We’ve recently discovered that barcodes with lowercase characters (e.g. au1694674ab) are causing problems at the self-check machines. These items give borrowers an “invalid item” message and don’t show up on the checkout receipt, but the items get issued to the borrower (without being desensitised).
Library IT are going to fix the existing ones (some 12,000 barcodes), but we want to make sure that new records aren’t created with lowercase barcodes. Please let Library IT know if your barcode scanner is automatically creating items with lowercase characters, and we will reconfigure the scanner for you.
Thanks,
Donna
A round of applause for Alison for fixing the 12,000! 🙂
Unless I am mistaken, aren’t the lower case barcodes created by scanning the barcode when CAPS lock in on on your keyboard? Can be seen and corrected when cataloguing but is easily done without realizing when receiving items initially at the acquisitions stage.
That’s right Judith. If you have your CAPS lock key on, the scanner forces the barcode to be entered as lower case. I’ve found a setting in the scanner manual that will force the scanner to ignore the state of the CAPS lock key and always enter them in upper case. We’ll work our way around the scanners and reprogramme them. (I’ve always wanted to get rid of my CAPS lock key… )
Alison
Well done to whoever worked this out, as these items represented thousands of opportunities for people to lose faith in self-checkout. Cynthia