1RWVLibraries
Our Library is located in 4 different buildings, e.g. A, B, C, D. We installed Tinycat so that residents in each of the buildings can locate books (and of course being able to browse from the home screen is a real plus for us). Collections have duplicate books - which is fine; we want to spread the "wealth". Some collections will have the whole series of a particular author, or a specific edition (Large Print). This facility is for entertainment and amusement, not research!
All is fine when we add or change the titles because we KNOW we have to be sure to specify what collection we want to modify. However, check in/out is an issue. At check-in time, when the title is specified, all of the copies appear including the checked out book but it may have the same title as another on the list and we have no method (as of now) to differentiate what collection the book is in. Making a list of checkouts from a collection (to assess popularity) and figure out overdue titles is difficult because the title may originally been put in the system (check-out) on the wrong copy (the one from A instead of the one from B).
In my view, it would be nice to have a Collection field auto-filled on the check-in/out page I guess this would be considered an enhancement.
But short of that, does anyone have a process or a suggestion of how to accomplish this so we know (when we look at a list) whether the title (handled by a volunteer from that library's collection (say B) is from checked out properly so we don't make the reader of the title from Collection A feel sad for "being a miscreant".
Knowing where a book is checked out can determine its "viability" in a limited space with so many options and so little time!
Thank you
Pat M
All is fine when we add or change the titles because we KNOW we have to be sure to specify what collection we want to modify. However, check in/out is an issue. At check-in time, when the title is specified, all of the copies appear including the checked out book but it may have the same title as another on the list and we have no method (as of now) to differentiate what collection the book is in. Making a list of checkouts from a collection (to assess popularity) and figure out overdue titles is difficult because the title may originally been put in the system (check-out) on the wrong copy (the one from A instead of the one from B).
In my view, it would be nice to have a Collection field auto-filled on the check-in/out page I guess this would be considered an enhancement.
But short of that, does anyone have a process or a suggestion of how to accomplish this so we know (when we look at a list) whether the title (handled by a volunteer from that library's collection (say B) is from checked out properly so we don't make the reader of the title from Collection A feel sad for "being a miscreant".
Knowing where a book is checked out can determine its "viability" in a limited space with so many options and so little time!
Thank you
Pat M
2ZephCraven
>1 RWVLibraries: Hi Pat,
Sorry for the delay! Happy to help.
I have asked our developers if including Collection information more readily on the Check In/Out page would be possible and will update you!
In the meantime, I know it would be a ton of work, but in the meantime you could try using the barcode feature in LibraryThing to pull up exact copies in TinyCat. If you have two copies of a book (e.g., one at location A and one at location B), you could each cataloged copy a different barcode number so that volunteers can scan/type in that number to check out the copy at the correct location. This should help clean up the data over time, but you could speed this up by doing a thorough inventory while applying barcode numbers/labels. I would be happy to send along more information about barcodes (including labels and scanners) if you're interested.
I hope this is helpful, and thank you again for your patience!
Very best,
Zeph
Sorry for the delay! Happy to help.
I have asked our developers if including Collection information more readily on the Check In/Out page would be possible and will update you!
In the meantime, I know it would be a ton of work, but in the meantime you could try using the barcode feature in LibraryThing to pull up exact copies in TinyCat. If you have two copies of a book (e.g., one at location A and one at location B), you could each cataloged copy a different barcode number so that volunteers can scan/type in that number to check out the copy at the correct location. This should help clean up the data over time, but you could speed this up by doing a thorough inventory while applying barcode numbers/labels. I would be happy to send along more information about barcodes (including labels and scanners) if you're interested.
I hope this is helpful, and thank you again for your patience!
Very best,
Zeph
3RWVLibraries
WE LOST OUR PICTURES.. I assume you know this...
patm
patm
