Weeding

Weeding is how you take a copy out of circulation without erasing it. A weeded copy comes off the shelf and stops circulating, but its record and history are kept, and you can restore it later. That makes weeding the right tool for damaged, lost-cause, or out-of-scope material — anything where permanent deletion would throw away history you might want.

Weeding is a library-manager action. Staff without the library-manager grant don’t see the weed controls, checkboxes, or row actions.

Weeding a single copy

Open the copy and choose menu item: Weed copy… from the button: Actions menu. You’re asked for a field: reason — type one (it shows on the weeded list), or leave it blank if you prefer. Cancelling the dialog leaves the copy active and on the shelf.

Weeding the last copy of an item sends you back to the active items list, since the item no longer has a circulating copy.

That last weed does more than it looks like. With no copies left, the item record itself is removed, and it takes with it the item’s place on any OPAC list and any holds still waiting on it. Circulation history survives — completed loans keep their own snapshot of the title and barcode, so a patron’s history doesn’t develop a hole. Restoring the copy later rebuilds the item record, but not its list memberships or the holds it took down. If it was the last item on an OPAC list, that list comes off the homepage rather than showing an empty row.

Weeding from a copy row

You don’t have to open a copy first. On Library level navigation path: Catalog then Items on the tab: By copy tab, a copy’s row action menu has row action: Weed copy… (and row action: Mark lost, see Lost and found). Same reason prompt, same result.

Weeding copies in bulk

To weed several copies at once, select them on navigation path: Catalog then Items on the tab: By copy tab and choose button: Weed in the selection band. To weed a whole title — every copy of it — select the item(s) on tab: By item and weed there, or use an item’s row action row action: Weed item…. Weeding an item weeds all of its copies and keeps them on the weeded list. To weed everything a filter matches, such as every copy not checked out in ten years, select all matching first.

If some of the copies are still in use, nothing is weeded yet. The dialog stays open and says how many, such as message: 3 of 40 copies are still in use., with a line for each reason: copies checked out, copies on the hold shelf for a patron, and items that would lose their last copy while patrons wait, such as message: Patrons are waiting for 1 of these items, and weeding removes its last copy. Their holds are canceled. You choose what happens next:

button: Weed the other 37 copies weeds the rest and leaves the copies in use where they are. A message afterward says how many were left in place.
button: Weed all 40 copies, on the message itself, weeds every copy, with the same effect as for one copy (see Weeding something that’s in use). When the only reason is that copies are checked out, it reads button: Check in and weed all 40 copies.

Weeding a scanned batch

For a weeding cart, the fastest path is to scan:

Go to navigation path: Catalog then Weeded.
Choose button: Weed copies to open the scan dialog.
Enter a reason.
Scan barcodes one after another. Each scan weeds that copy and confirms with a brief message: Copy weeded.

A few behaviors worth knowing:

An invalid barcode weeds nothing and says so under the field: Barcode field — message: Barcode not found. Check the number, or find the copy by title. — with the number you scanned still in the field, since during a weeding pass a miss is usually a mis-scan and you need to see what the reader actually read.
A scan that can’t go through for another reason also weeds nothing and says why in the same place. If the school is in read-only mode, or your library manager role was removed while the dialog was open, you’ll see message: You can’t weed copies right now. The school may be in read-only mode, or your role changed. If the request never reached Lyra, for example because the connection dropped, you’ll see message: The weed did not go through. Try it again.
A lost copy is weeded directly — scanning it does not prompt you to mark it found first.
An on-loan copy says message: This copy is checked out. with button: Check in and weed beside it, and the barcode field is preserved so you don’t lose your place in the scan run (see below).

Weeding something that’s in use

Lyra stops before weeding a copy that’s in use and says what weeding it would do. A library manager can accept that and go ahead from the button in the message:

An on-loan copy reads message: This copy is checked out. message: Weeding it checks it in first. Choosing button: Check in and weed completes the weed and files the open loan into the patron’s history, the same way a check-in would. The message waits as long as you do — nothing expires, and the reason you typed is still in the field.
A copy on the hold shelf reads message: This copy is on the hold shelf. message: Weeding it takes it off, and the patron goes back to the front of the queue. Choosing button: Weed anyway doesn’t cancel the hold: the patron waits for another copy.
The last copy of an item patrons are waiting for reads message: Patrons are waiting for this item. message: It's the item's last copy, so weeding it cancels the holds waiting for it.

When other copies still exist for an item whose holds are unassigned, there’s no warning — the holds can still be filled by another copy.

The weeded list

Weeded copies live on the screen: Weeded Copies page (navigation path: Catalog then Weeded), with the reason shown for each. This is the audit trail for what’s left the shelf and why, and it’s where you restore copies or change reasons.

Restoring a weeded copy

A weeded copy can come back. From its row on the weeded list, button: Actions ▸ row action: Restore to library… opens a dialog with its original barcode filled in, and button: Restore returns it to circulation.

If that original barcode has since been assigned to another copy, you can’t restore until you give the copy a different, unused barcode — Lyra blocks the restore to avoid a duplicate barcode.

Permanently deleting weeded copies

A weeded copy you will never restore can be deleted for good: a copy’s button: Actions ▸ row action: Permanently delete, or select several and choose button: Permanently delete in the selection band. Lyra asks you to confirm in dialog: Permanently Delete Copy. Deleting removes the copies from the weeded list along with their circulation history, and they can no longer be restored.

Changing the weed reason

Got the reason wrong, or want to standardize wording? On the weeded list:

Per row: a copy’s button: Actions ▸ row action: Change reason….
In bulk: select several weeded copies and choose button: Change reason in the selection band to change the reason for all of them at once.

Weeding vs. deleting vs. lost

Three different things, easy to mix up:

Weed — off the shelf, record kept, restorable. For damaged or out-of-scope copies. (This page.)
Delete — gone permanently, history and all. For records that shouldn’t exist.
Mark lost — a copy that’s missing and might turn up; reversible when it does.