Adding items

For bringing a whole collection in at once, use catalog import. This page covers the manual route: a cart of new books, a piece of equipment, or extra copies of a title you already carry, added one at a time from the staff app.

Adding items is a library-manager action. Staff without the library-manager grant for the library don’t see the button: Add items button, and opening the page by its address sends them back to Items.

The Add Items page

Go to Library level navigation path: Catalog then Items, open the button: Add items menu, and choose menu item: Add one at a time. It opens the screen: Add Items page, which is built for a barcode scanner and a stack of books: one field that takes an ISBN and then the copy’s label, a set of defaults you set once, and a feed of what you have added.

Scan a book

The scan card holds field: ISBN on top, and beneath it a field: Copy barcode field whenever the barcode default asks for a label on each copy — the default, and what this section describes. Two fields, one per beat: whichever is next is armed; the other is disabled, so the page always shows where you are. Set the default to assign barcodes instead and the second field isn’t on the card at all, because there is no label beat; see defaults for every copy. The page opens with the ISBN field focused: scan the barcode on the back cover, or type the number and press Enter (button: Look up does the same). On a phone, tablet, or any computer with a camera, button: Scan with the camera opens a viewfinder that works for either beat; see scanning if the button isn’t there.

Lyra checks your catalog first, then ISBNdb, and tells you which it found in the slot under the ISBN field:

Already in your catalog. The item appears with message: In your catalog. Nothing is created twice.
New to your catalog, found online. The title, authors, cover, and edition details are pulled in and the item is ready for its first label. button: Edit details… opens the full item form if you want to change anything before it lands.
Found online, but you already have a title like it. A dialog: Which Item? dialog lists the similar items in your catalog. Pick one to add this ISBN as a new edition of it, or choose button: Add as a new item.
Not in your catalog or online. The slot says so and offers button: Add by hand…, which opens the book form with the ISBN filled in. Or scan the next book and come back to this one.

Once an item is found, the ISBN stays in its field with a check mark, the field goes quiet, and the field: Copy barcode field lights up and takes focus.

A value that isn’t an ISBN, such as a copy label scanned by mistake, is rejected in place with message: Not an ISBN. Scan the barcode on the back cover, not the copy label. It stays in the field so you can see what happened.

Then the label

With an item pending, scan the label on the copy into field: Copy barcode, or press Enter with the field empty to assign an unused barcode. The copy is created immediately, its row arrives at the top of the feed, and the page returns to waiting for an ISBN. Every copy follows the same two scans, back cover then label, whether or not it is the same title as the last one; the button: x on the slot walks away from a book without adding anything.

A label that is already on a copy somewhere in the school is refused with message: This barcode belongs to another copy. The item stays pending for the next one. If the copy can’t be saved at all, the slot says message: Something went wrong. and names the label that didn’t land; the book is still pending, so scanning the label again is the retry, and the button: x walks away from it. An ISBN scanned into the copy field is not guessed at: the page says message: That looks like an ISBN. and offers button: Use as barcode, for libraries that label copies with ISBNs, or button: New item, which looks it up as the next book; dismiss it to scan the label instead. A web address gets the same stop, message: That looks like a web address. with button: Use as barcode or dismiss, because the camera reads a QR code on the cover as readily as the label. The viewfinder closes after every scan, so a question is never hidden behind it.

No ISBN to scan

The button: No ISBN to scan menu under the field holds the other ways in. Each ends in the same label beat and the same feed.

menu item: Find by title… — type a title and select button: Search. The search stays put; the results scroll under it. In your catalog lists matching items, each with an button: Add a copy menu: one entry per edition by ISBN, and menu item: No edition for a copy that sits on none. For an edition the item doesn’t have yet, scan its ISBN on the page instead. A non-book item has a plain button: Add a copy. Found online lists ISBNdb results; button: Use this runs the same lookup a scan would. If neither list has the book, close the dialog and pick one of the two entries below.
menu item: New book… — the dialog: New Book form: title, authors, series, and a cover. button: More details folds out the edition (an optional ISBN, plus format, copyright year, and page count once one is in), summary, topics, reading measures, audience, and the assignments: circulation policy, tags, and lists (type a list name that doesn’t exist yet to create it). The fold opens on its own when the form already has an ISBN or a found-online record to show.
menu item: New non-book item… — the dialog: New Non-Book Item form, for equipment, kits, and anything without an ISBN.

Both forms end with button: Continue, after which the item is pending and the field wants the first label. A form won’t continue with a missing title or an author entry that has no name; an invalid or duplicate ISBN is blocked too.

Defaults for every copy

The right-hand side of the scan card holds the values every copy in the session takes:

field: Barcode — Scan a label on each copy (the default) or Assign one automatically. With assignment on the field: Copy barcode field isn’t on the card: a scanned ISBN adds a copy straight away, with no label beat, and the ISBN field is ready for the next book; extra copies come from the row’s menu item: Add another copy. Changing this while a book is already waiting for its label leaves that book its field, and takes effect from the next one. A copy whose barcode was assigned automatically and can’t be saved leaves the book pending with button: Try again in the slot, since there is no label field to scan into.
field: Location.
field: Acquisition date (optional) — empty until you set it, with a button: Today shortcut.

These hold for as long as you stay on the page. Each visit starts over at Scan a label on each copy, with no location and no date. Purchase price is set per copy, from button: Edit on its row.

Suggested call numbers

Every copy gets a suggested call number, with nothing to press, and it is worked out as part of saving the copy rather than afterwards — the row arrives with it already on. For an item that already has call-numbered copies, Lyra reuses the one most of them share, which takes no time at all. For a book new to the catalog, it works one out from the title, authors, series, topics, and audience, plus the Dewey classification when the metadata source supplied one, weighed against your own shelving; that is the part that can add a moment to a scan.

In an account whose owner has turned Vega off, only the first of those happens: a book new to the catalog gets no suggestion, because working one out means sending its details to an AI service.

Non-book items get no suggestion, and neither does a book Lyra cannot work one out for — those rows arrive with the call number empty. Either way it is a starting value: change it from button: Edit on the row, or on the copy from the item page.

The feed

The card: Added in the Last Hour card lists every copy that joined the library in the last hour, newest first, whoever added it and from whichever device, so a reload or a second tablet at the cart shows the same list. Each row carries the item, the barcode, the call number, the location, and the acquisition date.

button: Edit opens the dialog: Edit Copy dialog for that copy, so a wrong barcode, call number, location, date, or price is fixed on the spot.
The row’s row action: ⋯ menu offers menu item: Add another copy, which makes that item pending again for the next label (for a book, scanning its ISBN again does the same thing; for an item with no ISBN this is the way), and menu item: Delete copy, which asks you to confirm and then removes the copy. If it was the item’s only copy, the item goes with it. A copy that is already checked out or holding a hold is refused with the reason in the dialog.
The card’s button: Download menu names how many copies it covers and offers menu item: Excel, menu item: CSV files (.zip), menu item: Barcode labels… and menu item: Spine labels… for all of them. See labels and printing.

button: Done returns to Items. Nothing is waiting to be saved: every row in the feed is already in the catalog.

Books vs. non-book items

Lyra treats two kinds of thing differently:

A book may be held in more than one published form, each identified by its ISBN and carrying that form’s binding, page count, and copyright year. A copy is attached to one ISBN.
A non-book item has no ISBN. It’s just the item record plus its copies.

Adding copies to an existing item

When more copies of a title you already own arrive, add them to the existing item rather than creating a new record. Scanning its ISBN on the Add Items page does exactly that, and so does opening the item (navigation path: Catalog then Items, then the title) and choosing button: Add copies from the tab bar or menu item: Add copies… from the button: Actions menu.

For a non-book item there’s no ISBN to sort out. The dialog: Add Copies dialog goes straight to copy details.

For a book the dialog is one screen. Its field: Edition select lists the editions already on the item, each with its ISBN, binding, copyright year, and copy count, with the edition holding the most copies preselected. Two more choices follow the list:

Another ISBN… shows a field: New ISBN field. Scan or type the ISBN and select button: Look up. Found online, the edition’s format, year, and page count are filled in for you to check; not found, you fill them in. An ISBN already on this item simply selects that edition, and one that belongs to a different item is refused by name — the item it is on, with an button: Open that item link, since the copies belong there.
No ISBN adds copies that sit on no edition, for older books, manuscripts, or special items.

Copy details

Below the edition, the copy fields, one group per copy:

field: Barcode — required, and must be unique across the whole school. button: Assign fills in an unused barcode for you.
field: Call number and field: Location — optional shelving info. Lyra proposes a call number the same way the Add Items page does, and a button: Suggest button inside the field asks again.
field: Acquisition date — with a button: Today shortcut.
field: Purchase price.

Add as many copies as arrived in one submission with button: Additional copy (and button: Remove copy to drop one); each new copy carries over the previous one’s details except the barcode. Submitting saves them all.

Copy errors you might hit

Duplicate barcode within the submission. Two copies in the same batch share a barcode; change one.
Barcode not available. The barcode is already in use somewhere in your school, or isn’t a valid barcode. Barcodes are unique school-wide.