Circulation Committee Meeting
March 9, 2017

Melanie’s Report:
• There is a new location called J-POPULAR (for popular Children’s books)

• When doing a display at your library, please use only your library’s materials.

• There will be some updates available in April that deal with relevancy and searching which will make the patron experience better via the PAC.

• There is a new link on the Wiki entitled “Holds with Zero as Position in Queue.” This link explains that if a patron’s hold is placed on a record that is “on order” it displays the patron as position 0 in the queue in the PAC. Once a library obtains that item and catalogs it, the patron’s position will display in the PAC. Staff can also find the position in Workflows by following the steps outlined on the Wiki.
http://it.westchesterlibraries.org/circ/how-to/holds-with-zero-as-position-in-queue/

Allison’s Report:
• If there is ever a problem printing lost notices at your library, when the session settings screen opens type in: C:\Windows\System32\notepad.exe No libraries reported any issues printing notices.

• There is a Meet the Staff page on the Wiki with the pictures and names of all WLS employees.

• If anyone at your library would like a training refresher course, just call or email Allison and she will set one up with you. There is also a form you can fill out on the Wiki as well.

Technology Training Opportunities

• There are 4 Mobile Circ kits that can be borrowed from WLS for inventory. There are 2 iPhones and 2 Samsung tablets which each have the Workflows app on them for easy discarding and weeding. These kits may be borrowed for a month and Alison will bring them to your library and train your staff on their usage. There are also 2 laptops available to be borrowed from WLS. These laptops have Workflows loaded onto them and scanners attached as well. These laptops are useful for bringing into the community and registering patrons for library cards. These laptops are borrowed for your library’s particular event and go out for less than a week. Contact Allison about borrowing these. Once all of the libraries have VDI (virtual desktop) installed on their computers, we can use our own laptops for this. We would just have to sign into our Active Directory accounts. VDI will be coming to a library near you this year!

• There is also a mentor training site that all of the directors have been given a log in for. This is useful for new staff members to give them a crash course on the basics of Workflows.
https://support.sirsidynix.com/

• Blue Cloud Analytics training has been going on since October. The training teaches you how to create weeding lists, missing lists, grubby (items used a lot) lists and so much more. Please contact Allison if you would like to arrange for a training session at your library or if you would like to attend one of her monthly sessions.

Other Business:
• JUV card automatically changes to a TEEN card when the patron turns 12 years old. A TEEN card becomes an ADULT card when the patron turns 18.

• There was a question of when should children be allowed to have their own cards. Each library is different. Some say from birth. Others say when the child can write their own name. A few libraries had a specific age (5,6).

• TEMP Cards are to be issued for patrons wanting to borrow materials from one library but live in another town in Westchester. In this case, the library the patron is standing in should issue a temp card. Please check all of their information and enter it into the computer coded as TEMP. These cards are only good for 1 month and allow 3 items. Once the temporary card has been made for the patron, please send all of the information to the patron’s home library so that they may make a card for that patron.

• Yonkers does not charge fines for children who are Yonkers patrons and have Yonkers items overdue. Adult patrons at Yonkers may also read away their fines but only on Yonkers items.

• Angela has had issues with another library choosing the same books for their book clubs as she has and then changing the date the hold unsuspends so that their library gets the books before she does even though she placed the holds first. Please be courteous to other libraries. When books come in for book groups, most libraries check those books out to the book group card and then when members of those book groups come in, the book is charged to their own account.

• Please be careful when checking out an item to a patron that is on hold for someone else. The first box is the one you should click! It is the default! The only time you would want to cancel the original patron’s hold is if it’s someone from the same family picking up all of the materials.

• If an item is damaged when received for a hold and the item is placed in “missing” the patron will go to the bottom of the queue unless there is another copy available. If this happens, please contact Melanie with all of the patron’s information and she can place the patron back at the top of the queue.

• Allison and Angela have seen a pop up come up in check in that says “This item has 6 CDs. Do you want to check it in? YES or NO” There isn’t any override. Allison is going to look into this because it’s not happening consistently.

• When checking in the ILL bins libraries can use the “Receive Transit” wizard. This wizard can be found by going to Wizards, then All Wizards, then Circulation, then In Transit Items and then Receive Transit. Pending Transits which is listed above Receive Transit shows all of the items in transit to your library.

• Using Trap Holds and Check In is basically the same, the results are the same and are not differentiated in the history log. The history log determines when or where an action was done within the ILS. When the library wants to track usage of checkin, checkout, receive in-transit wizards, then the wizards are treated separately in the statistical history logs.

• A nice feature is that patrons are being notified that their cards are about to expire. There was a suggestion made to include a note on the notice that reminds the patron to bring ID with them when renewing their card.

• A list of each library’s fax number will be added to the Google Doc that Alison has put together containing each library’s Circulation contact.

• When a patron uses ID to check out items instead of a library card, please verify you are checking out to the correct patron by matching phone numbers and addresses.

The next meeting will be held on May 11.

Marie Trapasso
OSS