In order to keep the cost and size of the pre-engineered building within reasonable parameters, during the two years the Library is in temporary quarters the circulating collection (some 700,000 volumes) will be housed in a compact closed-stack area and paged for readers on demand. To ensure that every book represented in the online catalog is actually available for use--that readers will not request lost or missing books--the Library recommended an inventory project, at the end of which the catalog would accurately reflect the collection.

We set out by interviewing a half-dozen companies that conduct library inventories. Not only were the suggested prices staggering, but no vendor had inventoried a Library that uses the NOTIS catalog software CUNY employs. In the end, Judith Wild (Associate Librarian for Technical Services), Howard Spivak (Director for Library Systems and Academic Computing), and Robert Litwin (Circulation Evening Supervisor) concluded that we could hire temporary staff and conduct the inventory ourselves for about two-thirds the cost of contracting the work out, avoiding a protracted bidding process and maintaining quality control. University staff who operate and maintain the online catalog agreed to be our partners in this venture, generating key management reports and deleting records for those missing books which we elected not to replace.

In July we began a pilot project that enabled us to define routines and develop a budget. In December Vice-President Patricia Hassett approved the needed funding, and we began in earnest. An Inventory Center was established next to the Circulation desk: thirteen PCs, wiring, network cabling, and barcode scanners appeared virtually overnight.

By the end of the 1997-1998 academic year, books classed in Library of Congress A-J had been completed. We believe we will finish the project with book truck number 2,600. This efficient, important, and highly successful project is a joint Cataloging/Circulation project.