Keep your Higher-Capacity Cartridges

Many libraries work on XESS year-round, setting aside books to be weeded as they have time to identify and pull them. This is a great idea! But it's time to add one extra little step to the process... checking the cartridge size.

If and when you move to a Duplication service model, you'll need to re-purpose some of your white cartridges. However, some of those cartridges (particularly the earlier ones) have a very small capacity; they're fine for one book, but the 5-15 books you'll be duplicating probably won't fit!

Fortunately, there's an easy way to check. On the back of each cartridge, just to the left of the barcode, is a manufacturing code. The first letter of the code indicates the cartridge size.

(List edited for completeness 12:53 EST, see Craig's post below for more detail.)
A - 128 MB
B - 256 MB
C - 512 MB
D - 1 GB
E - 2 GB
F - 4 GB

The attached photo has this code circled. You can still go ahead and mark them NAC in KLAS and set them aside... just sort them into a "keep" pile and hold onto them for duplication.

I am a little confused as to which codes on back to look for. Since the June conference in FL. I have been given and changed three times as to the code to look for. So, does this change with the vendor(s)?

This is the information I was given. There may be more codes and vendors in the mix... I will definitely do more research and follow up!

Can you tell me what other codes you were given, and by whom (even if it's a general us, NLS, or another library)?

Edit to add: I've tested the (mostly green) cartridges we have here, and this is what I'm seeing--
FE, FH, FD, FF - 4 GB (we believe FF is unique to the peach cartridges)
BE - 256 MB
If any of you find another code, please plug it into a computer and let us know the capacity!

Thanks for bringing this to my attention!

I can say, since we are recovering cartridges currently, that we have created a chart. The codes seems to be standardized.

Look at the first letter represented next to the barcode on the backside of the cartridge and this will tell you the size of the cartridge.
So based on the list of letter codes:
A - 128 MB (not used, but available)
B - 256 MB - these are many of the newer ones you are receiving since cartridge recycling has happened. We have found many of these.
C - 512 MB - not as common, but some are in the collection
D - 1 GB - have encountered some of these on white cartridges and many of our early ordered green cartridges
E - 2 GB - we have a bunch of these in our green cartridges. There are some of these we have found in the white cartridges.
F - 4 GB - All of the peach cartridges we have, plus there are some white ones in the collection

So to go back, look on the back of the cartridge at the first letter next to the external barcode and that will tell the size of the cartridge in hand.

Thanks, Craig! I'll add the full code list to the first post.

Do you have the range of DB numbers that correspond to the cartridge size? I think it was someone from your library who shared that with David Perotta at the KLAS conference.

The difficulty with doing it by DB range is that, as Craig mentioned, many of the smaller cartridges that had been returned as XESS were reused as higher DB numbers, so there isn't a clean cutoff where all of the books switched to higher capacity.

If anyone out there does know of any guiding ranges, though, please share!

Hi,
Do we have a definite understanding of whether the capacity is the same for a certain DB# for all copies of that DB#? So that, for example, if one state finds that DB098765 is an F cartridge, then we can count on all copies of DB098765 across the country being F cartridges? If so that would mean we could have and share a list of DB#s to pull instead of opening and checking each one

It has been our experience in checking cartridges to reclaim them for duplication that the same title/DB # are on the same lot of cartridges with the same letter designation, meaning that they should all be on the same size cartridge. If you use the letter based cartridge size chart you can check the size of the cartridge you're pulling.

One thing we are hoping to see, that we've asked for, is to have a letter printed on mailing cards that relate to the size of cartridge needed to run the order, based on the calculated size of the order. This way you could organize your bulk cartridges (regardless of origin. New or recycled) into bins and such so that they could be pulled as needed based on cartridge size.