Circulation Committee Meeting: Tuesday, November 15, 2022

Virtual via Microsoft Teams

Transit items

Staff who work at multiple locations, be sure you are signing into the correct location as being logged into an incorrect location can cause issues

When an item is missing from the holds shelf (ie: a patron comes to pick up and it’s not there OR you are clearing the holds and it’s not there) normal workflow is to mark the item missing. However, when an item is marked missing by a library other than the owning library, it will show up on the owning library’s missing items report and believed to be at the home library somewhere. Laura Burk (GRE) suggested adding an item alert, but Lindsay Stratton (WLS) said that unfortunately, permissions aren’t that granular – that is, it’s not possible to allow adding alerts by any library without giving access to edit all of the item records.

Laura is going to look into adding a filter in her missing report that will indicate who or where the item was last edited, that way it’s known if the item is expected to be missing somewhere else. Allison Midgley (WLS) believes she can add an ‘edited by’ or ‘workstation’ to the missing reports template.

Doris Hackett (MTV) brought up putting other library’s items in a missing status. Perhaps we should call the owning library and have them do it instead?

Nora Mulligan (PEK) suggests following up in about a week when an item goes missing. Sometimes they turn up again if they had been accidentally put in a transit bin.

Canceling a transit will put that item into a re-shelving status – try to avoid this

Final decision on workflow:

When a patron comes to pick up their hold and you cannot find it on the shelf, mark it missing whether or not it belongs to your library, then retarget the hold on the patron’s record.

When an item is missing from the shelf when you are clearing the holds, mark the item missing whether or not it belongs to your library and follow up with it in about a week. It may turn up.

Cleared bills will also be anonymized after 30 days along with other transactions.

Allison Egan (YRK) puts a note on the patron’s record of payment receipt so that history remains.

Megan Fenton receives checks from other libraries for payments made for her library’s items but no barcode or title is included.

Laura suggested you run a Lost & Paid report to get this information.

In Megan’s situation the item was paid for in September and she didn’t get the check until November so in that case a report may not be helpful.

For payments made online there is a report in Evergreen. Lindsay is able to get item information for those so submit a ticket if you need more detail.

End of the year reminder: Update your closed dates in the editor

If you have changes to your usual operation hours, submit a help desk ticket.

For those who haven’t done so already, please review the circulation contacts sheet. Columns have been added to indicate whether or not your library accepts replacements, instructions for temporary cards, and claims returned instructions.

Friendly reminder: Do not give out help desk contact information to patrons. You can submit a ticket on their behalf.

Allison mentioned a common issue is logging into LinkedIn accounts–this is almost always resolved by clearing your cache.

Patrons/Users who are in transition–what is everyone’s policy for changing their name?

Laura uses the preferred name field and uses their legal name in the formal name field.

Their identification should match somewhere on the record, whether it be in a note or a name field.

Megan will share the code for editing hold slips to show preferred names on them.

Lindsay will look into updating the email hold notices to pull the preferred name.

Allison went over how to search for a group of patrons (ex: Juvenile at  your library) by entering patron library, profile, DOB in the search field. You can do a bulk edit by adding them to a bucket. If you have one or two matches, they are easy to edit on the spot.

We reviewed it is ok to renew cards for other libraries as long as the patron shows valid identification.

Doris brought up an issue she had with a patron and an ILL was not picked up after 8 days. It should be sent back to WLS because it will be overdue. If you want an extension, reach out to Molly Tobin at WLS because she may be able to request a renewal with the owning library.

Also:

Megan mentioned that she has received some DVD cases without the disk.

Any problem item should remain at the library it was returned to. If the issue is not resolved after a few weeks then send it back to the owning library with a detailed note that explains your efforts. Be sure to write down the patron’s information.

It is helpful to write a note on the patron’s record that says something like, “TITLE/BARCODE is on HHF problem shelf.” So that if a patron were to be told the item is still checked out, we know the location of the issue.

Marge Perlin (CHA) announced there is a new director at CHA – Robert Conrad.

Nora Mulligan (PEK) mentioned Peekskill items have been arriving at other libraries with their barcode sticker missing–weird! Be on the lookout for this. Not sure what is happening…

Doris Hackett (MTV) shared a victory report: State regents appointed two new trustees to the MTV board. She is hopeful MTV will get back to being the library it once was. Congrats MTV!

Marie Trapasso (OSS) shared that Ossining is officially fine-free as of October.

2023 Circulation Committee Meeting Schedule

  • January 10th – Marge (CHA) taking minutes
  • March 14th – Nora (PEK) taking minutes
  • May 9th – Laura (GRE) taking minutes
  • September 12th – Marie (OSS) taking minutes
  • November 14th – Katie (HHF) taking minutes