Stock-take Challenge!

It's Activities Week so there are no classes booked into the library.  This was our best and only chance to get a stock take done, something that I haven't done since I took over the post.  The difficulty is my contract - term time only, so instead of doing such things that require an empty library in the holidays, I have to try to squeeze them in around manic numbers of students.

Our catalogue lists over nearly eleven thousand, which used to take two and a half weeks to stock-take.  Our challenge was to do it in one!  This required careful planning and a cut-throat system.

1. Acquire wireless netbook and a spare scanner. 

Then the computer can be put on the reshelving trolley and wheeled around.  I'm pretty sure that three days of the old time was spent just carrying books to the desk. Nightmare waste of time!

2. Instigate system. 

Pick up a book, scan it.  Then PUT IT BACK.  No stopping and checking it through, no thinking 'gosh, this looks interesting,' and flicking through the pages.  Such things were FORBIDDEN.  If the book was in the wrong place, never mind.  Parent volunteers can help us to check the order another week.  If the book fell apart in my hands, a small green PostIt would be stuck in the top, then it was to go straight back on the shelf. Barcode unrecognised?  Add it to the pile on the trolley and LEAVE IT THERE.  No investigation, no 'Oh, I'll just check the title on the catalogue...' No.

3. Keep going.

On Monday I worked alone, annoying the rest of the staff using the library for their Review Day, and took one half hour break to eat lunch.  Coffee was drunk at the trolley, toilet breaks were limited. On Tuesday, Mrs Sweet helped to keep everyone else away from me while I carried on.  And when Mrs Clarke arrived on Wednesday, she was shown how it all worked and since then, the sound of beeping has not paused for more than a minute.  We've staggered breaks and lunchtimes, had one of us working though constantly.

Of these I think that the portability of the computer probably made the most difference, but The System is the one that I'm most proud of.  It took guts and it took discipline, but it's really worked.

And you know what?  We've done it.  10.30 am on Friday morning, and the stock-take that used to take two and a half weeks is complete.

The 'Missing' list is quite long - about 200 items, but this is less than 2% of our stock, and in the two years since the last one, we've migrated the catalogue to our new system, moved a lot around, and been fantastically busy!  Over the next two weeks we'll spend time mopping up - Mrs Sweet is the finding stuff queen and I'm sure will get that number down to under 100 before we break up for the summer.

WIN.