In days of yore at the issues desk, attempting to issue a book via the barcode occasionally prompted us to create a “FAST ADD” record. Horizon recognised the UC library barcode but was unable to locate a bib record for the item so created a brief record with the call number “FAST ADD”; we added some bibliographic data to this record and the book was properly catalogued upon its return.

Since the RFID conversion, a book that has a barcode and an RFID tag must have a bib record (because the barcode had to link to a record for the tag to be encoded). So, FAST ADD prompts should no longer be occurring at the lending desk for these items.

However, they are occasionally occurring in error. If an RFID tag has a barcode encoded that follows the correct format but is one or two digits wrong, Horizon will attempt to issue the item as a FAST ADD. This is a problem because the item’s record will appear available on the catalogue, even though it is currently issued to a borrower. In addition, while the book tag will likely be fixed upon return, the Sort Assist will not alert staff that the book was issued as a FAST ADD and the temporary record will sit on Horizon waiting to be fixed up.

So, if you get a FAST ADD message for a tagged book you are issuing at the Lending desk, please do the following:

1. Retry issuing item via tag to see if it produces the FAST ADD message again.
2. If it does, check the data encoded on the tag and carefully match with the barcode on the book. You will likely find it is one or two digits out.
3. If the data in the tag is wrong, re-encode the tag and issue as normal.

Edited to add that this information has been added to the wiki ‘How To’ section.