[Koha] Barcode Issue-Please Help!

[abrazier at buttepubliclibrary.info]

We are having issues with our barcodes. They are not generating as we 
expect them to and we'd like to know if anyone has any input regarding 
the following issue. Here is my original message:



     While editing items that are being
     added to our collection, when we click in the field (p - Piece
     designation (barcode)) which we have always had set to (autoBarcode:
     generated in the form 1, 2, 3) we are no longer getting the barcode 
we
     expect to see.

     We suspect it is now going back to barcodes that once belonged to 
items
     that are now deleted (because, that earlier barcode is now 
available).



A great reply from somebody in the community:


I took a look at the Koha source code, and it seems that for some
barcode types, it is using this SQL to determine where to start
generating new barcodes:

   select max(abs(barcode)) from items;

It then increments the value that it obtains this way to use as the
new barcode.

So I suspect that you could fix your problem by creating a dummy item
that has the first barcode you want to use, minus one.

Note that I am not an expert and have not tried this myself.



Has anyone tried this before? Any library out there that is making the 
transition to Koha? How did you indicate where you would like to 
numerically begin ordering the barcodes that come up in the autoBarcode 
feature? Any help would be very appreciated!!!

Thank-you,
Allen from Butte, MT