It has come to our attention that there are times when an available hold expires, the item belongs to another library, but the Clean Holds Report does not put the item in transit. Rather, the report lists the item with a location of HOLD-EXP (see below)
PAT
Patrick, Phaedra
The curious charms of Arthur Pepper / Phaedra Patrick
location:HOLD-EXP item ID:32038001098526 item type:BOOK
owning library:MATTAPOIS
Please make sure that anyone who deals with holds that have expired on the hold shelf knows that before putting one of these in delivery it must be put in transit. Also, they should make sure that the item actually belongs to your library before reshelving it.
SAILS will have completed the itemcat3 updates to the database by October 3,2016. This means that starting next Monday when you add items to the database you must be sure to enter an itemcat1 (used for circulation) itemcat2 (used to define audience for the item) and itemcat3 (broad categories for reporting.) We are not going to be doing any verification that these values are being added so if there is a problem next July with reports we won't be aware. This is also something you can't run reports for in Directors Station - it doesn't know about the itemcategory 3.
If you are unsure of what categories to use here are the definitions as set up by the MBLC:
Name - Description
AUDIO - Compact discs, cassettes etc., Playaways for books, etc.
BOOKS -BOOKS
DAUDIO -Downloadable audio (audiobooks, music)
DVIDEO -Downloadable video
E-BOOKS -E-books
ELECTRONIC - Materials in electronic format (including CD-ROM and video games)
MICROFORMS - Materials in microforms (fiche rolls, etc.)
MISC - Miscellaneous (ebook readers, museum passes, equipment, puppets, kits, board games, art, etc.)
PERIODICAL - Print periodicals, newspapers and other print serials (including scholarly or scientific journals)
VIDEO - DVDs/Blu-ray discs/VHS, Playaway View, etc.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
Remember to keep the patron's email in their record, even if they are switching to getting notified via SMS or VOICE. This way they'll be able to request their PIN, be contacted if holds are about to expire and know when they need to renew their library privileges.
