Books can go missing for a variety of reasons. In most cases, books were checked out by a patron and never returned, or they have been misplaced within the library. In my opinion, being misplaced in the library is much worse. You know who has that book that was never returned, you do not know where that book could have possibly been placed.
Alma differentiates between those incidents. If books are lost on loan, it is considered lost. If the book is just not where it should be shelved, then it is considered missing. For the most part, this guide uses those two terms interchangeably.
The missing book list is an excel sheet that lists all of the missing materials in the library. Each month a report is generated that gives the most recent information on lost books. The Technical Services Assistant will copy those newly lost books onto the excel sheet. It is likely that this is a monthly task for student aides to do. Student aides do not have access to view this document, so the Technical Services Assistant will handwrite books to be searched for. This list as well as a list of tips are near the student aide computer in a manilla folder.
When it comes to books lost on loan (lost), just look for them once where they should be. If they weren’t there, then it wasn’t returned. Sometimes it will be returned, and we just forget to remove it from our missing book list. We do charge patrons for overdue books, and the fee ($75) is a good motivator to bring the book back, but it’s good to wait a bit to go searching for these; once a patron brought back a lost book a year overdue. You just never know. Typically, the Technical Services Assistant would look for these rather than the student aide.
We look for books misplaced within the library three different times by three different people. Usually, the searchers will be two student aides and the Technical Services Assistant. It’s better to do searches on your own-you may think of a place to search that the other two haven’t.
Look where it should be. Sometimes staff come across a misplaced book and put it where it should be, never once considering that it might be on our list of lost books.
Put your hand behind the shelf to feel around, the book might have slipped through and is behind everything else.
Look above, below, to the left and right shelf of where it should be.
Switch the call numbers around. Let’s say the missing book had ‘M 123 .4 2012’ as a call number. Try looking for M 132 .4 2012’ or M 213 .4 2012’ or even ‘M 321 .4 2012’. There are many possibilities when it comes to switching the first set of numbers around. Sometimes if there aren’t many books under that classification, the step before this, looking in the surrounding area will cover this step as well.
Switch the call number letters around. Let's say the missing item has a call number of ‘TD 123 .4 2012’, look for ‘DT 123 .4 2012’ instead. Letters that are not in the call number can be checked as well. Once, a missing CD had the call number letters of HD, but it was found under HG. Think of letters that sound and are visually similar.
Look in reference, stacks, oversize, popular reading, and the juvenile/young adult section.
Sometimes, we have two or more copies of a book. Make sure the barcode on the book matches what is written on the list. If not, then it’s just an additional copy.
After filling out the whole sheet, give it to your supervisor so they may update the electronic spreadsheet.
If the books are not found, either the Technical Services Librarian or Assistant will forward a compiled list to the Collections Development Librarian for them to determine if we should purchase another copy or permanently remove it from our collection.
If a book is found, please bring it back to the Technical Services Assistant so they may update the record in Alma. Students who find missing books will be given a reward. 😊
