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Preserving Plainville’s Past

The Plainville Public Library, the Plainville Historical Commission, and the SAILS Library Network have collaborated to create a collection of  photographs of Plainville and its residents for the SAILS Digital History Collection.  The Library and the Historical Society have held scanning parties at the library.  Plainville residents who wanted to share their family history brought photographs  to the library for scanning.   The scanned images were transmitted to the  SAILS Library Network where detailed descriptions were added. The images and descriptions then uploaded into the SAILS Digital History Collection. These images are now available on that website as well as  on the Massachusetts Digital Commonwealth and the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) websites. View the Preserving Plainville's Past online exhibit.  

Blu-ray Holds

The following libraries are now allowing holds on their Blu-Ray titles: Attleboro, Dartmouth, Easton, Dighton, East Bridgewater, Fall River, Middleboro, New Bedford (all locations), Norton, Rehoboth, Seekonk Public, West Bridgwater Westport. So if you see one of your patrons on hold for a blu-ray (bluray) that you don't own it doesn't mean they won't get it - although it will probably be a long wait.

Credit Card Payment Limits

Patrons must pay fines totalling at least 15 cents in order to use the credit card option in Enterprise. If a patron tries to pay fines totalling less than 50 cents they will receive this message: "Sorry, our library requires a minimum payment of at least $1 in order to pay fees electronically. Please select additional fees that you want to pay until the payment amount meets this minimum, then try again. If you have no additional fees to select, then you may need to pay these fees at the library." NOTE - we charge a 85 cent processing fee. This means the minimum payment would be a 15 cent fine and 85 cent processing fee.

Commonwealth Catalog routing slip issue

We learned of a ComCat item from one of our libraries delivered to the CLAMS office because the slip had CLAMS as well as the library name.
Please remember to omit the network's name on the delivery slip as this delays delivery.
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​Don't think of the ComCat processing as much different from the VirtCat processing. They all need the standard delivery slips as well as the "book strap"​ generated from the ComCat staff website.
I know we're starting to get more active with these requests - both lending and borrowing. Don't hesitate to ask us for answers if you have questions. Just email support@sailsinc.org and someone will be more than happy to help. It's also good to let us know if something isn't happening as you think it should. There are still some quirks we're working out and trying to find best practices at the network level to manage some of the differences between the VirtCat and Comcat systems.

Problem Item Form

Thanks to Melissa Campbell for suggesting the use of this form for items being returned with a problem.   You may use this customizable form for when you check in an item and you need to alert the library where the item is headed that there is something wrong with it. Maybe it has a part missing or damaged and the receiving library will know right away.  It is in Word Format so you save the form with the name of your library in the space that has From **your**  Library. It is possible to use the check-in notes to achieve the same thing but that does require that the library staff member discharging the to item to read the note and sometimes you may not want to discharge the item until the problem has been solved. The form is posted here https://sailsinc.org/circulation-desktop/circulation-forms/

ComCat Transit Notice

When you check something that you've borrowed from ComCat into Workflows, (discharge), it will probably be put in transit to Ursa. This is a clue that it needs to be returned to ComCat. There should also be a book strap attached, but URSA is the library to look out for. The process in Workflows is very similar to the VirtCat.

Unfillable Holds Reports

Starting 3/20 you began receiving a daily report of holds that cannot be filled because the last copy has been set to missing, discard or lost.  These reports are cumulative and holds will continue to appear on the report until you do something with them.
How you wish to proceed will be up to each library.  At a bare minimum the holds need to be cancelled.  We suggest that you see if there is another edition that can be used to fill the hold - we do find that sometimes patrons are not aware that there is another version on which there are more available copies.  You may choose to wait to cancel holds on items set to lost in case the item is returned.  And you do have the option of passing this on to the person in your library who handles ILL and Virtual Catalog so that a copy from another network can be requested to satisfy the person's request.
Several asked that the report be emailed to a specific person and we have done so.  All reports will appear in your finished report list as well.
The form that you have been using to notify libraries that your copy is not available to fill a hold has been removed from the website.

Failed Calls Notice – explaination

In your failed calls notice, you may see hold pickup notices where the pickup library is not your library. The reason for this is because the notices are grouped by the user's library (the library on the name of the report), but the pickup library is listed separately for each hold on the notice. This allows the user to only get one email notice but still be able to have items for pickup at multiple libraries. This is the same behavior as the phone notices. When a user receives a call, the system will identify itself as the library that the user belongs to and then tell them the pickup location of their holds (which may be different from their home library).