Processing Books

Overview

Processing staff and student assistants prepare books and other library materials for the shelf.

Items needing processing are placed on the processing table or on a book truck next to the table.

• When books cataloged by MACC are ready for processing, MACC staff move the book truck to the processing side of the Technical Services work space.

• Labeled books that are cataloged by the Cataloging Unit are also left on or near the processing table.

The processing of new books is a high priority for Technical Services.

Materials should be processed in the following order of priority:

1. "Notifies" and "Rush" materials

2. Reference materials

3. New books (those published within the last year)

4. Serials

5. Old books and/or government publications (depending on which have been in the processing area the longest.)

Materials Required

• Label protectors

• Library property stamp

• Inkpad

• Theft-strips (hard cover and paperback)

• Theft-strip inserting rods

• Statistics sheet

• Book trucks

Spine labels

Most new materials will arrive in the Processing area with call number labels already on the spine (as well as the "pocket labels" that go inside the back of the book under the barcode).

Processing staff will need to create labels for any books that arrive for processing without a label.

Processing staff also need to create new spine labels when a volume changes location (e.g. from Reference to the circulating stacks) or when a donated volume needs to be relabeled.

See also label printing procedures.

Label Protectors

Place a label protector over the spine label.

Property Stamp

Stamp the top edge of the book with the library's property stamp as illustrated below. If a book is very thin, stamp it on the inside of the front cover (NOT on the title page).

Theft-strip

Next, the item must be theft-stripped with tattle tape as illustrated below.

Record Statistics

Keep a running total of items processed on a slip of paper. At the end of your work session, record the total number of items processed and your initials on the Processing Statistics Sheet next to today's date.

At the end of the month, the total items processed will be recorded in the Serials Unit Statistics spreadsheet in Google Drive.

Place processed materials on truck

As volumes are processed, place them on appropriate book trucks.

Use separate trucks for Reference materials, "notifies," new books, serials, govt. pubs., CML materials, and old books.

Do not mix processed and unprocessed materials on the same truck.

Also, do not partially process items and leave them for later -- this is confusing.

Mark the processed items "Done" in Alma

Deliver the books

Most books should be delivered to the Main Circulation Desk where they will be scanned in before being shelved or delivered to another location, e.g. Reference or Govt. Pubs.

Books with holds or interested users ("Notifies") should be delivered to a supervisor at Circulation. They should be taken daily to Circulation, even if the truck is not full. Be sure to tell a supervisor at Circulation that these are "Notifies."

New books should be delivered to a supervisor at Circulation. Keep the Strand books separate and label the truck as "Strand". All new books should be taken daily to Circulation, even if the truck is not full. Be sure to tell a supervisor at Circulation that these are new books.

Serials can be left with any staff member at Circulation. If you have only a partial truck of serials, the volumes can be removed from the truck and placed on the serials shelves near the student time clock.

Old books can be left with any staff member at Circulation.

CML materials can be delivered directly to the Curriculum Materials Library to be scanned in.

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Note that before being shelved, items have to be scanned in at the Circulation Desk responsible for shelving them. Therefore, processed new materials cannot be delivered directly to Reference or Government Publications.

Note too that media items delivered directly to the Media Resources Center and materials delivered directly to Special Collections and the Curriculum Materials Library will also need to be scanned in once they reach their departments, before being shelved. This is done by setting the location in Alma to the appropriate Circulation Desk (Media Resources Center or Special Collections) and then going to Fulfillment => Resource Requests => Scan in Items.