Circulation Services Subcommittee Minutes
May 14, 2024, at 9:30 am
Zoom session
Action Items
The CSS recommends allowing RFID libraries to RFID tag magazines and board books owned by non-RFID libraries coming in for a hold following RFID tagging placement guidelines.
Present: Steev Baker (SUN), Ronda Evenson (VER), Margie Navarre-Saaf (MAD), Emily Harkins (WAU), Kelly Heasty (MCF), Erica Kersten (PIN), Eddie Glade (STP), Tanya Bolchen (MID), Autumn Baumann (POR), Jennifer Foster (FCH), Robin Behringer (STO), Alyssa Diaz de Leon (REE), Alice Johnson (MOO), Andrew Branstad (MTH), Jeff Pond (MRO), Claire Parrish (MCM)
Absent: None
Excused: Zach Ott (BAR), Jeff Kauffeld (MAD)
Recorder: Michelle Karls (SCLS)
SCLS Staff Present: Heidi Oliversen, Cindy Weber
1. Call to Order at 9:35 am
a. Introduction of guests/visitors
i. None.
b. Changes/Additions to the Agenda
i. H. Oliversen added 4d – PSTAT clean-up tool created by T. Drexler. Margie requested adding 4e - Report on email follow-up to the RFID tagging survey.
c. Requests to address the Committee
i. None.
2. Approval of previous meeting minutes: March 12, 2024
a. Motion: The subcommittee approved the March meeting minutes by consensus.
b. Discussion: none.
c. Vote: motion approved.
3. Action Items
a. None.
4. Discussion
a. Fines/Financial-standard rules policy: 10/01/2014 Addendum allows libraries to accept and retain payment for charges older than 01/01/2010 without knowing the charging/owning library. Suggestion to amend the addendum to allow libraries to waive fines and lost charges older than 1/1/2010 from patron records, in lieu of requiring payment.
i. Discussion: H. Oliversen reviewed policy and addendum. Libraries can accept payments for charges, fines and lost, older than 1/1/2010 since we don’t have an easy way to find the charging or owning library. Since these charges are now over 14 years old, can the libraries just waive these charges instead of requiring payment? This could be a case-by-case decision made by the local library. Should we put a limit amount for what can be waived? We don’t want the really problem patrons going to another library to accumulate more fines. Library staff can add a note to the patron account to let other libraries know why they declined to waive the charges for the patron. Some examples/scenarios were discussed. M. Navarre Saaf would like to offer libraries the option to waive the charges. We continue to see older charges being paid off through eCommerce but it is less often than when we first offered that option. Imposing a dollar limit may be more confusing than helpful. These instances don’t occur very often and it may be difficult for staff to remember a limit. These are mostly replacement charges and not fines. C. Weber mentioned when we do the annual purge of old charges, we send out a report with patrons who have outstanding charges that were retained. C. Weber will forward those reports to the link-css email list so libraries can take a look. M. Navarre Saaf asked if libraries could get a report of anything over $500? Yes, C. Weber could create a report. Subcommittee members should go back to library staff/clusters for input. We will discuss this again at the next meeting.
b. Requests at March All Directors to allow all new material formats to be eligible for Local Holds.
i. Local Holds data dashboard https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/scls/viz/LocalHoldsPilotProjectMetrics/WeeklyCirc
1. T. Drexler added a note to the weekly Latency report. Local Holds started with one format and now includes more. On a jam-board at All Directors, there were a few notes about proposing that libraries can mark any format using Local holds parameters. We could do a survey of all libraries to ask for input. H. Oliversen will draft some questions for the survey and send them out to the group via email for review and suggestions.
c. Issue raised at March All Directors meeting about library staff having access to patron Reading History.
i. Discussion: This came from MCM and they are advocates for patron privacy. They were surprised that staff had access to patron reading history. Library staff get frequent questions from patrons about their reading history. Patrons have to opt in to retain their reading. Patrons can disable it at any time and it will wipe all records immediately and can’t be restored. So many patrons rely on staff to assist them with that information. A global system preference retains a maximum of 30 days of reading history in all records which is in compliance with WI state statute. MAD stresses confidentiality in their staff trainings and it is managed at library level. We do not have the option of turning off a library’s staff access to a patron’s reading history. The patron enables or disables the reading history in their account, staff do not have the ability to enable or disable that in a patron’s record.
d. PSTAT cleanup report created by T. Drexler
i. Discussion: T. Drexler presented his PSTAT cleanup report to help determine a mismatched PSTAT. T. Drexler displayed the most recent extract, containing 8000 records. Of those records, 400 didn’t match. Upon reviewing them, a lot of those are deliberate mismatches (i.e. primary mailing address is PO Box or alternate address). This can also occur when patrons stay at their seasonal property. Libraries generally do this when provided proof that the patron is paying property taxes locally. The plan is to give libraries these reports and have them cleanup the PSTATs. H. Oliversen did the first test run of 500 records. There were some that she fixed (i.e. changing city to town, etc.) but others she did not change. The sort2 field is not currently being used in patron records. We could assign this field as a field for libraries to indicate they have reviewed “no_match” records (that will/may continue to be no_match). We should create a standard “reviewed month/year” message. We can also add the sort2 field to the report. T. Drexler reviewed what columns we should keep on the report and got input from the group. H. Oliversen thinks we should mandate that anyone doing a temporary residence (or snowbird address) that the local address be in their primary address field and their out of state address should be in the alternate address field. We need to keep patron privacy in mind for these reports so we will use borrower#. The group also want the current PSTAT code and what the PSTAT should be listed in the report. Include the Bibliovation address and the address used in geocoder. Match/No match column. Sort2 field. We will send this out to committee members after Tim makes changes to the report. Eventually the PSTAT review report will be run annually but individual libraries can request a report from T. Drexler.
e. Report on email follow-up to the RFID tagging survey
i. Motion: M. Navarre Saaf moved to allow RFID libraries to RFID tag magazines and board books owned by non-RFID libraries coming in for a hold following RFID tagging placement guidelines E. Harkins seconded.
ii. Discussion: The workgroup met to discuss the survey results. They did explain the benefits and answered questions from a few people. The format guidelines will be revised and voted on for the next meeting. E. Kersten and E. Harkins will take the wording from the survey and use it to update the format guidelines.
iii. Vote: motion carried. This will go to the IC for approval.
5. Plan for the Next meeting: July 9, 2024, at 9:30 am via Zoom session
a. Option to waive Fines/charges older than 01/01/2010 – review discussions with clusters
b. PSTAT clean-up report and workflow testing
c. RFID Format guidelines clean-up
d. Local Holds survey
6. Adjournment at 11:46 am
7. Tour of Delivery for interested members.
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/05-2024