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Barcode restrictions in Circulation and WMS

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Learn about the restrictions that apply to item barcodes in WorldShare Circulation and across WMS modules.

Barcode restrictions vary between the Circulation module and other WMS modules

WMS item barcode restrictions

The following general restrictions exist for WMS item barcodes:

  • Max field length of 30 bytes 
  • Whitespace characters at the beginning and/or end of the value will be trimmed/ignored by WMS
  • Barcodes must be unique; duplicate barcodes are not allowed.
  • Item barcodes are case-sensitive for WMS libraries

Additional WMS item barcode restrictions

Spaces in barcodes are not fully supported everywhere in WMS. While spaces in barcodes are supported in check-out and check-in, they are not reliably supported where a barcode is resolved through a search index. Known affected areas include:

  • Discover Items in the Circulation sidebar, including the Enter Barcode field and links in results
  • Digby shelf reading and inventory
  • Record Manager barcode search
  • WorldCat Discovery barcode search

In WorldCat Discovery, enclosing the value in quotation marks (example: bq:"31234 5678") will match a barcode containing a space. This does not work if the local holdings record is private and the user is not authenticated. 

 Caution: Because of these limitations, avoid spaces in newly assigned barcodes. You do not need to change existing barcodes that are working. 

The only other limit is what your library’s scanners can support. For example, if the scanner reads 123456x, then the matching value in WMS must be 123456x. If the value in WMS is 123456, then the scanner must truncate the ‘x’ from the scannable label before sending the value to the browser.
 
WMS does not require or apply a checksum value for item barcodes. The scanner would be responsible for ensuring that the scannable label is translated to the value known to WMS.

WorldShare Circulation item barcode restrictions

The following additional barcode restrictions apply to Circulation:

  • Leading and trailing spaces in barcodes are removed. If a barcode is entered or scanned with a space before or after the value, WorldShare Circulation trims it. 
    • Spaces within a barcode are supported in some areas of WorldShare Circulation. A value such as "31234 5678/9" works correctly for check-out and check-in. 
    • Spaces in barcodes can cause issues in the following areas of Circulation:
      • Discover Items in the Circulation sidebar, including the Enter Barcode field and links in results
      • Digby shelf reading and inventory
  • Item barcodes are case-sensitive for WMS libraries. Check-out, check-in, and searching using WorldShare Circulation require the barcode to be provided exactly as it was entered in the item record.