[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting items that are lost or long overdue

[Michele Morgan]

We are looking for the best way to handle items that are severely overdue. These 
are items that are overdue enough to make it unlikely they will be returned, but 
not overdue enough that we want to write them off and remove them from the 
records of the patrons that checked them out.

Ideally, here's how we would like these overdue items to behave:

The items should NOT appear in patron or staff catalog searches.
The item information should be visible on the patron record.
Staff should have some way to search for the item in the client.
It should be possible to check the item in should the barcode be scanned at Checkin.

We have looked at deleting these items, but then they can't be checked in 
normally and are no longer searchable by barcode in the staff client, so there 
is no way to find the patron record.

We have looked at unsetting the opac visible flag, but these are still visible 
in staff searches.

We have also looked at marking the items Lost and charging the patron the cost 
of the item, then deleting them. But again, they can't be checked in normally 
and are not searchable by staff.

We have encountered the problem where a long overdue item had been deleted, then 
was returned and reentered into the system with the same barcode. This resulted 
in an available item and a long overdue checked out item visible on the patron's 
record with the same barcode, which is very confusing for patrons and staff.

How do others handle these types of items?

-- 
Michele Morgan, Technical Assistant
North of Boston Library Exchange, Danvers Massachusetts
mmorgan at noblenet.org