Planning ahead is crucial for a completely stress-free end of the school year and a smoother transition into the next one. Here are the steps we suggest you follow. Some of these steps can be performed during the beginning or end of year procedures. Choose the steps that work best for your library!

1. Calendars & Period Due Dates
2. Hard Due Dates
3. Inventory
4. Loaned Item Reports
5. Declare Missing Items Lost
6. Remove Lost and Discarded Items
7. Advancing Patron Grades
8. Remove Graduated Students
9. Update Your Patron's Policies
10. Backup (Self-Hosted only)
11. Other Considerations

Calendars & Period Due Dates

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In most school libraries, circulation stops at the end of the school year and items that are still loaned out need to be returned. Properly configuring your Calendars preferences and assigning Period Due dates can help automate this process by prompting patrons to return loaned items before the end of the year.

1. To do this, go to your Calendars preferences.
2. Click twice on a calendar day near the end of the academic year to mark it as a Period Due. Remember, a period due date is when you want items returned to the library. Therefore, it is important to select a date early enough for overdue notices to be sent out for all outstanding circulation and give patrons enough time for returns. Period due dates only pertain to patrons who have Apply Period Due Date marked as part of their policy settings.

Keep in mind that Alexandria does not adjust due dates after an item has been checked out; therefore, it's important to set period due dates as soon as possible so that any overlapping circulation periods are shortened to allow items to be returned on time.

Although you can set up calendars for up to three years ahead, we do recommend checking your Calendars preferences at the beginning and end of each school year. In fact, since you're already adjusting your Calendars preferences, you may want to prepare the calendar for the next school year or summer circulation, if applicable.

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Hard Due Dates 

Some libraries use hard due dates on certain policies to allow items to be checked out all year. However, if your library is using hard due dates to control extended check out periods, those dates must be changed before circulation can resume next year. If you don't use hard due dates, you may skip this step.

Select Policies (“”) from your Preferences (“”) module.

On the Item Policy side, under the Check Out subtab, you can update or remove the Hard Due Date.

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Hard Due Dates only apply to items if they have one specified in their item policy. Remember that hard due dates override all other due dates, including period due dates (above). For example, if you set a period due date of June 1st, but your Equipment item policy has a May 2nd hard due date, then items under the Equipment policy will be due on May 2nd.

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Inventory 

Next, use Inventory Management to perform an end-of-year inventory so that you know exactly what you have, where it is, and what is missing—putting you in a better position to analyze and organize your collection.

Performing inventory can be a lengthy process. Once you start, Alexandria will regularly save everything you've inventoried up to now until you are finished; we call this an inventory “session”. You can stop or pause your session at any time and when you are ready to resume, Alexandria will begin where you left off.

If you're part of a Centralized Catalog, each collection is typically stored at different locations and requires you to perform independent inventories. A single-site configuration can perform inventory in one large—or several smaller—inventory sessions.

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For more information on performing end-of-year inventory, please review our Inventory Management documentation here.

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