Evergreen Advisory Committee Meeting, Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Agenda

Updates and announcements

1. Evergreen upgrade 11/2 (OWWL)
2. ILL updates (Kathryn)

Old business

1. Hold cancellation notifications (Dan)
2. Cardholder restriction policy (Dan / Kathryn)

   Libraries should make items in their physical collection available to any OWWL cardholder in the same manner the items are available to the library's own cardholders. Libraries may restrict fragile, bulky, or irreplaceable items from being put in transit and may require that such items be checked out and returned only at their owning library.

3. Deceased patrons (OWWLDAC / Ron)
   • Concern expressed at 09/2023 OWWLDAC about newer process recommendation; suggestion made to mark patrons as deceased, perhaps using a new patron profile
     • Another option: Selective permission to purge patrons
       • This is a very powerful function. There is nothing that can be done to recover a purged patron. It is final, so caution must be taken. If we were to implement this feature, staff who get this permission should be extremely limited (we recommend only directors), and we should have a policy about its use for any other purpose.
   • Can titles checked out / billed be released to next of kin? Referred to OWWL attorney.

New business

1. Evergreen upgrade 11/2 (Dan)
   • Blocking patrons is easier to do – it’s built-in directly to the new consolidated notes/alerts interface. Do we need a policy about when is an appropriate time to use this? A block prevents a patron from checking out, renewing, or placing holds, which is a “more severe” penalty than our current system-applied penalties for patrons with too many overdue items or high balances.
   • Option to change how hold default preferences work when staff place a hold for a patron. Right now, the hold form populates with a patron’s default pickup location. We could change Evergreen’s behavior so it populates with the workstation library instead.
     • This would only affect staff-placed holds.
     • This would only affect what the form starts out with, but the value selected can always be changed.
   • Renewal due date can extend loan time
     • Example: 21 day loan. Right now, if a patron renews the item on day 18, they’ll add another 21 days from that point, so, they’ll have the item out for 39 days total. We could set up Evergreen so it’ll add the 21 days on to the end of the loan, so the patron will have the item out for 42 days total.
     • Options to specify how many days after checkout date patrons are eligible to extend loan this way.
     • If we implement this, we may want to consider matching OverDrive ’s setup.
2. Evergreen TPAC sunset
3. Patron registration form suggestions (Dan / support ticket)
   • DOB: Suggestion to make this field not required.
     • History: Used to not be required, then was made required for self-registration.
   • Hold notification defaults: Suggestion that phone should not be a default method and that only email should be a default method.
   • Email checkout receipts by default?: Suggestion to have this checked by default
   • “Originally registered at” stat cat: Do we still need this?
     • We had changed the name of this during our big policy review
   • Physical form review ( linked here )
4. Patron self-registration suggestions (Dan / support ticket)
   • Suggestion for required question to ask patrons to confirm eligibility.
5. Hold shelf times: OK to adjust for libraries within policy limits? (Dan / support ticket)
6. Holds not being picked up on time (Dan / support ticket)
   • Add notice when hold is placed?
   • Add language to hold notification email? Note about “7 days” is already in notification SMS.
   • Is this something you’re noticing happening frequently?
7. Policy / process: Should circ policy updates require director approval / notification? This is currently an informal internal policy (Dan)
8. Hoopla and other third-party services (Dan)
   • We may have the ability to include services that only some libraries subscribe to, like hoopla, in Aspen on those libraries’ subdomains. This would be dependent on confirming that: 1) it can technically be done; 2) libraries that subscribe to hoopla are interested in having their collections accessible in Aspen for their patrons; and 3) EAC / OWWLDAC doesn’t have any concerns with this.
9. Multifactor authentication for Evergreen staff logins (Dan)

Open floor: Discussions for items not on agenda

Next meeting date: 12/19/2023

Future meetings:

• 2/20/2024
• 4/16/2024
• 6/18/2024

---

Action items

Referred to OWWLDAC

Policy on item availability for OWWL cardholders

Libraries should make items in their physical collection available to any OWWL cardholder in the same manner the items are available to the library's own cardholders. Libraries may restrict fragile, bulky, irreplaceable, or special circulation items from being put in transit and may require that such items be checked out and returned only at their owning library.

Deceased patron procedure

Add an alert noting that the patron has been reported deceased.

Libraries may still choose to use the procedure discussed at the most recent OWWLDAC meeting , which includes more thoroughly removing information from the patron’s account by overwriting values with “deceased patron” and removing identifying details.

Change default pickup location for staff-placed holds to workstation location

EAC recommended using a new setting to change the pickup location for staff-placed holds to default to the workstation location. This will only change the behavior of what autopopulates in the form when a staff member places a hold for a patron; it can still be changed for each hold placed.

Overhaul of autorenewals and behavior of renewals

A new option is available to allow renewals to extend loan time from the circulation's due date rather from the time at which the renewal is attempted. Example: 21 day loan. Right now, if a patron renews the item on day 18, they’ll add another 21 days from that point, so, they’ll have the item out for 39 days total. We could set up Evergreen so it’ll add the 21 days on to the end of the loan, so the patron will have the item out for 42 days total.

To prevent exploits, another setting is also available to specify how long into the loan such a renewal can be made to extend the loan time. This means that renewals before this cutoff would act like existing renewals; renewals after the cutoff would extend loan time.

EAC has suggested that this setting could be applied so that renewals that can "extend" from the due date can be made starting three days before an item's due date. At the same time, an autorenewal attempt could be made when the due date reminder is sent. A second autorenewal attempt could continue to be made on due dates. A visual depiction of an initial plan is available here .

This would require changes to the language of due date reminders and would require changes to some libraries' circulation policies and/or items to avoid the use of loan durations other than Normal.

Patron registration form updates

EAC recommended making only email hold notifications as the default (currently, both phone and email are defaults)

EAC recommended making emailed checkout receipts the default.

EAC recommended removing the "originally registered at" stat cat.

Hold notification email update

EAC recommended adding language to inform patrons how long they have to pickup their hold.

Dear FIRST FAMILY,

The item you requested is available for pickup from the PICKUP LIBRARY.

Title: TITLE
Author: AUTHOR
Call Number: CALL NUMBER
Copy Barcode: BARCODE
Pickup Location: PICKUP LIBRARY
Pick up by: SHELF EXPIRATION TIME YYYY-MM-DD

For library hours and locations, please visit: http://www.owwl.org/libraries

Thank you.

Circulation policy updates

Requests for changes to a library's circulation policies in Evergreen should come from or CC the library's director. Library directors may appoint a designee for circulation policy updates; this designee may request circulation policy changes without CC'ing the library director.

Minutes

Minutes of Evergreen Advisory Committee Meeting Oct 2023.pdf