SRG

Meeting Minutes

November 4, 2009

Attendance: Brenda Muhlbaier (GCLS), Flo Rosenberg (GCLS/MHB), Judy Ballard (GCLS/MHB), Karen Boucher (WDL), Kathy Capobianco (WDL), Margaret Ware (PIT), Susan Mroz (FRA), Marge Dombrosky (GCLS/SWE), Anne Wodnick (GCLS/LGB), Carol Atkins (GCCL), Pat Hirsekorn (GCCL) Pat Collins (GCLS/GRE), Carol Baugman (GCLS/EAS), Lynn Harpool (MON), Ann Kohn (GCIT), Bunny Jacobsen (DPL), Jean McGowan (DPL), Gwen Carotenuto (WES), Laurie Cranston (WOD), Karen Shiles (GCLS), Ralph Bingham (GCLS), Jacki Moore (NEW), Debra Rosner (HEG)

The minutes were read and approved.

(Note: late correction to last meeting’s minutes; Heggan library will circulate for patrons with bills up to $5, not block at $.01 as stated, they do require that all patrons renewing cards to pay all fees on their records first.)

SaaS migration and Offline Circ: The migration went well, even though it took longer than expected. The Offline Circ went very well, everyone was satisfied. It was commented that it saved a lot of time, overall, than hand-recording checkouts and then keying everything in later.

Karen noted the Offline Circ is available at all times, and can be used anytime you are down. Let Karen know that you are using it so she knows to run the Offline report when you come back online. This report loads all checkouts performed when your library was not connecting to the server.

OPAC Timeouts: Ralph had made adjustments to the OPACs to lengthen time for the OPAC to timeout. This was done on our server and did not transfer with the server migration. Sirsi actually had another fix that works better; we should no longer be seeing the OPACs timing out. Logan and Woodbury have still been seeing this happen; in the case of Logan, every 15 minutes, the screen was defaulting to the LOGIN login screen. The OPACs should be refreshing back to your catalog screen after 15 minutes. Laurie could not verify the timeouts as a fellow staff member had mentioned it to her recently, and she has not seen in herself. She will check back and contact Karen or Ralph with specifics. Please let Ralph or Karen know anytime something is not working correctly; include specifics (error message, time of occurrence, which PC, etc.)

Transit List/ Missing items: Margaret reported that someone from Glassboro called Pitman during the evening about an item on the Transit List, and the staff who answered the phone did not know what they were talking about. She did manage to find a transit list, and went on to find over 70 items on the shelf with a status of ‘In Transit’.

Pat H. mentioned that she will call a library if they have the only copy of an item with a hold that either she cannot find, or cannot send (on reserve for a class). GCC does not change the status of these items as what is ‘on reserve’ changes frequently. Monroe also does not use ‘Missing’ right away for items that cannot be located, as these items have a habit of showing up within a short amount of time. However, upon discussion of items showing as ‘available’ that actually are not, not changing the status will prevent the hold from moving to the next available copy. Pat will investigate changing the status of items that are on reserve. Karen mentioned that there is a method to allow double-check outs on items that are on reserve. This will keep the item on ‘reserve’ even if temporarily checked out to a student from the class. When the student returns the reserved item, it will still be reserved and not available in the catalog.

Margaret wanted to point out that not all staff know about transits, or what to do about unavailable holds (when a library calls about an item they own the only copy of that is missing from the shelf). It was mentioned that directors make sure that all staff are aware of procedures, even if they do not work with transit or hold lists.

Long Overdue items: a problem was identified with items that are on hold that have been checked out for the past 2 years (and are obviously not coming back). A ‘Long Overdue Report’ had been mentioned at a previous meeting. Could this be used to identify these items so that action can be taken on the holds that will not be filled? Karen said yes, this is a good use for the report.

A question about how holds are filled: GCLS items will go to any other GCLS patron on the list (in order of placement on the list); all other LOGIN library items will go first to their own patrons, then fill other holds on the list.

Margaret Heggan brought up a complaint about their call numbers being changed. This is an issue for catalogers and will be discussed at the Cataloging Committee meeting (tomorrow, 11-5).

GCC has been finding some records have an odd holding field (GCC/WDL for example). Pat H. did not remember to write down examples for Karen to look out. Deptford has also seen this on some of their records; it is not something they are able to fix. They will send specific examples to Karen for her to look at and identify the problem.

Monroe has been seeing holds placed on new items that they download records for, but have not yet had time to update to ‘new’ (not holdable). Please be aware that they do not allow holds on new items for the first 6 months. They will call the patron’s library to let you know that a hold will not be filled if they own the only copy.

Logan has also seen this happen to their DVDs that are ‘on order’ (holdable) and then changed to a 7-day Express loan (not holdable). These holds to not go away automatically and have to be canceled after alerting the patron of the unavailability of the item for hold.

NOTE: Please remind your staff NOT to OVERRIDE HOLD BLOCKS. The holds will not be filled by the library that owns an item that is not holdable.

Reminder: Margaret Heggan requires their patrons to use a PIN on their OPACs and from home to place holds. The PIN field will not appear on other libraries OPACs and will generate an error message when a Washington Twp resident attempts to place a hold at a library other than Margaret Heggan. Here is the note from the February minutes that discussed the problem:

Karen wanted to remind everyone about Margaret Heggan’s patrons being required to use a PIN when accessing iBistro (OPAC) either from inside Heggan or from home. This causes a problem when their patron visits another LOGIN library and wants to place a hold or access their account in iBistro. Sirsi is not able to recognize that other libraries do not require a PIN; so even though the PIN field does not show, Sirsi is requiring the patron’s PIN to access their account. The only work-around for this is to either assist the patron in accessing the catalog through Heggan’s library link, or to place holds or access patron records ourselves through Workflows.

To access the catalog through Heggan’s library link, you can click on the ‘LOGIN Library Websites’ link at the top of the page and select ‘Margaret E Heggan Free Public Library’ and then select the catalog link from their library page. You can also go directly to the LOGIN page at: www.login-libraries.org and select the Heggan catalog link from the list.

If a Margaret Heggan patron comes to your library and cannot remember their PIN, you can look the number up in their record by looking them up in the Modify User wizard and looking in the Privilege Tab. The PIN is listed on that page.

Reports During Busy Times: It has been noticed that there are reports that run for extended amounts of times during the middle of the day, when several others are attempting to run reports that normally take a few minutes to run. Since Sirsi can only run one report at a time, this causes a problem for others attempting to run reports.

The most recent example was a custom label report that ran for 2 days (Oct. 30^th 10:05 – Nov. 1^st 10:17). Ralph noted that this is an extreme example, but the custom label reports do tend to be the reports that run for longer than an hour. It is also possible to accidentally run this report without making any changes (selections) to the basic report. Karen stated that the next ‘increment’ will fix this problem.

If you notice that a report does not appear in the Finished Reports screen within a reasonable amount of time, email it@gcls.org to report a problem with the report. We cannot stop a report that is running; we have to notify Sirsi to stop the report. Karen asked that we 1) pay attention to reports that are not getting run, 2) please schedule reports that take a while to run for evenings or overnight, 3) set up a template with limits you can change when each time you run the report – this will prevent the system from running a report against the entire catalog if you forget to make changes to the template.

Margaret Heggan received a box with their address label but had materials for another library inside. They then noticed that on another side of the box was a label for the library the materials belonged to. PLEASE make sure your REMOVE OLD SHIPPING LABELS from boxes that you reuse for shipping.

GCC was asked to verify that it was ok to make modify the record of a patron that was once, but is no longer a student at GCC. Pat H. said, yes, that was correct.

Woodbury noticed that one of their materials had been set to Lost-Claimed by another library that had set the item to lost and collected the money without notifying Woodbury or sending the money on to them. DO NOT set another library’s materials to Lost, Missing, Claims Return, unless you have called the owning library and they have given you permission.

A question was asked about a policy for patrons with multiple overdue items. It was noted that each library would have their own policies for this; it is not a consortium policy.

Holds cancelled without patron knowledge. While we should not be cancelling holds without notifying the patron; Ralph suggested recommending to the patron that they sign up for Library Elf. They can get an email that lists what’s on hold; a cancelled hold will disappear from the list.

Mystery Items: Judy brought a book with blue tape around the bottom of the spine that she could not identify who it belonged to. Someone recognized it and claimed the book. GCC mentioned they had disc 2 of a Beatles CD; Pat H. had not thought to bring it with her. Deptford also has a DVD of Eragon (no case, and no label). Karen recommend that everyone bring mystery items to future SRG meetings to be identified and claimed.

The next meeting will be February 3^rd.