[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Reading History opt in on patron application

[Aubrey Area Library]

Hey Josh,

An interesting proposal. I think it would be a neat addition to to add to
patron registration process.

Like Terran, staff being able to view a patrons reading history would be
better off as a togglable library setting. The fact that we can retrieve a
patrons reading history is a somewhat guarded secret due to privacy
concerns in our consortium.

Thanks,
Jordan Woodard
Aubrey Area Library

On Wed, Oct 18, 2017 at 1:44 PM, Josh Stompro <stomproj at exchange.larl.org>
wrote:

> Hello, we are running into the fact that many of our patrons that want to
> make use of a reading history, don’t find out about it until long after
> they sign up for an account. Many of these patrons are also non
> computer/online catalog users, so there is no chance that they would ever
> find the option to enable it themselves, and even if they knew about it,
> they wouldn’t be able to set it themselves.  So they find out about it
> after talking with staff, and then get mad when they find out that it will
> only have their history starting at the point they sign up.  Since they
> don’t use computers, they need staff to walk them through (do it for them)
> logging into their account and finding the option, so it would be handy if
> staff could just do it for them.
>
>
>
> We could set the library setting to default the checkout history to being
> enabled, but we really don’t want to make that decision for everyone, and
> then put the onus on them to figure out how to use the catalog to turn it
> off.
>
>
>
> So we are considering adding an opt in checkbox to the patron application,
> along with a user setting that staff can check, to allow staff to enable
> the circ history at patron registration time.  The user setting being
> checked or unchecked would trigger a nightly process that would
> enable/disable the reading history for that account.
>
>
>
> In theory, this could result in a customer saying that they never signed
> up for the feature, saying that staff did it on their own.  But since it is
> already trivially easy for staff to log into the catalog as a customer, it
> seems like that would already be a problem.  (staff know what the default
> pin numbers are based on, or could just change the pin, a customer that
> never uses the catalog would never know that the pin was changed)
>
>
>
> Has anyone else done this or something like this?  Is this a horrible idea?
>
>
>
> I think staff would also like to be able to access the patrons history
> from their staff stations, which would make readers advisory easier.
> “Which Louis L’Amour titles haven’t I read yet”.
>
>
>
> We have had problems in the past with patrons physically marking books
> that they have read before, to make it easier for them to find the ones
> they haven’t read.
>
>
>
> Josh
>
>
>
> Lake Agassiz Regional Library - Moorhead MN larl.org
>
> Josh Stompro     | Office 218.233.3757 EXT-139 <(218)%20233-3757>
>
> LARL IT Director | Cell 218.790.2110 <(218)%20790-2110>
>
>
>



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226 Countryside Dr., Aubrey, TX 76227
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