OWWLAC Meeting, Tuesday, May 24, 2016


Rethink renewal blocks because of overdue materials/fines?

Several patron complaints have been forwarded about not being able to renew overdue materials online.

Current policy: checkouts AND renewals are blocked at $5.00 in fines and/or 5 overdue items.

These blanket thresholds have been in place since Sirsi. Evergreen can handle checkout block and renewal block separately. The overdue and/or fine threshold for renewal blocks can be raised or eliminated.

Raising or eliminating the renewal block would benefit patrons, allowing them to renew materials online that are overdue and/or have fines to avoid accruing more fines. It would benefit staff to allow them to renew materials for a patron without overriding blocks.

Recommendation:

Keep blocks for checkouts, but remove the RENEWAL block for both $5 fines and 5 overdues.

Rethink video loan duration standardization?

The issue of "this is not my due date" when checking out DVDs, and occasionally other materials, crops up all the time and is due entirely to the huge variety of video loan durations. This is becoming a serious issue for libraries.

Library comments:
Subject: OWWLAC Questions / Topics

OWWLAC Items:

1. Is there any way to have the lost item records in Evergreen reflect the $5 fine that will be in place when/if the item is returned?

2. Why are items continually checked out and not defaulting to our circ map?

3. What is the policy or best practice for renewing items that are checked out according to another library's circ map?

Ex: If Gorham checks out an item for 3 days with no renewals and then the patron comes to Wadsworth and asks to renew the item, under our policy they would be able to renew the DVD, however, if we force the renewal it will show a -1 renewal. Is it better to check it in and check back out again if able? Does our policy trump theirs because the patron is now "our" patron? Wouldn't it be great if we could standardize across the system!?

Proposal:

Encourage libraries to adopt standard loan periods for videos:
  • Video - 1 week loan, 1 renewal
  • New Video - 3 day loan, 1 renewal
  • Video Set - 3 week loan, 1 renewal
Libraries should use the circulation modifier that best fits their preferred loan duration - for example, if all videos circulate for 3 days regardless of age, use the "New Video" circ modifier. The name doesn't matter, just the loan duration.

Libraries that circulate sets as "Video" circ modifier with "Long" loan duration should change those items to Video Set - Lindsay can provide assistance making this change

Goal is only to provide a more consistent experience for patrons

Variations in fine rates are acceptable

Actions:
  • Committee will draft talking points for communicating to PLS community
  • Gather feedback
  • Reconvene to discuss library opinions

RRLC Access Card program

Allows library patrons to use the collections of and/or borrow materials from Access Card program participating libraries. Particpation in the program relies in reciprocal access - if we offer this service to our patrons, we must allow Access Card users access to our collections.
  • Info - http://rrlc.org/resource-sharing/access-cards/
  • Restrictions & requirements
    • Access cards are have unique numbers, are valid for one year only (July 1 - June 30)
    • Patrons MUST be in good standing, over 19 (or else enrolled in AP or other advanced high school programs)
    • Patrons are responsible for following lending library policies
    • Patrons are responsible for paying any fines
    • If patrons refuse to pay fines, the Access Card issuing library is responsible for those fines
Not all libraries need to offer Access Cards to their patrons, but all libraries should be prepared

Recommendation:

Offer the Access Card program as an option to patrons who are high users of out of system ILL, or otherwise have special research interests that go beyond the OWWL collections, and have proven to be responsible library users. This service would not be widely promoted to all patrons.

Libraries would accept Access Cards if presented at a PLS library. Since most libraries offer cards to non-residents, extending service to Access Card holds isn't a stretch.

Actions:
  • Lindsay will complete paperwork for PLS to join the Access Card program
  • Lindsay will create and distribute procedures for issuing Access Cards and handling Access Card patrons if they come to a PLS library

Interesting take on fines: "you bought it"

An area library has a policy where materials do not become overdue and daily overdue fines are not applied, but everything has a specific loan period and after that point the person is billed for the item price. If they return the item within a certain timeframe, the bill is cleared.

General discussion; probably not something that would be feasible in PLS libraries!

Floating collections - possible for PLS?

Floating collections are groups of items that are owned by one library, but do not necessarily "live" at that library. For example: a central book aid non-fiction item is purchased by Geneva, it is requested for a hold at Avon, is checked out and back in at Avon, and if there is no hold the item is shelved at Avon until it is requested or returned elsewhere.

Several other Evergreen systems are using this with interesting results.

General discussion; interesting idea, different than traditional rotating collections, might be interesting to pursue in a small scale. Concerns about balancing floating collections so that they do not pool all resources in the larger, more hold savvy libraries.

Lost materials fines / reinstating max overdue bills

From question 1, submitted by a library with loan standardization comments - Is there any way to have the lost item records in Evergreen reflect the $5 fine that will be in place when/if the item is returned?

Discussion:

Because max overdue fines are voided when the lost materials fine is added, and then reinstated when the lost item is returned, Evergreen cannot reflect that this will happen. This information should be conveyed by library staff.

Ancestry.com coming to all libraries!

Target date is June 1. Access is still at the library only, but available at ALL libraries. Suggestions for libraries re: PR.

Evergreen upgrade to version 2.10 this summer

The upgrade is scheduled for June 15. Our vendors says that this upgrade should not involve system downtime during pen hours. We moved to a new platform at our last upgrade which makes this possible. Libraries will need to install an upgraded staff client version.

There are no major changes to the look/functionality of the staff client.

There are new backend/administration changes that will cause minor changes in some Evergreen behaviors, but these will not have any major impact on day to day library business.

Actions:
  • Lindsay will distribute list of changes
  • CANS will distribute links to download the updated staff client
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