Tis the season for stocktake

One of the major tasks undertaken by State Library staff is a complete a stocktake of all South Bank collections every three years.

Stocktake contributes to the maintenance and accessibility of the physical collections by staff and clients. It confirms the holdings of our collections and forms the basis to determine the valuation of our collection.  This year, the focus is on our lending collections and two different stocktake methods are being used. Items on the shelves in our public spaces have their barcodes individually scanned while items in our storage repositories are counted.

With nearly 900,000 items to be verified, staff from all areas of the library contribute, with our Collection Access team coordinating the process.

Since 21 November 2016, staff have counted almost 135,000 items and scanned more than 39,630 collection items. This means everyone has, on average, counted or scanned well over 860 items in one hour.

After items are counted or scanned, Collection Access staff collate the total counted for each collection and then compare the final number with our library management system's records. In the rare event the variance is greater than 5%, the collection is then re-verified using a different method.

Thanks to all the staff who participated in this year's stocktake.

State Librarian Vicki McDonald shared her stocktake experience on Twitter