Item Records & Call Numbers

SWAN guidelines for call number creation are fairly relaxed. This guide will discuss the basics of call numbers in Symphony, SWAN call number classification schemes, and our standards for volume information for monographic materials. For information on call numbers for serials, please see Serial Call Numbers & Policies.

Item Categories are customizable vocabularies that can be used to describe items for searching or reporting. Item Categories do not affect circulation or hold rules in any way. This article covers SWAN's specific Item Category setup and usage.

Item Type determines how item records circulate in the ILS. This includes hold rules and loan rules. Due to the size of the SWAN consortium and the diversity of needs among our membership, this vocabulary is quite large. To prevent it from growing too unwieldy, we request that libraries choose existing values for Item Type whenever possible.

Locations are split into two types: Home Location, which largely remains static and lets patrons know where in your library an item can be found, and Current Location, which changes as items are charged, discarded, and placed in transit.

The Global Item Modification wizard allows the cataloger to create a template of changes to be made to selected items, and globally apply these changes to all items whose IDs are scanned.