Editing items

Once an item is in the catalog, everything about it is editable — the bibliographic record, the cover, each physical copy, and where copies live. This page covers those edits, plus merging duplicate items and permanently deleting records.

All of the actions here are library-manager actions. Staff without the library-manager grant for the library see the records but not the button: Edit, button: Actions, or bulk controls.

The three levels you can edit

A book record has three editable levels, and it helps to know which one holds the field you want to change:

Item — the title-level record, shared by every copy. Its fields are edited in groups, and no field is in two of them:
- Identity — title, authors, series, cover. What record this is. Edited in dialog: Edit Item.
- Details — summary (description on a non-book) and topics. What the book is about. Edited in the same dialog, under button: More details.
- Audience & access — grade restriction, target audience, and reading level (Lexile/ATOS). Its own dialog.
- Tags and lists — assignments the library makes, each with its own button: Change.
Edition — one published form of the book, identified by its ISBN and carrying that form’s page count, copyright year, and paperback/hardcover binding. One item can hold more than one edition, and an edition can be on more than one copy.
Copy — one physical thing: barcode, call number, location, acquisition date, price, whether it is reference only.

A non-book item has only the item and copy levels — there’s no ISBN.

Editing an item

Open the item: Library level navigation path: Catalog then Items, then the title.

Each group of fields has one control, and the control’s label says which group you’re getting. Every one of them is also in the page’s button: Actions menu, so you can reach any group from one place without hunting for the right card.

Identity: title, authors, series, cover

Choose menu item: Edit item… from the page button: Actions menu. The form opens on the title, then authors, series, and the cover — the fields that say which book this is — and it’s the only place they’re edited for one item. For a non-book, the series and author fields don’t appear. To give many books the same series at once, select them in the items list and use button: Set series in the selection bar; leaving the series blank there removes it from the selected items, and any non-books in the selection are left unchanged. Below the cover, button: More details folds out the summary and topics (see Details); it’s already open when the item has either.

A couple of validation rules:

The title can’t be empty.
An author entry must have a name — a blank author row blocks saving. To take an author off entirely, remove the row.

You can remove every author from a book if it genuinely has none.

Set or replace the cover art

The cover lives on the item, so it’s shared by all copies. From the dialog: Edit Item dialog, the cover control offers up to three ways to set it:

button: Custom URL. Paste a direct link to an image; Lyra uses it as the cover.
button: Upload file. Upload an image from your computer — a scan or photo of the physical cover, for example.
button: Via ISBN. Re-detect the cover from the copy’s ISBN through ISBNdb. Use this after correcting a wrong ISBN, or to fetch a cover for a book created by hand. This option appears only for a book that has an ISBN — non-book items offer just button: Custom URL and button: Upload file.

Details: summary and topics

The summary and topics are edited in the same dialog: Edit Item dialog as the title, under button: More details. Choose menu item: Edit item… from the button: Actions menu; on an item whose details card still reads message: No description, topics, or tags on this record., the card’s button: Add details opens the same dialog with the fold already open. The card itself carries no Edit. You can set:

field: Summary (field: Description on a non-book) — the blurb students see in the OPAC.
field: Topics (books only) — what the book is about. Topics come from the MARC record on import and are shared across the library, so typing an existing one reuses it.

Topics are chips on the card: Details card; selecting one filters the items list by it.

Below a rule, the card also shows the item’s tags (see below) and its lists (see below), each with its own button: Change.

Lists

A list isn’t a field of the item — it’s an assignment — so it has its own control and its own verb. Select button: Change beside the lists on the card: Details card, or choose menu item: Change lists… from the button: Actions menu.

Add the item to any custom list in the library, or type a name that doesn’t exist yet to create the list and put the item on it. Remove the item from a list with the row action: ✕ on its chip. The automatic lists (New arrivals, Most checked out) aren’t offered — Lyra builds those from circulation data, so there’s nothing to choose.

This is the item’s side of the same relation the list’s own page manages; see Lists for ordering a list and curating it as a whole.

Audience, grade access, and reading level

Audience, grade access, and reading level live on the item, and like the other groups they have a control of their own — they are not in the dialog: Edit Item dialog. Either choose menu item: Edit audience & access… from the item’s button: Actions menu, or select button: Edit on the item page’s card: Audience & Access card. You can set:

field: Grade restriction — a minimum grade, a maximum grade, or both. Patrons outside the range can’t check out the item without an override.
field: Target audience — from Preschool through Adult (or Unknown).
field: Reading level (books only) — the field: Lexile measure and field: ATOS level.

Editing a copy’s edition

A copy’s edition is the published form it is — identified by its ISBN, and carrying that form’s binding, page count, and copyright year. Because an edition is shared, editing those fields changes them on every copy in the library on that edition, not just the one you opened. Changing which edition a copy is on is a different operation, and so is clearing it; all three live in the button: Actions menu on the copy’s own page.

Open the copy, then use button: Edit on the card: Edition card, or open button: Actions and choose menu item: Edit edition…. Both open the same form. A copy’s row menu on the item’s tab: Copies tab doesn’t carry the edition actions.

The menu adapts to what the copy has. A copy on an edition offers menu item: Edit edition…, menu item: Change edition…, and menu item: Remove edition; a copy without one offers menu item: Set edition…. dialog: Change edition (dialog: Set edition for a copy without one) has two tabs — tab: Existing edition picks one already in the library, tab: New edition adds one.

You can change any of these fields or just one — a partial edit leaves the rest untouched. The ISBN itself is validated: a blank ISBN, an invalid ISBN, or one already in the library is blocked.

Editing a copy

Open the copy (from the item’s tab: Copies tab, or by scanning/searching its barcode) and use button: Edit on the card: Copy card, or choose menu item: Edit copy… from the button: Actions menu. Both open the same form. You can:

Edit every copy field, or just some — unchanged fields are preserved.
Fill in optional fields that were blank, or clear optional fields back to empty.
button: Assign a unique barcode if the copy needs one — the button fills a fresh, unused barcode.
button: Suggest a call number. Unlike the add-copies dialogs, this form never fills one in on its own — an empty call number on a copy already in the catalog may well be deliberate — so the suggestion arrives only when you ask for it. See Suggested call numbers for where it comes from.

Two things are enforced: the barcode can’t be empty, and it can’t duplicate another copy’s barcode.

The field: Location field autocompletes against locations already used in the library, so you reuse an existing location name instead of creating a near-duplicate. (Cleaning up location names after the fact is a metadata task.)

Setting a copy’s location

You don’t have to open a copy to set its location. From navigation path: Catalog then Items on the tab: By copy tab:

Bulk: select copies, then button: Set location from the bulk actions to put them all in one location at once — handy after a re-shelving project or when a new section opens.
Per row: a single copy’s row action also has row action: Set location….

Location is a per-copy field, so two copies of the same item can live in different places.

Merge duplicate items

When the same title ends up as two item records — a common aftermath of a MARC import that didn’t match on ISBN — fold them together so holds, copies, and history live on one record.

Go to navigation path: Catalog then Items on the tab: By item tab.
Select the two items.
Choose button: Merge from the bulk actions.
For each field where the two records differ, pick whether to keep A’s value or B’s. The result is one item carrying the values you chose and all the copies from both. Circulation history and weed history follow the surviving record too, so a patron’s past loans and the weeded list both keep pointing at something real.

Merge works across types — two books, two non-book items, or a book with a non-book item. You choose whether the merged record ends up a book or a non-book, so a mis-typed record can be reconciled with the right one.

Permanently deleting items and copies

Deleting is permanent: it removes the record itself with no restorable snapshot (unlike weeding). Any open loan is closed out and active holds are cleared, but the completed-loan circulation history is kept — it lives on each patron’s record, so it survives even after the copy or item is gone. Reach for delete when a record shouldn’t exist at all (a mistaken entry, a true duplicate you can’t merge); for a copy that’s just damaged or out of scope, weed instead.

Delete a copy. On the copy page, choose menu item: Permanently delete from the button: Actions menu. Deleting the last copy of an item sends you back to the active items list.
Delete an item. On the item page, menu item: Permanently delete from the button: Actions menu removes the item and all its copies. (Its already-weeded copies are preserved on the weeded list.)

Lyra warns before it lets you delete something that’s in use, and a library manager can button: Override:

A copy that’s on loan.
A copy assigned to an active hold.
The last available copy of an item that has active holds — deleting it would leave those holds unfillable.

When other copies exist for an item whose holds are still unassigned, there’s no warning — the holds can still be filled.