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

[Joan Kranich]

Hi,

Our libraries have been discussing this workflow too.  Some libraries delete the long lost items while leaving the transaction on the patron record based on date criteria. Their policy is that after a set period of time the patron is accountable for the replacement cost even if the item is returned.  It would be great to have a better workflow because even with this policy in place the procedure still causes confusion.

Our annual circulation meetings are coming up.  I'll let you know if I hear suggestions.

Joan

Joan Kranich
C/W MARS Member Services
jkranich at cwmars.org
508-755-3323 ext. 21

-----Original Message-----
From: open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org [mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Michele Morgan
Sent: Monday, June 02, 2014 11:42 AM
To: open-ils-general at list.georgialibraries.org
Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting items that are lost or long overdue

Hi Terran,

Thanks for sharing your documentation. We are looking forward to making use of the new automatic Long Overdue processing development in Release 2.5. This will help circulation staff in our libraries a great deal in managing long overdue items.

In your process, however, I'm not seeing how items that are significantly overdue, but never returned or paid for are handled. Do these remain in the system as Long Overdue?

It's these that we are struggling with. We'd rather not keep bibliographic records around just to hold long overdue items, and don't want items years overdue cluttering searches.

Thanks,
Michele

On 6/2/2014 9:56 AM, McCanna, Terran wrote:
> Hello Michele,
>
> You might be interested in some development that we had done regarding 
> Long
Overdue items - we are not implementing it until Oct 2014, but here is an overview:
>
> http://pines.georgialibraries.org/sites/default/files/files/Longoverdu
> e-Processing.pdf
>
>
> Terran McCanna
> PINES Program Manager
> Georgia Public Library Service
> 1800 Century Place, Suite 150
> Atlanta, GA 30345
> 404-235-7138
> tmccanna at georgialibraries.org
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Michele Morgan" <mmorgan at noblenet.org>
> To: "Evergreen Discussion Group" 
> <open-ils-general at list.georgialibraries.org>
> Sent: Monday, June 2, 2014 9:41:51 AM
> Subject: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting items that are lost or long 
> overdue
>
> 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