Validation Tool & Lists

This page provides background material on how the lists and validation tool were created. 

About the Validation List creation

Lists of 6,000 titles were provided by SCS from the data submitted by the library that was deemed in scope for this study.   High density off-site storage facilities were excluded, as they already have tight inventory control and would be problematic to sample.    Lists were generated from a postgres database in random order, where every nth record was selected for a total of 6,000 items  (n being dependent on total number of items in the database for that library).   Lists were then sorted by location and call number, and placed on Google Drive for access by the libraries. 

About data collection Validation Tool

The Validation Tool was written in Google App Script to provide a user friendly interface to the validation lists, and provide for a consistent language and process in data collection.   The tool allows libraries to validate presence on the shelf by barcode, quickly code an item's condition, and see real time statistics on the data collection. 

Calculating the "Availability Metric" 

The end result of the data collection will be an "availability metric" which will be a percentage of items found present on the shelf or in circulation.   Libraries will be able to see the percentage Present, Checked Out, Not See Shelf and Lost/Missing/Billed.  See descriptions of each category in the table below.