Circulation Services Subcommittee Minutes

January 16, 2024, at 9:30 am

Zoom session

 

 

Present: Margie Navarre-Saaf (MAD), Erica Kersten (PIN), Alyssa Moura (REE), Jeff Kauffeld (MAD), Tanya Bolchen (MID), Ronda Evenson (VER), Steev Baker (SUN), Autumn Baumann (POR), Emily Harkins (WAU), Eddie Glade (STP), Jennifer Foster (FCH),

Absent: Alice Johnson (MOO), Andrew Branstad (MTH)

Excused: Robin Behringer (STO), Jeff Pond (MRO), Zach Ott (BAR), Kelly Heasty (MCF)

Recorder: Cindy Weber (SCLS)

SCLS Staff Present: Heidi Oliversen, Cindy Weber

 

1.       Call to Order at 9:32

a.       Introduction of guests/visitors

                                                               i.      None

b.       Changes/Additions to the Agenda

                                                               i.      Add (d) under Discussion: RFID tagging survey. 

                                                             ii.      Add (e) under Discussion: Progress update on formatting of the birthdate field (by SCLS staff)

c.       Requests to address the Committee

                                                               i.      None

 

2.       Approval of previous meeting minutes: November 14, 2023

a.       Approved by consensus

 

3.       Action Items

a.       Approve the additional of a general Local Hold Item Type to be used by any approved materials with the following parameters:

                                                               i.      LH14: 0.00 fine, 14 day, 0 renew, home hold

1.       Discussion: Based on the parameters for the local hold, book adult 14.  We don’t want to add item types for individual format types.  So we are wanting to add a more generic local hold item type. 

a.       Jeff K: Is this like how are the walkin collections formatted?  Heidi: Yes.  We do have walkin for Adult and one for Juvenile but we did this when more libraries were charging fines for adult but not juvenile materials. 

2.       Motion: Margie made the motion to approve the addition of the general Local Hold item type to be used by the approved materials.

3.       Second Alyssa

4.       Any additional questions: Margie: Trying to keep the list of item types down, would this be like the book rental 14 day loan?  If there isn’t a difference do we want to change the local holds and rentals to be the same.  It might be less confusing to make it more generic so just have no material type in the descriptor.  Heidi said we will need to try this in the sandbox.  Erica: As a person who depends on the item type, if we took away the descriptors, it may be hard for the people trying to apply the item types correctly.  Heidi: This would not happen any time soon.  We will need feedback on this from everyone. 

5.       Heidi realized we don’t need to create a new rule, we just need to change the descriptor to remove the Book, adult from the current rule. 

6.       Vote:  Current motion was not passed.

7.       New motion: Margie made a Motion to remove the words Book, adult from the existing Local Hold item type description so this circulation rule can be used for any approved local hold material with these parameters.

8.       Seconded: Alyssa

9.       Discussion: None

10.   Vote: motion passes (no nays)

                                                             ii.      UPDATE 1/26/2024: A discussion among SCLS staff raised concerns about the decision to "generalize" the Local Holds item type regarding statistical information. The point was made that we would be unable to maintain the way we have already been tracking the Book, adult, Local holds items and generalizing the item type would make existing data non-comparable.  Another concern is that we are starting a new ILS Evaluation and we don’t know if we will be moving to a new ILS software in the near future so why move forward with this now when we don't know how this could be impacted by possible future changes? 

1.       An email was sent to the subcommittee members asking them for a vote to rescind this motion and instead vote to create the following item type and parameters:

2.        Book, juvenile, Local Holds, 14 day.

a.       The default Circulation rule would be 0.00 fines, 14 day loan, 0 renewals, home hold policy.

3.       Of the 17 members of the subcommittee, 14 responded by 1/26/2024 and approved this motion.

b.       New Policy: Timeframe for libraries to resolve refunds 

                                                               i.      Libraries must resolve refunds at least once every quarter, although SCLS strongly recommends doing this on a monthly basis. The Unresolved Refunds report is an On Demand report libraries can run to get a list and then determine how refunds should be cleared, based on local library policy. Instructions for how to use the report and answers to Frequently Asked Questions are found on the Unresolved Refunds report page of the ILS Support/Reports webpage.​

                                                             ii.      Motion: Margie will make a motion to accept the new policy

                                                           iii.      Seconded: Jen

                                                           iv.      Discussion: Erica thinks it is a reasonable request and so does Margie, Steev thinks it is a good idea and so do others.

                                                             v.      Vote: Motion passes (no nays)

 

4.       Discussion

a.       Review changes to Section V, Part  C. SCLS GUIDELINES FOR REGISTERING PATRONS from workgroup.

                                                               i.      Another thing to consider, should libraries be required to send registration forms to the library listed under the Library Management section of the form? My concern is that if another library creates an organization card such as a teacher card, but the managing library is elsewhere, that account then needs to be in accordance with the managing library's policies.

                                                             ii.      Heidi: Any significant changes must be approved by the AC.  These are not really significant but would probably be good to follow the usual procedure in any case. 

                                                           iii.      If an organization requests a default pickup location that is not the library of residence, what do you do?  Should the form be sent to the managing library instead of the residential library?  Margie: Having the form go to the residence library is due to PSTAT.  You don’t have to send the form but if you do, it should go to the residential library so they can make sure the PSTAT is correct as that’s tied to funding. 

                                                           iv.      Alyssa thinks it looks good.  Erica: Could REE just do a patron search and find those organization cards and edit those?  Alyssa says they can work with it.  If there are other issues people find later, they can bring it back to the committee. 

                                                             v.      Motion: Motion to accept the changes as updated by the workgroup was made by Margie

                                                           vi.      Second: Eddie

                                                          vii.      Discussion: None

                                                        viii.      Vote: Motion passes (no nays)

b.       SCLS Request from SGR to add LP (AD) materials to the materials for Local Holds.

                                                               i.      Eddie: Didn’t we just do this for picture books?  Heidi: Yes.  Erica: Is it all large print or just new large print?  Heidi: It is just new materials.  All local holds materials should be new materials.  Margie: Because LP is a little different in that it doesn’t always come out immediately in large print.  Do we want to specifiy “newly published large print” as these titles aren’t necessarily “new” titles.  Alyssa: If you had limited it to just titles that are truly “new” large print, that would be a bad idea.  Margie: Just wants to increase it to newly published in large print would be allowed, not new copies of large print titles that had been published in large print before.  Erica: We should go back and be specific on everything to make sure any “new to us” items for titles that had been published for a while don’t get local hold status.  Heidi: What you’re saying the policy for local holds needs clarification to quantify what constitutes new materials.  This will be determined by this body.  CSS gets the request as managers of the Local Hold/Use requests and would run it by CMS for input on rules and procedures, if necessary.  Question: If a library gets a donation and they are able to purchase additional large print materials but these titles are not newly published, they would not be able to make them local hold items as the items are not newly published?  Margie: She doesn’t want every new to them item that a library publishes doesn’t go on local holds. 

                                                             ii.      Heidi: This discussion: Circulation services wants to clarify the definition of “new materials” before approving.  Margie: For her, it is not “new to the library”.  She likes newly released.  How “newly released” is “new”?  Three months?  Six months? 

                                                           iii.      Emily (via chat): Motion to add newly published Large Print materials as Local Hold materials? Heidi: Do we go ahead with this and then clarify newly published?

                                                           iv.      Margie thinks we should table this and talk with CMS about working to clarify the parameters with a workgroup of a couple of members from CSS and a couple from CMS. 

                                                             v.      Heidi will talk with Amy but it might get sent back to CSS.  She will talk with Amy and send out an email.

                                                           vi.      We will postpone moving forward with this request until we can get a better clarification as to what “new materials” means and the intent of the original workgroup. 

c.       Recommend that staff add item barcode to manual invoices created to charge patrons full replacement price for Damaged items.

                                                               i.      The quarterly ecommerce disbursement reports require some manual cleanup and the majority of the work is entering the item information for Damaged items.  However, this takes a lot of time each month.  This can be mitigated by adding the item barcode to the manual invoice pop-up.  That will let the report supply the data required without manual intervention. Jeff: Could parts missing invoices be added to this as well?  It could be useful.   

                                                             ii.      Motion: Erica: Recommendation that staff add the item barcode to all manual invoices specific to items; such as Damaged, Lost charges and Parts Missing.

                                                           iii.      Seconded: Jen

                                                           iv.      Voting: Motion passes, no nays 

d.       RFID tagging survey

                                                               i.      Heidi: Apologized for not sending this out earlier.  In response to a question from a library about tagging board books and magazines, asking the libraries if they tag board books and magazines and would they allow RFID libraries to tag your magazines and board books.  Heidi will share this with everyone after this meeting and you can share any amendments or additions with Heidi.  She will send out an amended version for approval before sending this out to the libraries.  She will request a deadline of a week before the next CSS meeting and we can discuss this during the March meeting. 

e.       Formatting of birthday field update

                                                               i.      Heidi: Rose is working on this.  She thinks it is doable.  There are some areas of the website where CSS can mandate the date format.  If she is able to do it, she will add it to the sandbox and Heidi will test and then send out a request to test in the sandbox.  If this works, she will ask it be implemented a week later and will send out an email letting the libraries know of the change.  Erica: For the phone number field they’ve had a couple of occasions where it didn’t format it at first.  When she re-saved it, then it did format it correctly. 

 

5.       Plan for the Next meeting:  March 12, 2024, at 9:30 am via Zoom session

 

6.       Adjournment

 

 

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/01-2024