Minutes Circulation Committee March 7, 2005

Present: Melissa Feiden, Joe Hankins (minutes), Irene Mazor, Georgiana McReynolds (chair), Denise O’Malley, Pat Page, Dan Pribble, Kevin Sheehan

Agenda: Meeting in DIRC

1. Updates
2. Fines for holds
3. Home library
4. Aleph configurations for v.16 – preliminary
5. Review of test client

Agenda: Meeting in DIRC

1. Updates
   a. Barton Advisory Group suggested that testers use the email lists established when we migrated to Aleph in 2001. Circulation will use 3bar-circ@mit.edu to communicate during testing.
   
   b. Stata Center bookdrop is being emptied daily and items checked in when they are brought to the Hayden Circulation Desk.
   
   c. Irene asked if anyone noticed whether patrons indicated they did not receive courtesy notices for term loan materials due February 28. [Update: None were sent for items due on February 28.]
   
   d. The Bookpage web form failed to report the call number field even when users included it. Georgiana will contact Marion Leeds Carroll regarding this problem. [Update: Problem was found and corrected.]
   
   We will ask that the following change be made to the pickup location list:
   Humanities (Hayden)
   Science (Hayden)
   
   e. Melissa Feiden agreed to substitute for Pat Page at PSMG on Friday April 15 from 10-12.
   
   
2. Fines for holds
   We are considering whether patrons should be allowed to place recalls through Your Account rather than holds since ALEPH cannot distinguish between the two and does not allow a grace period when a hold exists. Patrons with books out that have holds on them do not receive any advanced warning that someone is waiting for the book. If the book is not returned on time, the overdue notice indicates that the book has a hold; however the patron is not aware that fines have already started to accrue. Christine will include an additional sentence in the overdue notice, something like: "Fines will accrue as of the due date." The Circulation Committee isn’t ready to decide but we will make a recommendation soon. Joe Hankins will ask BMG for input.
   
   
3. Home library
   We discussed the need to change the default home library in the patron record to the library of the patron’s choice. This step would help ensure that the patron would have items delivered to his/her preferred pickup location. We thought a mandatory field for pickup location on web requests would be an easier way to solve the problem. Georgiana will consult with Christine Moulen.
   
   
4. Aleph configurations for v.16 – preliminary
   a. This is the time to add patron or item statuses and to consider deleting unnecessary statuses like 3F. We reviewed patron statuses.
   
   b. Christine can add standard options for notes, like blocking delinquency. We will add “bounced courtesy notice” as a standard note option. When selected we should insert the date and our initials.
   
   c. Georgiana will get more information on the “re-loaning limit” and patron “self-registration.”
   
   d. We decided not to use the fast registration feature. Certain fields such as expiration date, second address, and patron type are not available. Georgiana will ask Christine if additional fields can be added to the form.
   
   
5. Review of test client
   We looked at various features in the new client – checkout, checkin, fast registration, cash transactions, loan lists, patron information, holds, proxy patrons, IDs, item searching, various ways to navigate through the client.