Thanks to all of you who stepped up to help with check-in in the last few weeks! As we approach the summer months when the volume of check-in will significantly increase, it’s important to follow check-in procedures to make sure items are correctly checked in before going out on the shelves.
It can be easy to get distracted during check-in, so it’s crucial (and required) that you double-check your check-in of materials. There are two general ways to do this:
*Scan items twice, making sure items show a status of In>In before putting them on your preshelving cart.
*Count the items on your preshelving cart and make sure the number matches the number of items checked in at the bottom of your check-in screen.
There are different ways to approach both of these strategies. For instance, some people prefer to scan the entire red cart of items before checking in each item individually or the entire white cart of items after checking in items so that everything has been scanned twice. Others take a small group of items and scan them all first and then go back and re-scan them as they fan through them, check discs, clean, etc. This way is especially effective when you know you’re likely to be interrupted frequently or may not have time to get through an entire cart. When counting items, you can again count the final number of items on your cart of preshelving and double-check it against the number of items on your check-in screen or you can work with a small number at a time, checking the number of items checked in against the number of items you’re placing on your preshelving cart.
If you have other strategies for verifying your check-in that you’d like to share or would like to brainstorm ways that would best work for you, feel free to talk to me or any of your co-workers. If you’d like to review the most current check-in procedures, let me know and I’ll get you a copy.
As we work together to ensure the accuracy of check-in, remember that when patrons tell you that they returned a book that is still on their account, just change the status of the book to “claim returned.” You do not need to spend time looking for the book. There is a process in place for that.
Thank you!