into the overdues project

It has come to the point where I want to record my progress with this project. Many will find this very boring, I find it very exciting.

I have taken on the problem of reducing the library's lost item rates.

All up our current 'outstanding items over a month past the due date' tally has hit 4000 items.
I am focusing on 2008 numbers right now, which are as follows:

There are around 2000 items still outstanding from 2008.
That means that around 160 items disappearred each month.
Currently we are purchasing between 2000-2500 items each month, so we are losing 6.4% of our new collection numbers.
At approx $20 per item, we lose $3200 per month. This is 10% of what we spend.

The rates are slightly lower for 2007 with approx 130 items per month going missing. This is only of those that have still not been recovered as of March 09 however.