[Sca-librarians] Barcodes on the OUTSIDE of books

[Stefan li Rous]

I'm not a professional librarian, so you can take this for what it's worth. I do catalog all my books at home though.

Just how do libraries handle misfiled books? Either by the librarians or the users? When something gets put back on the wrong shelf is it essential "lost forever"? Or are periodic inventories done to find out, at least, which books have "grown legs" and walked off or are at the library but on the wrong shelf. Somewhere.

It would seem like if the barcode was on the spine of the book, someone could just walk down the shelf, quickly scanning each book and the system could quickly say if a book was in the wrong position. While this could also be done by pulling each book off the shelf, opening it up, scanning it and replacing it on the shelf, this would be a lot more time consuming. As well as opening the possibility of that leading to mis-filing a book even if only by one or two positions, as well as being slightly more wearing on the book itself.

Even if the book is too thin to see the barcode on the spine, having it on the outside would still avoid having to pull it all the way off the shelf and open it.

I seem to remember the Dewey decimal or library of congress numbers often being placed on the spine of library books. I would think that these would be much more susceptible to wear than a barcode, since you have to wear off more of a barcode to make it unreadable.

So, what am I missing?

Stefan

On Jul 9, 2013, at 12:19 PM, Judith A Kirk <judith.a.kirk at wmich.edu> wrote:

> Hi all!
> 
> We're in the middle of changing our barcoding procedures.
> 
> Apparently it's easier for inventory purposes if we put our barcodes on the back cover, up near the top of the spine.
> 
> We -had- been putting them inside the book, along with the date due slips.
> 
> But someone decided we needed to make a change, so they ordered new barcodes that supposedly are heavier duty and designed to be put on the outside of books and can handle being shelved and reshelved without coming off.
> 
> Do any of you out there already put barcodes on the outside of books in your library? How are they wearing? Are they coming off or corners curling or print fading or any other negative bits? 
> 
> Or has this been a positive change?
> 
> Just curious...
> 
> Siobhan
> Midrealm
> Not-so-mild-mannered authority control goobette
> 

--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
   Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/marksharris
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