[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] We have a problem "Profile group"

[Thomas Berezansky]

I, personally, am a supporter of "give each default group that is not  
labeled as being an 'administrator' the minimal set of permissions it  
would logically need, and let each group installing/configuring the  
system add permissions to groups to suit their local needs" type things.

In other words, by default, I think a circulator should be able to  
circulate materials, and nothing more. That does not restrict any  
given installation from having more permissions on that group,  
however, to enable things like patron registration, but then it is an  
action taken to increase rights of the group rather than needing to  
take action to decrease rights later.

Things labeled as 'administrator' groups, however, I think should be  
given all rights they could possibly need for the scope of the account.

Thus, I do not support making it so that by default the circulator can  
register patrons, but I support making it so that by default the local  
administrator can register patrons and staff accounts (including  
promoting patron accounts to staff accounts).

I also support documenting how to give circulators permission to  
register patrons, however, for those libraries and/or consortia that  
want them to be able to do so.

Thomas Berezansky
Merrimack Valley Library Consortium


Quoting Cynthia Williamson <crwbookgirl at gmail.com>:

> Agree that there has to be a circulator with permission to register patrons,
> in general the ability to do more than just check books in and out.  I've
> worked at a small public library where the person at the desk did it all,
> incl. reference and readers' advisory - that person needed to be able to
> register new patrons.  At Mohawk, we upload most of our student records into
> EG from the college registration software but some of our programs do not
> have regular start up schedules and students may be on our doorstep a day or
> 2 before a scheduled upload - in that case our circulators need to be able
> to register a student in EG.   In our case, it is the waiving of fines &
> overriding of holds situations that we want to be able to move up the food
> chain to a circ supervisor.  Two circulator permission profiles work for us
> but in other libraries it might be 3 or 4 or more settings that would be
> needed....  In other words, many different libraries=many different
> workflows.
> Regards, Cynthia
>
> On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 11:48 PM, Jason Etheridge  
> <jason at esilibrary.com>wrote:
>
>> > In particular this differentiation is common at libraries that have
>> > volunteer or work-study circ staff, or where patron membership requires
>> > formal criteria be met (like local residence or group affiliation), or
>> where
>> > account initialization has non-negligible costs (e.g., expensive ID
>> cards).
>>
>> Could make one or more sub-groups of Circulators, one with the
>> permission needed for registering patrons.
>>
>> We should probably give the stock Local Admin group the ability to
>> register any type of user.
>>
>> --
>> Jason Etheridge
>>  | VP, Tactical Development
>>  | Equinox Software, Inc. / Your Library's Guide to Open Source
>>  | phone:  1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
>>  | email:  jason at esilibrary.com
>>  | web:  http://www.esilibrary.com
>>
>> Happy 4th birthday, Evergreen!
>>
>
>
>
> --
> * Doug’s Law “You can have information or
> you can have a life, but you can’t have both.”
> From Player One by Douglas Copeland
> *
>