July 2004 System Circulation Heads Meeting Minutes

I. Janet Brackett (FAR) called the meeting to order.

II. Minutes from the June 17, 2004 were approved, with requested changes to the spelling of the word tweaked and item IX-C: by item type (not my).

III. Running Statement of Charges: Laura provided a synopsis of the problems we are having with running statements that have come to light. She informed the group that there are two types of statements that can be run at the libraries. The first is a statement of the charges owed by the patron to his/her home library and the second is a statement of charges owed to your library by patrons from another library in the system.

a. The problem arises with the second type of statement in that the amounts being generated here are not accurate. Laura stated that III is aware of the problem and that it should be fixed with Mil Silver.

b. Laura provided a fix for this issue in the meantime. She suggested that a review file of patrons be created and then run the statement process over that.

c. Here are the steps to do that. This can only be done in telnet: Choose C, A, N, S, here you get a menu of options, choose B to create a review file of patrons. Then run statements from this list.

d. Barbara (BPL) said that she had run a review file of her patrons that owed books to other URSUS libraries. Stephanie (FK) wanted to know if she was going to do a list of patrons who owed regular overdues. She said that list would generate a list of thousands and thousands of patrons and she did not know how she could limit it to make the file smaller. MSL added that they did not charge fines and that they only bill for patrons who haven’t returned materials. If the book is returned then the patron is only charged the $10.00 processing fee.

e. Laura suggested that the group needs to decide upon the scope of what the statement of charges should cover. As such, she asked that each library submit a statement of a few sentences on what they believe the scope of this should be and send it to the list. Laura said that she would then try to reconcile these, find a middle ground and come up with a scope that all could be happy with. This would then be discussed at the August meeting, at which point it was hoped that the group would come to an agreement on this issue.

IV. Borrowing Libraries and Overdues: Stephanie (LEG) is concerned that there are no procedures regarding when, how other libraries should be billed if they owe for a book that has not been returned to another institution’s library.

a. Laura did mention that the policy has been established regarding materials in transit, that being that the borrowing library is responsible for replacement charges incurred when replacing the book.

b. Janet (FAR) indicated that because there is not procedure of how long to wait before requesting payment, etc., the billed status in URSUS remains on that status for a long time and that is frustrating to the patrons that see that on a repeated basis. She suggested that maybe the item records and not the bibliographic records for these materials could be suppressed so that the patrons would not have to see that on a continual basis. Laura said that this can be done by putting an N in the I code 2 field.

c. Laura informed us that the directors have decided not to purge the records of those patrons that were billed and did not pay the bill or return the book.

d. At this point, the question arose of what should be done if the book needed to be replaced within six months, for example. Janet (FAR) said that at Farmington, they have paid to replace the book and then have put a block on the patron’s record that would not be removed until they reimbursed this charge to the Farmington Library. Stephanie (LEG) said that this works at her library as well. Janet (FAR) also suggested that the libraries could also look into the possibility of swapping these replacement charges if the book needed to be replaced immediately and the other library owed a similar amount. This would not include fine swapping.

e. Stephanie (FK) said that the major issue with swapping replacement charges would be keeping track of what had been swapped and what still needed to be paid, etc.

f. Stephanie (FK) also brought up that the group had a one point agreed to help each other out in getting the fines back by placing K blocks/Isis hold on patron records. It was determined that this was discussed at the October 2003 meeting. It was also determined that replacement charges were not discussed at this October meeting. Laura determined that this was not followed up on and that it was not put in the Circulation Procedures Manual.

g. Janet (FAR) offered to write up a proposal for the procedures regarding swapping of replacement charges, with examples and send them to the group. This would not be done until she returned from vacation.

h. Stephanie (FK) then asked the group if they would agree to put the K block in the patron records that owed fines. It was determined that a K block equals an Isis block. Laura was reluctant to let this happen because the K block meant that an ISIS block had been placed. If libraries who are unable to do this begin adding this code to patron records, we will never know which patron records truly have an ISIS block or not.

i. Stephanie (FK) then suggested if another block could be created for in-transit items. Janet (FAR) was reluctant to do this because it may penalize a patron for a mistake made by someone else in the process, other than the patron.

j. At this point, Greg (LAW) pointed out that if a patron is billed for a book then a block is put on that patrons record automatically and maybe a new block did not need to be created for these situations. Then it becomes a matter of honoring the block.

k. Sophia (FK) said that we needed to think about the FK patron that racked up bills for other libraries in the system but still was able to borrow books from FK library as long as the charges owed were not owed to the FK library. This appeared to be contrary to the point that Greg made (above) and Stephanie (FK) wanted to know what feature in the system placed that block on the patron’s record. It was determined that this was an automatic block that was generated by the auto patron block table where blocks can be set by ptype, max hold, max items in circulations, max ILL material, max amount of money owed (which varies greatly by ptype). Stephanie (FK) wanted to know if there was a manual patron block table. Laura said that that this didn’t make sense from a system standpoint but that she would look into this.

l. This discussion concluded with everyone agreeing that this was not something that was going to be resolved in a phone meeting and that it would be discussed at the October 15, 2004 meeting when we could all get together in person.

V. The meeting was adjourned. The next meeting was scheduled for August 19, 2004 at 9:00am. Janet advised everyone to check the agenda for the number to call.