Inventory Control

Robert J. Milevski <milevski [at] firestone__Princeton__EDU> writes:
>What do you do when someone hands you a list of books they
>supposedly sent you six months ago, none of which you recognize...

We have the same type of problems in dealing with brittle books.  We
have a rather cumbersome method of searching our old grant records to
determine whether we have filmed the book in question.  Walter Henry is
in the process of designing a database for handling all records for
current filming programs.  When this is operative, we will have a system
which can be accessed at a number of points (title, author, call no. id.
no. etc.) and will greatly improve our tracking ability, besides
providing automated improvements to many of the tasks involved with
preservation microfilming.  In the meantime, we have created a database
using NOTEBOOK on IBM PC/2 model 70-386 on which we record all volumes
which cannot be treated at present.  We named the file DEFER; the
volumes are then charged out to Conservation Treatment, where they are
phase-boxed.  The charging-out process will be much quicker when
Stanford has circulation online in NOTIS, sometime within the year.
After boxing, the books are end processed and returned to their shelving
locations for future conservation review.

We recently deferred over 2200 records, which constituted the backlog in
our office.  With only current project volumes on hand, (plus a few
shelves of problems to be resolved) we have VERY few search requests
now.

Ella Harsin

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 5:40
               Distributed: Wednesday, February 26, 1992
                        Message Id: cdl-5-40-010
                                  ***