Withdrawing books from the collection

[Janet Estridge]

Our church library uses Concourse. We need to make room for more books. If a book is not lost but needs to be "weeded" how do we withdraw it from our collection.

Thank you for helping me with this problem.

Janet Estridge.

[Sandra Fitts]

We also use Concourse. We decided that we would like to have a record of the items that we delete, so this is our procedure: When we choose to discard an item, we go into that item record and place the word "Removed" in one of the Call number fields. (You can choose the note field or another, but a call number field works well for us,) The record is left in Concourse until we choose to delete a number of items -- we do that twice a year or so. Before deleting, we generate a shelf list report with all of those items, thus giving us a printed record of items we have had in the collection. (That is part of our history, I think) Our filter would be "Call number" -- "contains phrase" -- "removed" Then, print the list.

To delete, you can use that same report to "drill down" (the cursor is a magnifying glass; use the "ctrl" key and the left mouse button to click) -- CTRL + Click -- to access each record. Choose the delete button (trash can). You will get an "are you sure" message to which you can respond yes or no.

IMPORTANT: once an item or patron is deleted, the record is GONE and the item id or patron number cannot be reused.
For further instructions and information on "bulk delete" functions, choose the HELP MENU, Help Topics, and search for "delete" in the index. In fact, it would be good to read those sections before beginning the process. Hope this helps you to decide what procedure to put in place in your church library.

[Judy McGougan]

Thanks for this great idea

I have always regreted not having a list of deleted items.   I like the idea of keeping items as "removed" in the "Location" or Call number for a period of time then print shelf list.

 

I used to keep an excel file, typed manually.  My computer is so old it won't export to excel.  But now I can generate a shelf list!  Great!

[Gene Cahall]

I've set up a similar process to Sandra's with a different way to flag the weeded items. I defined a Location code as "Removed". When an item is weeded, a quick change to the Location code not only flags the item for later deletion, but also easily notifies anyone using the catalog that the item is no longer available. I agree with Sandra that a list of deleted items is useful, so I can just run a report on the "Removed" Location, export to Excel and store the listing.

[Janet Estridge]

Thanks Gene for your help. Would this also work for books that are "Lost", have been for years, and you know they are not coming back.
Janet.

[Cheryl Purvis Swain]

Janet, to mark a book "Lost" go to Cataloging then "Mark Lost & Found". If you check books out on the computer it should be checked back in first, then marked Lost; otherwise it will continue to appear on your overdue list and the last person who had it will continue to get overdue notices. If the book turns up, when try to check it in you will get a notice "this book has been marked found" or something like that and it will be removed from the lost list. If you go to "Reports" and then to "Holdings Summary" there is a column showing how many of your books are marked lost at the time of the report.

[Gene Cahall]

Janet, I'm sure you could use the Location Code for other purposes, if that would help.

Gene

[Janet Estridge]

Thanks Gene for getting back to me. I can't wait to put it all into action. Unfortunately I can't do anything from home so have to wait until next week when our workday rolls around.
Thanks again !!

[Sandra Fitts]

We also use the "Removed" Location; I forgot to add that step. Actually, the addition to the call number field is an additional step, and probably not necessary. The benefit is that when the shelf list is generated, you can see the "Removed" notation in the call number field and don't have to add a column (Location) to the report. (We would take that list to the shelves and be sure that item did not 'sneak' back on the shelf somehow!)
Exporting the report to Excel is a great idea. I haven't thought about that option. We would print and place in an accession record binder. I'm still a "paper record" person, I suppose!

[Janet Estridge]

Thanks Sandra for helping me with this. I'm at home so I really can't "see" what you are telling me. I'll check it out when I work in the library tonight. I guess the shelf list would work for Lost Items also.
Hope you have a good rest of the week.
Janet.