Dear Mr. Zacharia,
My suggestions reg. procedures for conducting physical verification of
library stock and reporting, based on my experience in NAL Library,
Bangalore, are as under:
1. As per general rules and practices, physical verification of library
stock is generally undertaken once in 5 years.
2. The Library Advisory Committee considers this matter and makes
recommendations to the Head of the Institution for constituting a Library
Physical Verification Committee. Generally, the Committee is headed by a
Chairman nominated by the Head of the Institution. Each Department in the
institution may also nominate a person to represent it on the Committee. The
Librarian would also depute one or two persons from the Library to assist
the Committee. In case of small libraries, the strength of the Committee
can be up to 5 persons, including the Chairman. In case of larger
libraries,,the strength could be raised to about 10.
3. Based on the recommendations of the Library Advisory Committee, the Head
of the Institution issues a Notification duly constituting the Physical
Verification Committee.
4. The Committee then holds a preliminary meeting to discuss the
modalities, allocation of duties and responsibilities among the members of
the Committee. The actual work of physical verification then begins.
5. Broadly, the procedures for conducting the actual physical verification
can be as follows:
1. Note down the accession numbers of books and
documents already issued by the circulation counter in a separate sheet.
Acc. Nos. of documents issued during the period of physical verification are
also noted
in this sheet.
2...In respect of books remaining in the library
racks, separate sheets of paper are prepared for each library rack. Each
member of the physical verification committee are given one set of sheets
and is asked to
note down the accession numbers of books held
in the library rack that is specifically assigned to him.
3, Once the work of noting down of accession
numbers of books already issued through the circulation counter and those
still remaining in the shelves is over, all the sheets of paper containing
the accession
numbers are pooled together. The accession
numbers can then be input into a computer for consolidation. This work can
also be done manually, if computerization is not possible.
4, After all the accession numbers of books are thus
input and re-arranged sequentially, a comparison with the Library Accession
Register has to be done and gaps in accession numbers in the physical
verification sheets are to be identified and
noted down in a separate Missing Books List.
5. The Missing Books List is further checked with the
reports of the previous physical verification committee, if any, and the
accession numbers of books already written off from the Library Accession
Register may
be rounded off. The Missing Books List may
also be circulated to all the sections/divisions in the Institution to
ascertain whether any one is actually having the book or books declared as
missing.
6. After all these exercises are completed, a final
MISSING BOOKS LIST has to be prepared and signed by the Chairman and other
members of the physical verification committee. The Chairman can then
forward
the list to the Head of the Institution with a
covering letter containing findings of the committee whether the
responsibility for the loss of books, if any, could be fixed on any person
or persons or not. The committee
can also make recommendations as to measures to be
taken to avoid losses of library books and documents in future
7 The head of the institution then takes action based
on the recommendations of the physical verification committee
5. There might be better methods - manual as well as computerized - than
what I have suggested above, and I am sure members of this forum would send
you their own suggestions for your guidance.
With best wishes,
M N Seetharaman
--------------------------------------------------
From: "silent listener"
Dear Professionals,
I am a beginer in LIS profession.Can you post your suggestions about how can we submit the Stock Verification report to the management.Sugest a standard format for the same.
Thanking You
JOSEPH ZACHARIA
-- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.