OWWLUG Meeting, Friday, October 25, 2013

Agenda

Deleting items "not in ideal status"

When deleting items, if a copy delete warning appears, click No - do not force the action. If deleting from Item Status, check the Status column to determine which record has the bad status. "Bad status" for deletion includes: in transit, on hold shelf, checked out, and lost. Resolve the status issue (receive from transit or abort transit, cancel and clear hold, or check in from account) then delete the item.

The only exception to this is known lost items with paid bills, such as when working from the List of Lost Items Report.

Deleting an item with open transactions (transits, holds, circulations, etc.) breaks the link between the item and the transaction (as displayed in the transit list, browse holds shelf, the patron account, etc.)

Permissions fixed for Recall Holds

LIBTECH and LIBCIRC accounts now have the correct permissions to place CatalogingRecallHolds for damaged materials.

• These holds are placed for the LIBTECH account of the owning library
• The hold will skip other pending holds in the queue (but will not override an active hold - i.e. the item alreayd available for a hold, if the item is in instransit to fill a hold, find another target for that hold, then scan the damaged item in checkin to capture the recall hold)
• When the recall item is received at the owning library, it will be routed to Cataloging, the copy status will change to Cataloging; the item does NOT need to be checked out to the LIBTECH account, the hold will be cleared
• The item can remain in the Cataloging status - it will not be holdable or catalog viewable; it will appear on the List Items by Copy Status Report until the status is changed
• When the item is repaired and is ready to go back into circulation, scan the item in Check In until the status is Reshelving or captured for a hold
• If the item will not be repaired, it can be deleted without changing the cataloging status

Old Holds Report

General discussion of the Old Holds Reports - timing of the report, what holds appear.

• Reports are run on the first of the month, data is included (or not) based on the previous month - so, the report dated 10/1/2013 shows holds unfilled through July, skipping Septermber and August.
• Check the report close to its run date (first of the month) to avoid outdated data
• Suspended holds do appear on the report, but staff must check the patron account to see that the hold has been suspended - the hold status will say "suspended"

Subscription Databases page updated

Changes: organize databases by subject, rather than by vendor; click a subject link at the top to jump to that section, each database is listed/described. Currently in draft - will go live Monday, 10/28/13.

OWWLUG attendees suggested adding a logo link to Novelist, at the top next to the Jobs Now link to highlight this frequently used resource. Changed made.

Checking out the Databases

A few minutes soent poking around the databases themselves, particularly the Gale databases available that we (PLS) do not link to directly. For example, looked at the Agriculture Collection, and discovered that there is full text access to Farm Journal. Also looked at the Grolier resources, including interactive maps. The question was raised: "How can we get to the point that these resources are our first thought when working with patron questions?"

No quick answer to this, other than actively exploring them, so we become familar with them.

However, comparing the process of finding information using an interactive map (the latitude/longitude of a selected location) to searching Google for the same… well, the Google search was faster, and provided much more related information right from the search results page.

Trivia time!

Renate (CAL) tossed out a good trivia question: name the 10 plants that have been most influential on human civilization (it was surprisingly tricky). This prompted Lindsay into a new and improved idea for the December System Meeting: OWWL trivia! We brainstormed PLS and member library related questions for a bar trivia-night style game for the December dish-to-pass meeting. It sounds more fun than "Best Books of 2013"!