Understanding Barcode Formats

Item and borrower barcodes usually contain a prefix, leading zeros, and significant digits. Before you begin, you need to decide what format you want. You need to specify a prefix which consists of one number indicating barcode type and four numbers indicating a library’s institution code. You also specify how many characters are in the barcodes. The significant digits come at the end of the barcode and make each barcode unique. As a result, the number of significant digits varies. Using the format and length information, Horizon creates a barcode by adding the prefix to the front, adding the significant digits to the end, and then “padding” the significant digits with leading zeros to fill the barcode length you specify. Because Horizon creates barcodes in this way, your staff need to enter only the significant digits of an item or borrower barcode to identify it.

For example, this sample barcode has a length of 14 digits:

In this example, the “2” at the beginning identifies this as a borrower barcode; the next four digits identify the institution.

You can use alpha characters in the borrower or item barcode prefixes. However, the current release does not support alpha characters in an item barcode prefix when you batch create items.

 


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