Circulation Services Subcommittee Minutes

March 8, 2022 at 9:30 am

Phone/video conference

Action Items:

CSS recommends that we request that the Fast Bib Add form include the default Item Type of BKA28.

Present: Zach Ott (BAR), Jeff Kauffeld (MAD), Kelly Heasty (MCF), Erica Kersten (PIN), Eddie Glade (STP), Emily Harkins (WAU), Barbara Henderson (MID), Autumn Baumann (POR), Tanya Bolchen (FCH), Emily Noffke (MTH), Robin Behringer (STO), Margie Navarre Saaf (MAD)

Absent: Steev Baker (SUN)
Excused: Ronda Evenson (VER)

Recorder: Michelle Karls (SCLS)

SCLS Staff Present: Heidi Oliversen, Cindy Weber

1. Call to Order at 9:32 am.

a. Introduction of guests/visitors

i. None.

b. Changes/Additions to the Agenda

i. H. Oliversen added 4(f) Default Item Type for Fast BIB Add records.

c. Requests to address the Committee

i. None.

2. Approval of previous meeting minutes: January 11, 2022

a. Motion: E. Kersten moved approval of the January 11 meeting minutes.  J. Kauffeld seconded.

b. Discussion: none.

c. Vote: motion carried.

3. Action Items

a. None.

4. Discussion

a. Review Personal Details page – review updated draft.

i. Add expiration date to display in DL

ii. Allow patrons to edit their own email addresses and phone numbers BUT require those changes to be reflected in their Patron Edit History as edit performed by them (not staff).

1. Discussion: This is an outstanding enhancement that we have with LibLime.  The Discovery Interface Subcommittee approved the enhancement we are reviewing.  Since this impacts Patron, DIS asked us to review the proposed enhancement.  OPAC Control system preference determines if a patron can edit data in their Dashboard/Personal Details or not.  We have this OFF for now but patrons can see much of the data in their record.  The first change is to have the patron’s account expiration date display in their Personal Details.   The second part of this enhancement is to allow patrons the ability to update their own email addresses and phone numbers. The third part is to record any changes a patron makes, in their Patron Edit History tab, and record the changes as made by their borrowernumber. E. Kersten asked if there would be any instructions on what the patron expiration date means. Wonders if some patrons may cut up their card if their record is “expired”.  It was pointed out that if the patron gets email notification that they would have gotten the pre-expiration email that is sent out.  If they cut up their card they can just get a new one. H. Oliversen will ask R. Zeich and A. Gannaway about adding text to the Personal Details page in the Dashboard. The Phone/email change is a bigger concern.  Patrons will see primary, secondary, cell, fax, and SMS alert fields.  Patrons could make changes to these fields and not understand the impact on their messaging choices. After more discussion about various issues the group made a consensus decision to propose changing the enhancement to only allow patrons to edit their Primary Phone and Primary Email address fields. 

2. B. Henderson moved that the CSS approves the Discovery Layer Personal Details Enhancement to show the expiration date and allow patrons to edit primary phone and email details.  E. Glade seconded.   

3. Vote: Subcommittee approved of the amendment to the parameters of the enhancement by consensus.  This goes back to the DIS for approval/agreement, not the ILS Committee.

b. Hold Available for Pickup notice – review/update wording.

i. Discussion: E. Glade would like to suggest some revisions to the Hold Available for Pickup notice.  H. Oliversen shared his document with suggested changes and the group worked through the suggested changes to produce this new version.  Changes will be applied to the template after this meeting.    

Dear [% borrowers.firstname %] [% borrowers.surname %],

[% borrowers.cardnumber %]

The item(s) you requested are available and will be held through [% holdexpiration.date %].

Title: [% biblio.title %]  [% items.barcode %]

Author: [% biblio.author %]

Please contact your library if you have any questions regarding your hold(s). Have your library card number ready when you contact the library. For additional information about pickup options and other services at SCLS libraries, use the link below and click on the link for your library.

https://www.scls.info/librariesbounceback

To check your library account, go to https://www.linkcat.info/

If you received this notice via email, it was sent from a notification-only address that cannot accept incoming mail.  Please Do Not Reply to this message but contact your local library directly.

1. E. Kersten asked if Preoverdue email notices include the patron barcode on the notice.  No.  Can we add this? Yes and the members of the subcommittee approved the inclusion. J. Kauffeld recommended changing the header in the notice to “Advance Notice of Item due.” instead of “Pre-Overdue Notice” so the header in the email would match the subject line of the email.  The rest of the subcommittee agreed.  Both changes were applied to the template.

2. M. Navarre Saaf mentioned a patron asked if we could add library hours near the library address to notices.  H. Oliversen said no and explained it is because every library uses the same template and the system extracts the library information from each library’s “Libraries and Groups” set-up information.  This set-up does not provide a field for library hours to extract and produce in the notices.   

c. Review Claims Returned policy and workflow

i. Discussion: Patrons are allowed 3 Claims Returned in a 12 month period.  Does your local library policy allow for more flexibility with your items/patrons?  Is it a case by case basis? Some libraries in attendance do have other rules for their patrons/items.  E. Kersten expressed that it is nice to have this policy as a backup for MAD items.  The group was OK leaving both the claims returned policy and the workflow as is.

d. Review workflow for Lost item checked in – checking if patron paid or not.

i. Discussion: Current practice is that when a library checks in a Lost item, they are required to check the patron’s record to confirm if the item was paid for.  If the item was not paid for, no action is needed.  If the item was paid for, it is the receiving library’s responsibility to fill out the yellow Lost & Paid Refund form and send it to the Owning Library to inform them of the Refund on the patron’s record.  This is time-consuming process to deal with at checkin.  Staff have to either fill out that form at that point or set the item aside, after recording the patron barcode, and then deal with it later.  This is not an efficient way to deal with these items.  Some libraries have been running the “Unallocated credits” and the Lost and Paid at another Library” reports to locate patron records that have credits/refunds on their accounts related to the items owned by their library.  This is also a labor-intensive process and these reports are only run once a month.  K. Heasty proposed an alternative workflow for libraries “Each library run a (weekly -- or however often they want to) report of Lost/Returned items with pending credits and reconcile that way, instead of having Circ staff identify each one and write up the yellow form”.  Approximately one-quarter of all SCLS libraries no longer offer refunds for Lost and Paid items.  Maybe an On Demand report would be useful so that each library could run the report needed?  H. Oliversen suggested adding this alternative workflow to dealing with with Lost items at checkin to the manual to provide individual libraries options. The group agreed.  H. Oliversen will write up a draft with C. Weber, K. Heasty, and E. Harkins and then send it to this group for feedback.  H. Oliversen will also work with C. Weber on creating an On Demand reports specific to Refunds. 

e. Circulation Manual, Section 8 Problem Items statuses and Workflows

i. Discussion: H. Oliversen went through the second round of changes, which were predominantly grammatical.  Thank you for the feedback.  There are still highlights because she still needs to add links and screenshots of current form version.  After discussion the group agreed that most of Part K HOW TO HANDLE DAMAGED ITEMS FROM OTHER LIBRARIES THAT ARRIVE TO FILL HOLDS is redundant and only (B) needs to be incorporated into Part G.  H. Oliversen will make those changes, add hyperlinks, check formatting and re-send to subcommittee members for a “final” review.  The next manual section we will be reviewing is Section 13 – Notices, Messaging Preferences and Message Queue.  H. Oliversen will convert it to a google doc and send it out to group to begin reviewing for our May meeting.  

f. Default Item Type for Fast BIB Add records

i. Motion: A. Baumann moved to request that the Fast Bib Add form include the default Item Type of BKA28.  E. Noffke seconded.

ii. Discussion: Fast Bib Add records are created at Check Out.  Since the 7.0 upgrade, Bibliovation will not check out a Fast Bib Add record to a patron account if staff did not add an Item Type when creating the form/record.  The record is created but not checked out to the patron.  Item Types are required for circulation rules and statistics retention.  That failed checkout produces an “Internal Server Error” message.  If staff attempt to create the record again, staff will get another “Internal Server Error” except this one (and any subsequent attempts) is produced by staff attempting to create a FBA record with an item barcode that is already in the system. The solution is to always add an Item Type when creating a Fast Bib Add record.  We know that A. Gannaway and K. Linke are looking at possible enhancements to fix this and other issues we have with Fast Bib Add form/records.  LibLime staff have offered to “install” default Item Type into the Fast Add form.  Staff would be able to modify this field, according to their needs, but this would provide a default in case someone forgets to add an item type. An email about this problem has been sent out to all LINKcat libraries and some clean-up reports.  What would your library recommend for a default Item Type for these records?  Keep in mind, a majority of libraries are not doing this for ILL.  BK Adult 28 day was the suggestion.  This is a default and libraries can override this.  We will request that this default Item Type will only be added to the form if staff attempt to save the form with an empty Item Type field.   

iii. Vote: motion carried.

5. Plan for Next meeting: May 10, 2022 at 9:30 am via phone/video conference

6. Adjournment at 11:40 am.

For more information about the Circulation Services Subcommittee, contact Heidi Oliversen.

SCLS staff are available to attend cluster meetings to share information and answer questions pertaining to this committee meeting and other departmental projects.

Circulation Services Subcommittee/Minutes/03-2022