Mrs. V. is smiling

Beep . . . . beep . . . . beep . . . . . These are the sounds you heard when you visited the media center today. It's time for book inventory! The media staff literally puts their hands on EVERY book in the media center and scans it. Upon completion, there are a variety of reports we can run that show us which books are missing, which are on the shelf that have not been checked in, etc.

This year's book inventory began with Mrs. V reminiscing about her first library inventory experience back in 1973 (we won't mention how old Mrs. M and Ms. Z were at that time - *wink*). Thirty-five years ago, it took 10 student assistants and 4 librarians three weeks to complete book inventory! One person held a card catalog drawer in their lap, calling out book numbers, while their partner checked the number in each book. Several card entries for each missing title had to be removed by hand (remember subject cards, title cards and author cards?!). I joked today that by the time they finished inventory, it was probably time for them to start over again!


Now, in 2008, scanners and the computer replace tedious searches through card catalog drawers. Mrs. V is smiling!

-Ms. Z