now that we have years of experience with this, I'm glad we did for several reasons that relate specifically to how Voyager works (or rather how we work with Voyager) ... 1. If an item is charged or otherwise unavailable to a customer, they can see its status in the opac. 2. We've found that it's very common for students working at our service/circulation desks to link a new item to the wrong holdings if one or more title changes exist in the publication's history. Having Voyager do the item creation at check-in solves that problem fore new receipts. 3. We're transferring a large no. of items to our new storage facility over the next year or two (or three). To do this efficiently, we're creating item records for each vol. being transferred if one doesn't already exist. Now, that said ... We didn't systematically barcode vols. that lacked item records at the time we switched to Voyager, so there are many thousands of vols. in our collections lacking item records. We do barcode vols. that circulate if they lack existing item records, but as I said it's easy to mislink those. Let me know if you have additional questions. Rich Crank Serial Records Team Leader, Acquisitions/Serials Dept. University of Kansas Libraries (785) 864-8944 rcrank@ku.edu -----Original Message----- From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU] On Behalf Of Connie Foster Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 9:21 AM To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU Subject: [SERIALST] Barcoding periodicals With some trepidation I ask about advantages or disadvantages of embarking on a project to barcode and give item ids and possibly spine labels to our periodical collection, which currently is simply shelved in alpha order with no tracking capabilities. My sense is that statistics would be useful but I'm not sure the impact of such a project is worth that one asset? Appreciate experiences or advice for those who have considered or moved in that direction. Unless others are interested, you can reply directly to me. Many thanks. Connie Foster -- ************************************************************************ ****************** Connie Foster, Professor and Head, Dept. of Library Technical Services Western Kentucky University Libraries Editor, Serials Review 1906 College Heights Blvd. #11067 Bowling Green KY 42101-1067 connie.foster@wku.edu tel:270-745-6151 fax:270-745-3958 "Creating Information Possibilities" TopSCHOLAR(tm) http://digitalcommons.wku.edu Electronic submission for authors at http://ees.elsevier.com/serrev http://sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00987913