Haven't helped with a major weeding project in a long time, but my gut
reaction when I saw the desired workflow is that you might find it
easier/faster to go lower tech. Weeding is a very physical process that is
ergonomically difficult to integrate with equipment and apps requiring
precise use of both hands.

For example, one potential approach would be to print out the sheets in
call number order with scannable barcodes. As things are found, not found,
or whatever, that line is just marked with an appropriate color pen. When
workers return to a station, each color coded group of barcodes could be
scanned sequentially, i.e. all the greens for found, reds for not found, or
whatever you used. Those barcode lists can be combined with other
information to facilitate other processes such as removing inventory,
searching for lost items, waiting for checked out items, etc.

This sort of process might be easier as workers are required to make fewer
and simpler movements that don't involve awkward interactions with
equipment and it's friendlier to multiple people are working on different
parts of the list at the same time.

kyle

On Thu, Apr 4, 2019 at 11:58 AM Janice Banser <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hi all.
>
> SFU library is planning a major weeding project, many tens of thousands of
> volumes spread across a floor of our library and we are on a tight
> deadline. (so not a lot of time for in-house development)  We're
> identifying lists of weeding candidates using a combination of tools
> including Alma (our ILS), Greenglass, spreadsheets, etc. The next step will
> be to send student shelvers into the stacks with booktrucks, laptops, and
> barcode scanners. The idea is that they'll have an application or interface
> that prompts them what to look for, sourced from a master spreadsheet
> without the ability to write directly back to Alma or the Master
> spreadsheet. They will scan barcodes to capture pulled items. In the case
> of missing items or other problems, we want them to take notes for future
> follow-up.
>
> In the past we have done this kind of weed with paper lists. Trucks of
> books are pulled, lists are noted with problems, etc. Then the books go to
> tech services for re-wanding to create sets, and the inventory deletion can
> proceed. We know about applications like Book-Be-Gone. What's different
> about this weed is the scale. We'll be pulling multiple trucks of books
> every day. We need an efficient workflow that can handle this volume of
> weeds. Paper lists won't cut it.
>
> We are looking for a tool that would draw from the Master spreadsheet that
> contains, on a per line basis, info about a single book.  What we envision
> is that the info about a single book, taken from a line in the spreadsheet,
> would display on a screen and the shelver would input some info, such as
> "yes, I pulled this book off the shelf", then, after they noted what they
> had done with the book, the info they inputted into the display would be
> written to the spreadsheet (a copy?), adding to the line on the spreadsheet
> that pertained to the book in question.  After the shelver was done
> inputting info for a single book, the display would proceed to show the
> next book listed in the spreadsheet.
>
> We are interested in hearing from any libraries that have carried out a
> weeding project of this scale, bonus if you use Alma. 😊 What APIs,
> workflows, tools, (Alma features), etc. were you able to use to make things
> easier? Did you build additional applications for the staff, and did they
> integrate with Alma if you use Alma?
>
> Thanks in advance for any thoughts or advice on this.
>
> Janice
>
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> Janice Banser, Systems Librarian
>
> Simon Fraser University Library
>
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
>