Tech Forum

Has anyone made a program to allow for easier tracking of checking in and out items from the ward library (or materials center)?

Although I have searched for it through the Wiki and Forum, I have not found any references to such a program (I may not have been thorough enough though), so I thought I'd go ahead and ask. My meetinghouse librarian came up with the idea to computerize the check in/out sign up sheet we have in our library, and she found a member of the ward willing to donate a computer and program something for her. I checked with my Stake Clerk and Computer Specialist, and I have received the go ahead as long as certain conditions and restrictions are met with the computer and the software on it, but I thought I'd ask here to see if someone might have made progress in this direction already.

Thanks!

Alexandria for Linux OS only!
I don't know for others OS.

There was some discussion in the early days of the forum, but I don't think anything became of it.

I too am a new Ward Librarian. and have asked if and if how we might even use older/replaced computers in the library to track and check out items.
I am using my personal laptop and making Excel spreedsheets to catalog, but i feel that a Windowed or IE/firefox program, that is aimed at 98/XP level computers would be alot easier for Librarians, and members to use, and work on most older computers.

(copied from another thread which seems to have been abandoned, to this one which has seen more recent activity)

I am not interested in a checkout system, those are either too cumbersome or too expensive to implement and who cares how many white board erasers are still available, it costs more to track those items than it does to replace them and the loss ratio isn't high enough to notice.

I am looking for an indexing system for pictures (and other media) in a ward meetinghouse library? As a new ward librarian with a computer background I am trying to find a way to locate the pictures people ask for to use in their lessons that are starting in a few minutes, sometimes from vague descriptions of the picture.

So I started indexing the pictures in our library. A previous librarian had an index of materials on spreadsheets which I have used as a starting point. I now have a simplistic database and half functional user interface and I am now through checking almost half of the pictures and my count is close to a thousand. At least 1 out of 10 pictures were not in the existing printed list which means they would never be used. A printed list is also extremely difficult to keep up to date.

If there is enough interest the project could go a lot further.

A web based database would let teachers see if a picture was available and then give librarians enough information about the picture to find it quickly.

Thumbnails of the pictures would also be fun to have to see if the picture really matches what the title suggests. This part can be limited (or omitted) if thumbnails trigger copyright concerns.

I have other ideas, but these are the primary reasons for doing this.

Even if I don't manage to find someone willing to maintain the list after I leave, I will at least leave the library with a more complete printout of the pictures in the library and a data disk with the current list in case someone eventually wants to continue the effort.

I just accepted this position as of yesterday. We have multiple wards and there has been no librarian from any ward for over one year.

I am so looking for any program and/or forms so I can get an inventory done asap. Any help, ideas, etc., would be greatly appreciated.

I could send you what I have, but it is still in development stage (pre alpha) and still requires other software. It is also still changing as I uncover more things that I find a way to index. If it works for you, maybe between the two of us we can get a little more attention here.

Word of warning, doing initial inventory can take a lot of time.

Index of pictures in excel & word you can - add & update for your meetinghouse library & check out these other resources

http://sites.google.com/site/ldsmeeting ... ypictures/

http://ldsmeetinghouselibrarymaterialsi ... gspot.com/


There is a yahoo group where others give you ideas and they have a file section with forms
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LDS-Librarian