Updates Newsletter

Circulation Policy and Procedures

In order to remain flexible and provide clear instructions to all members of the consortium, the Circulation Committee suggested some circulation policy and procedure additions. The IT Committee also made recommendations regarding software functionality. The changes were presented to the Executive Committee and approved on October 11, 2011. Please be sure to examine both the policy and corresponding procedure as the procedure is a more in-depth explanation of the policy and will answer more questions. A summary of the changes is below:

CIRCULATION POLICY SUMMARY

Updated Circulation Policy

1) Table of contents added
2) List of definitions added
3) New policies:

o Page 2: [Beginning January 1, 2012,] reciprocal borrowers, students and computer users should be given a blue Evergreen Indiana card which indicates that their borrowing privileges are limited to the issuing library.

o Page 5: Lost Items When registering a patron, those staff members with the highest level of permissions at the local level have the ability to decide whether the patron can be considered for a third party collection service during the patron registration process.

4) Updated policies:

o Page 4: Purging of Inactive Patron Records Inactive patron accounts that do not reflect fines or fees, items checked out or claims returned activity will be marked inactive or deleted one (1) year from the date of being last used.

o Page 5: Recovering Lost Items and Refunding Payment No refund will be given to a patron for a “Lost” item for which a patron has paid. In addition, no fines/fees and third party collection fees will be refunded.

-The consortium-wide setting for voiding lost fines upon checking in a lost item has been set to false in order to bring the system in-line with the circulation policy. If a lost item is checked in, the lost fines associated with the item will NOT be deleted from the patron account. There have been several issues with patrons receiving a negative balance because staff have accepted payment for a lost item and then checked it in at a later date. The Circulation Policy and Procedures do not allow a refund on payments made to a lost item billing and the system was set up to override this policy. It was necessary to bring the system-side in line with the policy to prevent further confusion and system-created negative balances.

-If a lost item is checked in at the owning library, a dialog box will inform the staff member that the item status is lost. If the staff member continues checking in the lost item, the item status will change from lost to In Transit/Re-shelving/Available. Whereas all lost fines and fees would have previously been voided from the patron account responsible for the lost item, now the lost fees stay on the patron’s account. It is the owning library’s decision whether to uphold the fee on the patron’s account, forgive the fees associated with the lost item, and/or allow the patron to purchase another item to replace the lost item. This is a decision based on local policy.

-If a lost item is checked in at a circulating (non-owning) library, staff members will see a dialog box stating the item is lost. At this point, the staff at the circulating library should contact the owning library to find out what they should do.

CIRCULATION PROCEDURES SUMMARY

Updated Circulation Procedures

1) Table of contents added
2) List of definitions added
3) New procedures:

o Pages 4-5: Determining and Assigning the Patron Profile The following statement has been added to Reciprocal borrower, Student and Computer User patron definitions – Patrons assigned this profile should be given a blue Evergreen Indiana card to indicate that the blue Evergreen Indiana library card is valid only at the library issuing the library card.

-NOTE: Blue card usage will begin January 1, 2012.

o Page 6: Updating Expired Patron Accounts Staff members at all Evergreen Indiana libraries can renew expired Resident patron accounts if the patron’s ID matches the Evergreen Indiana account information and the patron account is in good standing. All other patron accounts (non-resident, reciprocal borrower, student) can only be renewed at the patron’s home library.

4) Updated procedures:

o Page 7: Purging of Inactive Patron Records Inactive patron accounts that do not reflect fines or fees, items checked out or claims returned activity will be purged one (1) year from the date of being last used. Member libraries are required to review patron records and mark records “inactive” or delete the patron’s account if expired or unused by the patron during the previous twelve (12) months. Those staff members with the highest level of permissions in the local library system have the ability to delete patrons when the home library of the patron matches the local library of the staff member.

-NOTE: The delete patron functionality will be available on November 1, 2011.

o Page 11: Lost Items When registering a patron, those staff members with the highest level of permissions at the local level have the ability to decide whether the patron can be considered for a third party collection service during the patron registration process. These staff members also have the ability to grant the permission to others in their library system.

-NOTE: The functionality will be available with the system upgrade to Evergreen 2.1. Date: TBD

o Page 11: Claims Returned The circulating library must contact the owning library of the item to inform them that a patron claimed to return the item. The circulating library cannot mark an item they do not own as claims returned.

Blue Evergreen Indiana library cards

As you will note above, the Evergreen Indiana Executive Committee voted to require blue cards for reciprocal borrowers, students and computer users since all three users have limited access to materials and may not use the card to borrow materials from other Evergreen Indiana libraries. As such I have updated the total number of blue cards that will be ordered for each library. Please take a look and let me know if your total has changed at all.

RBs, Students and Computer Users for blue cards

Also, in order to place the order for blue cards, I will need a sample library card from every Evergreen Indiana library. Those libraries from which I need a sample have already been notified. If you haven’t been contacted that means I already have a sample library card from your library and you do not need to submit a sample to me at this time.

Ballots

Soon each library will be receiving a ballot in the mail to change a statement in the by-laws. The by-laws currently state that the annual membership meeting will occur in May. We would like to change this to Spring in order to be more flexible about the month in which Evergreen Indiana plans the annual membership meeting. Also, many of our members are already aware that Evergreen Indiana is hosting the 2012 Evergreen International Conference from April 25-28, 2012. As such, it will be most cost effective for our members to attend this conference instead of both the international conference and the annual membership meeting.

Instructions: We will be mailing ballots to each library within the next two weeks. It is the responsibility of the director of the member library or his/her designee to cast the vote. The by-laws require a 2/3 majority vote in order to make the change.

By-laws