[Koha] Inventory

[Christopher Davis]

Joel,

My institution is currently running an inventory on our collections.
The way we do our inventory is to collect item barcodes, submit them
using the inventory tool found at Koha>Tools>Inventory>Use a barcode
file (the *first* time that you run this tool, you will need to record
the date found within the "Set inventory date to:" field for future
use). You should probably scan the barcodes of your collections when
the library is closed because the "Use a barcode file" tool will
automatically check in/discharge any items which it finds checked out
(which causes a big mess if patrons have items which are no longer
checked out to them). Also, sometimes the "Use a barcode file" tool
will encounter a barcode which did not read correctly or has another
problem with it; the "Use a barcode file" tool will note any such
barcodes it encounters. You can handle those exceptions manually.

Next, add the "Inventory Report" or "Inventory Report by Location" to
your Koha system (found at
<https://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/SQL_Reports_Library#Inventory_Report>).
When running either inventory report, plug the threshold date into the
report parameters (remember the date I told you to record in the
paragraph above?), and the report will display which items have not
been seen by Koha since the threshold date which you inputted. This
gives you list of items you can then hunt for or weed out of your
collections.

HTH,

Christopher Davis, MLS
Systems & E-Services Librarian
Uintah County Library
cgdavis at uintah.utah.gov
(435) 789-0091 ext.261
uintahlibrary.org
basinlibraries.org
facebook.com/uintahcountylibrary
instagram.com/uintahcountylibrary


On Tue, Jun 7, 2016 at 7:55 AM, Coehoorn, Joel <jcoehoorn at york.edu> wrote:
> We recently acquired a new portable barcode scanner, and want to start
> using the file matching feature in koha for inventory. In looking at this,
> I have two questions.
>
> First, we are able to create the barcode files. However, when doing the
> compare, the results we're seeing are not helpful. With a test file of 53
> barcodes, we had six pages of results telling us about items that simply
> updated the last seen date.
>
> Other items in the set would show up *twice*, because they had previously
> been marked missing. We'd see a result reporting the item missing, and a
> second result saying it should have been scanned. This is not helpful. We
> already know these items are missing, and so including them here makes it
> much more difficult to work the results. On the selection criteria page I
> can see a way to filter down to missing items, but there is no way to
> EXCLUDE missing or lost items. Normal (items.itemlost status <= 0) is not
> an option in that section.
>
> This feature would be WAY more useful if we could see results at the end
> for only those items that are different. We want a view that only shows
> newly missing items or items shelved in the wrong place, so we can work the
> list manually to verify the errors. Is this possible?
>
>
>
> Joel Coehoorn
> Director of Information Technology
> 402.363.5603
> *jcoehoorn at york.edu <jcoehoorn at york.edu>*
>
> The mission of York College is to transform lives through
> Christ-centered education and to equip students for lifelong service to
> God, family, and society
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