Gretchen Crowley Final Project 1

Gretchen Crowley Final Project 1

INFO 503-901 Arlington Public Schools Inventory Process

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of Contents 1

Executive Summary 2

Current System Problem Statement 3

Needs Assessment 8

Proposed System MS-AID Inventory Process 10

Appendices

1. APS Libraries Organizational Chart 15

2. Current System DFD 16

3. Proposed System DFD 17

4. Feasibility Analysis Matrix 18

5. Timeline for System Development 19

6. Estimated Costs Analysis Current System 20

7. Estimated Costs Analysis Solution 2 21

8. Cost Analysis Proposed System 22

9. Endnotes 23

Executive Summary

Arlington Public Schools (APS) in Arlington, Virginia requires an efficient and cost effective inventory process to replace the current time consuming process, to augment collection management and decision-making. The current automation system, Carl.X, designed by The Library Corporation, and purchased in collaboration with Arlington County Public Libraries (ACPL) does not have an inventory capability. The operations parameters differ between the municipal libraries and the academic libraries, and the need for an annual automated inventory process was deemed unnecessary when the Carl.X system was chosen.

The current inventory process involves a complex manipulation of a Carl.X Shelf List report formatted through Microsoft Excel into a useful format for inventory. The Excel formatted Shelf List is used by teams of 2 people to call out and mark off books on the shelf against the books on the list. The process is very time consuming, and requires the dedication of multiple personnel to complete, taking these people away from their original jobs. The process also results in just a modified Excel formatted Shelf List. The list can be used for collection management, but it is not in an ideal format.

The proposed system requires an investment in time and resources. Technology support will be needed to set up a Microsoft Access Database which will use the Carl.X Shelf List to populate the database fields. Barcode scanners will need to be purchased, and barcode enabling software will need to be installed in the Access database program. A small amount of staff training is also required to teach library media specialists and library assistants how to manipulate the Access database to generate useful reports for collection management. The APS libraries can capitalize on economies of scale to recoup costs across the school system by copying the Access database and sharing the scanners. The MS Access Inventory Database and inventory process will provide useful formatted reports for greatly improved collection management and budgetary decision-making.

Current System and Problem Statement

Arlington Public Schools is located in Arlington County, Virginia, directly across the Potomac River from Washington D.C. Arlington is a large, diverse and well-educated city, with a population of a little over 200,000. Approximately 36 percent of the population holds graduate degrees and the median household income is $84,000. The school system is commensurately large, with 22 elementary schools, 5 middle schools, 3 high schools, 1 secondary school and 6 additional programs. There are 37 school library media centers at the 37 schools and programs, and one professional library for teachers, staff and library media specialists. The Arlington Public Schools annual budget for FY 2008 is $411,000,000 and the average teacher salary is $71,000 with a student enrollment of over 18,500. [1] The stated goal of the Arlington Public Schools (APS) is to “teach all students a broad body of knowledge, effective communication skills, a rational system of thought, and use of their individual creativity. The education process in the Arlington Public Schools involves the cultivation of an inquiring mind, respect for learning, ethical behavior, an understanding of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, an appreciation of our national culture as well as other cultures and the concept that each individual has merit.” [2]

Charlie Makela is the Library Media Services Supervisor for APS. She is responsible for program leadership in library and information services, initiatives in information skills instruction through library media services, staff development, training and evaluation, and administering the Title V Federal Program. Ms. Makela is also responsible for managing the Media Processing Center, where incoming books are catalogued and processed before being sent out to the schools, and for continuing collaboration with Arlington County Public Libraries.[3] The approximate annual book purchasing budget is $333,000, each school receives a per student dollar amount of $18. The technology budget for library media services is $40,000 for technical support of the automated circulation and management system.[4]

Janet Jackson is the APS Library Information Systems Coordinator. Ms. Jackson is responsible for coordinating the Integrated Library Information System, or Arlington County Online Resource Network (ACORN) in collaboration with Arlington County Public Libraries, and the library technologies for the academic libraries in APS. This includes direct support for library media specialist with the ACORN and CARL.X system programs. [5]

The circulation management program run by APS and Arlington County Public Libraries (ACPL) is CARL.X. CARL.X is designed, developed and supported by The Library Corporation (TLC). TLC was established 33 years ago as a provider of automation solutions for libraries. The company is run by the original founding family. The mission statement of the corporation is: “We support our automation solutions with an outstanding and unexpected level of service.”[6]

Arlington Public Schools (APS) joined in collaboration with Arlington County Public Libraries (ACPL) in 2002, to purchase The Library Corporation’s large public library system, Carl.X. APS chose to collaborate with the Arlington County Public Libraries because the cost of automation per library was significantly reduced when the two library systems combined their purchasing power. The Carl.X progam is based upon the original Carl.Solution, but is a UNIX and Oracle based open-system program that uses Web 2.0 technologies and Microsoft (MS) Windows client software. Staff and administration workstations have MS Windows Outlook style toolbars with multiple features, such as Dynamic Parameter system settings, Application Security settings, Carl Decision Reports and Carl.X Operations Management.[7] Carl.X has a “three-tier architecture that provides real-time impact using Google-like search engine options, fast graphical presentation of search results, and artificial intelligence components.”[8] Carl.X runs a series of 45 reports that include Patron Lists, Circulation Status and Statistics, Lost Item Report, Count of Items by Location and Shelf List and Brief Shelf List. [9] These reports form the basis of collection management for both library systems.

The Carl.X system is designed to meet the needs of large municipal libraries. The operating parameters for a municipal library and an academic library differ. The municipal library will experience heavier regular use in more areas of the library than will an academic one. This calls for a large, responsive, interactive system. The daily operations of such a large municipal library, with a large cadre of personnel to shelve and weed old or uncirculated items, keeps the library’s shelves up-to-date and the Shelf List (defined as the shelf order of bibliographic data on items in the system) and Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) current, when regularly adjusted for those items removed from the system or additional ones input into the system. The reports that Carl.X runs augment daily book or collection management and negate the need for a comprehensive annual inventory process.

This is in direct contrast to an academic library that experiences much more periodic use in any given area, dependent on teacher and student needs which can shift throughout an academic year. Books that are under utilized in one year may be over utilized in another year due to curriculum changes. Curriculum additions may require the purchase of large amounts of books of one category or another. Changes in local, national and global information rapidly render informational books obsolete. These differing use needs between a municipal library and an academic library make Carl.X less than ideal for some academic applications.

As noted before, the ACPL do not need an annual inventory, but the academic libraries do for two main reasons. The first is collection management, which is the maintenance and updating of a library’s book collection, and requires an annual inventory. Collection management involves the assessment of collection needs, acquisition requirements, maximization of access for the patron, and maintenance of the collection. Assessment of the collection includes the annual inventory to inform what areas within the collection need augmenting for collection development. Acquisition involves using assessments to determine current and future purchases to augment the collection where required. The maximization of access for patrons includes reducing physical barriers such as incorrect catalog information and actual physical shelf inaccuracies due to poor management of lost or misplaced books. Maintenance of the collection includes repair of damaged books, or other items, elimination of unwanted materials, and accounting for lost or misplaced items through records management.[10]

The second reason the academic libraries need an annual inventory process is that the APS libraries are answerable to the Instructions Department which is in turn answerable to the School Superintendent, who in turn reports to the School Board (see the APS Organizational Chart in the Appendix.) The budget for the school libraries on new book/item purchases is determined by a per student amount of $18. The total budget in FY2008 is $333,000 for new purchases in a system with 18, 500 students.[11] The inventory process provides the necessary validation of book expenditures, and further analysis for future expenditures. The APS system is also approaching a possible restriction in funding due to the current economic slow-down. A large budget item such as the book purchase budget will have to be justified with very thorough collection analysis which can only be done with the accuracies provided through annual inventories.

Carl.X, as purchased by Arlington County does not support an inventory process, according to the Library Supervisory.[12] The closest the system comes is the Shelf List, which is a list, in shelf order, of the bibliographic data from books in the system. The Shelf List does not take into account books that are circulating among patrons and that are not currently on the shelf, or the books that are listed but are lost for one reason or another and are also not on the shelf. There can also be books on the shelf that are not on the Shelf List due to improper cataloguing procedures. These discrepancies can only be accounted for by a person physically looking at the shelf, and by also checking in the Carl.X system under item maintenance for the particular book to see if it’s charged out for circulation. Thus, the Carl.X system provides no way for the libraries to establish an inventory process to provide essential collection management aspects. These anomalies slow down the collection management and decision-making processes and put the APS libraries at a budgetary disadvantage that they literally cannot afford.

Needs Assessment

The APS Libraries have a stated need for an efficient and effective inventory process that conforms to severe budget and personnel constraints.

The inventory process is required for two reasons. The first is the need for augmented collection management and decision-making. Collection management is a multi-faceted four part process. Part one is collection assessment, where the needs areas for an improved collection are identified. The acquisition process is another part of collection management, as is the maximization of access for the patron. This involves search capabilities, resource diversification, and reducing barriers to access such as incorrect catalog information. Collection maintenance is the fourth part of collection management. Collection maintenance includes the elimination of unwanted resources, the repair or elimination of damaged resources and the record keeping of these endeavors. Collection management and its many aspects require definitive knowledge of resources on hand, lost and damaged resources, and future resources.[13] This knowledge can only be determined by an annual inventory to assess the actual books on the shelf versus computer records.

The decision-making that will be directly affected by inventory information is twofold, involving internal budget decisions and resource allocations, and external budget decisions. Internally the library itself will allocate its fiscal resources where collection management has determined the needs areas. These areas are determined by the inventory process informing collection management where to expend resources. Externally, the APS Libraries will use the inventory information from the individual school libraries collectively to justify budget amounts and future budget requests for the APS Library Media Services as a whole.

Data on the inventory process was gathered for this study through the participation in an actual pencil and paper inventory at Taylor Elementary School in the APS School System. During the participation, notes were gathered on the inventory process. Two interviews were conducted with the Taylor Library Media Specialist and the APS Library Supervisor. Three additional interviews were conducted by email, two with the Library Supervisor, and one with the Library Information System Coordinator.

Information on The Library Corporation, the Carl.X Collection Management System, and Microsoft Access Database was gathered from internet research. Additional information on the above systems and their workings was collected during actual use by the systems analyst while on the job at an APS Library at Nottingham Elementary School.

Systems analysis on actual inventory processes was also performed on the job at Nottingham Elementary School where a complete Truck and Computer Inventory for an Improved Shelf List was performed.

Scanners were researched on the internet, and the choice was made to propose the Microvision scanner due to the Scanner Wedge Program which could barcode enable most Microsoft Windows application, including MS Access.

Inventory processes, collection management and systems analysis were also researched on the internet for further edification and knowledge for the systems analyst.

Proposed Inventory System Analysis

The proposed inventory system for APS Libraries requires the investment of time and resources in the form of technology support to develop a Microsoft (MS) Access Database Inventory program to incorporate the Carl.X Shelf List Report data into a useful format that will support an inventory process. Then the MS Access program needs to be barcode enabled by the Microvision Scanner Wedge software, so that barcode data can be directly entered into the MS Access Inventory Database program. Once the MS Access Inventory Database program has been set up and barcode enabled and the scanners purchased, then the library staff will need to have a short training session to learn how to manipulate the database. The inventory process can then proceed with direct inventory scanning with the Microvision scanners.