Short Communication: Case Study on Stock Verification in a Semi-automated Environment with Special Reference to the Library of the Open University of Sri Lanka

Stock verification is considered as an essential activity for all types of libraries although the libraries face difficulties in managing it with the regular library works. Development of a simple method to carry out the stock verification of less technologically oriented libraries would benefit the libraries in numerous ways. Therefore, the objectives of the present study were to document the stock verification process carried out by the library of the Open University of Sri Lanka and to elaborate on the outcomes and challenges of the stock verification procedure carried out by the library of the Open University of Sri Lanka. This will serve as a reference document to libraries that functioned under a semi-automated environment. The study details the procedure followed by the Open Universitylibrary while employing a minimum of library resources such as library staff, capital, management, etc. The whole process was conducted in 02 phases as;01) physical verification, which involved extracting required data from each book in the physical collection and identifying obsolete, outdated books and books to be repaired and02) data comparison with the accession register to identify lost/ missing books. The study also details the outcomes of the processwhich include deriving a simple method with minimal human and mechanical errors which enables periodically carrying out the process, increasing the quality and the currency of the book collection,enhancing the library staff skills, and the overcoming the challenge of managing the process with minimum staff, who are parallelly carrying out their routine work at the library.