Obviously, you can’t check something out to a patron if that something is already checked out to someone else. Right?
In the wonderful world of library data, you quickly learn there’s nothing solid to hold on to. ISBNs are unreliable, and the processes meant to track them in bibliographic records often make things worse. ORCIDs? That brilliant modern idea for identifying who actually wrote something? Think again. Researchers use them to create multiple personas, neatly separating their different research domains. The list goes on forever, and I love it.
But surely, a loan must be checked in after it’s checked out. How else would we know it was returned? Right? Well, today I learned about the concept of a “flying check-in.”
Reverse-engineering library systems from data dumps is only one part of the job, frustrating at times but also very rewarding.