[Wactclc-alma] Checking out items over break

[Thomas, Kirsti]

Shamelessly copying an email I sent to Greg Bem when he asked a similar question on another list…


Trying to make Alma *not* let things circulate over breaks when the libraries are open is an exercise in madness. Alma operates under the assumption that if you’re open, you *want* people to be able to use your materials. Go figure.

We now operate with the understanding that if we’re open during breaks, then due dates can and do fall on those open dates.

To help patrons remember to return materials, I run the Borrowing Activity Report Job (Alma config >> Fulfillment >> Fulfillment Jobs Configuration >> Borrowing Activity Report Job -- Run Now) at the start of the last week of classes and again at the start of finals week.  This sends out an email to all users who have items checked out that lists what they have checked out, overdue and/or lost, as well as listing any fines and fees on their library account.

Most of our rules are set up to push the due date put to the next open date if the due date would normally fall on a day the library is closed.  This really weirded out library staff last summer when Central and all its branches were closed to the public over the long break between Summer and Fall and books from those branches were checking out for a month. But I explained that if we wanted to have due dates fall on the next open day during the regular year, they had to fall on the next open day during summer break too.

We do have some circulating equipment that we absolutely *don’t* want going out over break.  Central has a collection of high-demand Chromebooks that circulate for 7 days, but not over breaks. The way we deal with this is to have 2 rules in the Fulfillment Unit Rules table—1 rule for the normal loan period, another set up as End of Term. During the regular quarter, the End of Term rule is toggled to Inactive. During the last week in the quarter, we toggle the regular rule to Inactive and toggle the End of Term rule to Active. At the start of the quarter, we switch them back.  At the North Student Media Center, use of the collection is low enough, that the person in charge just manually changes due dates whenever she checks anything out during the last 2 weeks of the quarter to prevent the due date from falling during break.

Hope this helps.


It will be ok!

Kirsti S. Thomas
Library Technical Services Manager
Seattle Colleges
kirsti.thomas at seattlecolleges.edu<mailto:kirsti.thomas at seattlecolleges.edu>
206-934-4106



From: Wactclc-alma [mailto:wactclc-alma-bounces at lists.ctc.edu] On Behalf Of Charly Eaton
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2019 9:59 AM
To: WACTCLC Alma Discussion <wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu>
Subject: [Wactclc-alma] Checking out items over break

Hi everyone,

We are thinking about allowing students enrolled in the upcoming quarter to keep items over break which we currently do not allow. It's very rare that we get this request so I think the best way to handle it would be on an individual basis whereby we extend the patron's expiration date and manually set the item due date. Does anyone else allow checkouts over the break? How have you handled it?

Thanks,
Charly

--
Charly Eaton
Circulation Services Manager
Learning Resources/Library
425.640.1447
Work Schedule: Monday - Friday 7:00 - 4:00
[https://drive.google.com/a/email.edcc.edu/uc?id=1lLjU1aMXjcbVQPiBENnsQRRGox02xMi5&export=download]
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