Issuing items manually

This is just a reminder to you all that we do not issue items manually at the circulation desk as a rule. Books that are not yet barcoded are still not issued manually since there is a procedure for bar-coding items in Aleph. Once the item is barcoded it is issued on the system. For those staff members who are not familiar with this process, kindly let me know so that we can arrange the necessary training for you. Since the start of the semester, I have counted approximately 23 items that have been issued manually. None of these seem to be warranted and some of the issue forms were not even stamped with the due date! If a faculty member or student is new and has not yet been issued an ID then he or she cannot get the book to take out of the library. They may be reading previlages but they will not be allowed to borrow items to take out of the library.
The only conditions under which an item may be issued manually are :-

1) If there is a power failure or if the Circulation system goes down. If you can see to read the issue form, then the item barcode and the patron ID no. must be written correctly on the form. This information will be transferred to the system at a later time.

2) When special permission is granted from the librarians in Loans and Reference (and this happens very rarely).

I am imploring all staff members to observe the zero tolerance approach to manual issues as it causes a lot of follow up problems for both students and staff.

Cheryl