Returned resources- speed up

 F2 o/d CALC
o/d calc on means “calculate the number of days overdue” the F2 refers to the F2 key. As you may have noticed there can be a slowdown of the system when returning resources as OASIS calculates the number of days a returned resource is overdue. So a new option was introduced whereby you can turn this function off to speed up your returns. Comes in handy when that teacher returns that crate of books that they have been hanging on to.

Teacher resources

I am having a difference of opinion with my principal about teacher resources.  At the moment faculties can buy any books they like ( not textbook sets, just resource books ),  any DVD’s and any magazine subscriptions from their budgets, and none of it is processed through the library and all of it is kept in staff rooms.  I have argued that there is no accountability this way and we are probably losing a lot of resources ( who knows? ), not to mention duplicating resources.  My principal says that only primary schools process these things through the library and high schools always let faculties buy and retain resources without going through the library.  Is this so?  Please, could some high school T/L’s let me know what they do on their school.  All the head teachers , of course, want to keep their vast collections in their staffrooms where nobody else can see them, or indeed, has any idea what they have.

I am with your principal on this one. You are not responsible for resources in the school you are responsible for library resources. He is responsible for the whole lot and if that is what he prefers why would you try and control faculty resources which are none of your business? If you are concerned about duplication then I would use it as a clarification of what types of teacher resources the library collects, and reflect this in your collection development policy. I only buy general resources which could apply across faculties such as using ICT. Subject specific resources are purchased and stored by faculties which THEY are reponsible just the way they are responsible for their textbooks. If they do a bad job of looking after their resources it is an issue between the HT and the Principal and nothing whatsoever to do with you.

Resources added in a period-list

I got a notes from one of my executives in my pigeonhole & they want a list of all resources purchased for the library this yer . Does anyone know how to do this ? They need it urgently for the annual school report.

You could print out the accession register B4 G1, select A = All accession numbers, then S = Select Dates Accessioned, then enter the range of dates you want included (are we talking 2010 or all resources since the financial rollover last year?). This will give you EVERYTHING added onto OASIS even if you didn’t give it an accession number (including periodicals & resource boxes).

Do you use part of the Acquisitions module when adding the local Copies information? If you do, use the sub-dissections then B3 D4 (Resource by Dissection), A = All dissections, then S = Select dates accessioned & enter the range of dates you require.

How does your Admin process the orders? Do they list all the library purchases individually? If they do then they could supply the printout for you?

Ghost resources

 I know we should never delete a resource but always dispose it to prevent “ghosts” on the database.  How do these ghosts manifest themselves and what problems do they cause?  I am asking as I have some locations which really serve the purpose of an audit trail rather than loan and return management.  I do not stocktake these so Dispose etc never takes them off the database even when they are long gone.  As there are still some resources being added to these locations I cannot do a couple of dummy stocktakes to remove them.  Any advice or knowledge about the perils of deleting out there?

Please don’t take this as gospel as I am not an expert but this is my experience of Phantom Entries.
Firstly the ones I found appeared at the beginning of the database (the alphabetical listing of all of your titles.) So in Enquiry type 1 2 or some similar low numbers. It is most likely your first entries will begin with a number rather than letter a.
Scroll to the top of the list to the first entry. My phantoms appeared above that. ie the cursor arrow should not go above the first entry, but I was able to scroll up to blank lines for quite a long way!
OASIS support fixed the problem and they said that database held the record (in 2005) for the most phantom entries!! It was a few hundred!! It was not my Library, one in which I was relieving. But ever since I have been very careful with the Deleting thing!
I am fairly sure the advice wil be to ONLY dispose , not delete!

‘Phantom’ resources

I don’t know if anyone can shed some light I am sorting out Teacher Resources and updating the teachers files. I noticed I have a number of teachers with barcodes attached to their name and no book title. When returning it came uyp as not on file. It would seem the resource has been deleted at some stage before it has been returned. What am I supposed to do in this situation? It would appear an entire group of numbers is missing from our library.
Do I need to make a not of it somewhere? As you can tell I am a little slow at keeping teacher borrowing up to date.

Your “phantoms” may have occurred the way that you said or they may be a sign that at some point in the past someone has deleted incorrectly in General

Resources, this results in “phantom loans” to borrowers.

The correct way to delete in General Resources is to select D = Delete ONLY when the Copies information is on the screen. NEVER select D = Delete when only the top 2/3rds of the data is visible. (The usual reason for needing to delete in General Resources is an accidental duplication of resources, a SCIS download being done twice.)

The only remedy to remove these phantoms is to ring ITD Help 1800 338 483 and they’ll fix it for you.

Resource- add supplier of

 Just wondering how you can add a supplier to oasis.

B1, A5 (Management, Authority Files, Supplier) and <A>Add.  

  

  

 

Number of resources added

Is there a way, maybe in Oasis, that you can find how many books you added in a school year? Our boss asked me yesterday in reference to using a book covering machine and how much would be added to my budget to cover the approx. $1.00 cost per book. Any ideas?

The simplest way I think would be to Go into B4 G1 (Accession Register), choose S = Select and enter arrange from 000001 to 999999, then at the “Dates Accessioned” choose S = Select and enter the year range that you want. Print to screen so that you can see what the first number for the year is and then scroll down to the last number for the year, and just do the simple maths of subtracting the first number from the second. Of course the figure will include anything that has been accessioned that is not a book. 

Textbooks-deletion of

We have been process Maths and English textbooks through the library. Now Maths have decided they no longer need this service (what a pity ?) so we want to remove them from the system. Is there a quick way to do this? I?d like to get on to it before they change their mind.

Do these Maths textbooks have their own location? If so then you could do a “stocktake” of them and then you could get OASIS to automatically remove them as “missing”, i.e. you Initialise stocktake for that specific location range, don’t scan in any of the barcodes, carry out a Weekly Housekeeping, then Finalise the “stocktake” for that location range, (this results in all the textbooks being considered as “missing”). The next day go in and repeat the process, but when in the finalisation stage you are asked to write off resources missing before a certain date put in that days date, therefore all the “missing” from the day before will be removed. When doing the printout make sure that you select the Abbreviated one so that you don’t waste paper. I would keep this paperwork on file along with a covering letter explaining what you did & why you did it, i.e. removing the textbooks from OASIS as directed by the Maths Head Teacher so that the you figures make sense ofr the auditors.