About

Getting Started

All of these items are covered in more detail later in this article – this is just a checklist to help you plan.

Pre-Inventory Decisions

1. Do you want to Reset Inventory?
   
1. Inventory Reset clears data from the Date Inventoried and Number of Times Inventoried Fields.
   
2. Do you want to batch-inventory checked-out items?
   
1. Checked-out items can be inventoried automatically by MSC Admins or individually by your library staff as they are returned.
   
3. Do you want to inventory everything now, or plan to do specific sections throughout the year?
   
1. Open a help desk ticket to start set your inventory by section.
   
4. Will you be bringing materials to the desk on a cart, or will you inventory out in the shelves?
   
1. You can bring a cart with a laptop into the collection, or use MobileStaff with a handheld scanner.
   

1. Which sections you wish to inventory, or if you want to inventory the whole collection
   
2. If you want to reset your inventory
   

Your items may have previous inventory information attached to them. MSC Admins can reset the number of times inventoried to 0 and last date inventoried to NEVER. This isn't required but can make it easier to generate lists of missing items when you’re finished scanning.

If you want to be able to see how many times various items have been inventoried or track when the last time an item was inventoried, don't request the inventory reset. This may only be useful if you don't remove missing items after inventory.

1. If you want to run the Set Inventory Date report 
   

MSC Admins can run the Set Inventory Date report to automatically inventory all items that are checked out to actual patrons (excluding missing, claims returned, etc.).  

If you prefer to inventory currently checked out items as they are returned, don't have this report run. You may prefer to do this if you want every book handled individually. For example, if you want to check condition of materials while inventorying.

Scanning

If a set properties window opens, click OK, leaving the default settings intact.

1. If an alert appears, click OK to close the message before scanning your next item. 
   
2. If you scan another item when an alert is onscreen, that scan will close the alert and the second item will not be inventoried.
   
3. You can check the call number of the scanned item against the call number on the screen to make sure an item was scanned. If the call number does not match, consider setting the item aside for a cataloger to examine.
   
4. If you’re not sure an item scanned correctly, you can re-scan it.  It doesn't matter if an item gets scanned multiple times. The Number of Times Inventoried field will be incremented, but the Inventory Reports can all use the Date Item Inventoried field to create their lists of information.
   

You’ll want to set up a procedure for dealing with inventory alerts at your library. For example, you may decide that the item should be put aside for cataloging with a note about type of error.

Inventory Reports

Wait to run reports until the day after you've completed inventory. The information in BCA is not real-time. It uses a nightly snapshot of MSC system data, so changes in the system today will be reflected tomorrow in BCA.

For more articles on BCA, see the BLUEcloud Analytics page in the Knowledge Base.

Process Missing Items

Your scanning staff may have been interrupted or distracted by patrons - for example, an entire shelf could be skipped during changes in shift or when scanning is done over several days. Patrons also move items around on shelves, etc.

1. Use the Mark Item Missing wizard.
   
2. Remove the items from the system entirely using Discard or Delete.
   
1. Refer to the Discard vs Delete video (below) for more information on whether Discard or Delete applies.
   
3. If you have more than a handful of items to Discard you can open a help desk ticket and request to have it done in batch.  
   
4. Use a combination of the above. 
   
1. Some libraries choose to move everything to Missing, then discard the items after 6 months if they aren't located. Please open a help desk ticket to have this process automated for your library.
   

Video Tutorial