Circulation Services Subcommittee Minutes

February 9, 2021, 1 pm

Phone/video conference

 

Action Items:

The CSS recommends sending the draft LINKcat patron registration form to the IC for final approval.

 

Present: Zach Ott (BAR), Steev Baker (SUN), Jeff Kauffeld (MAD), Margie Navarre-Saaf (MAD), Emily Harkins (WAU), Bailey Anderson (STO), Erica Kersten (PIN), Eddie Glade (STP), Barbara Henderson (MID), Jo Clark (REE), Autumn Baumann (POR), Tanya Bolchen (FCH), Emily Noffke (MTH)

Absent: Ronda Evenson (VER)

Excused: Kelly Heasty (MCF)

Recorder: Michelle Karls (SCLS)

SCLS Staff: Heidi Oliversen, Tracie Miller

1.      Call to Order at 1:02 pm

a.      Introduction of guests/visitors

                                                              i.      None.

b.      Changes/Additions to the Agenda

                                                              i.      H. Oliversen added CSS meeting every other month and Bibliovation Response Time Form under Discussion.

c.       Requests to address the Committee

                                                              i.      None.

 

2.      Approval of previous meeting minutes: January 12, 2021

a.      Motion:  The minutes for the January 12 meeting were approved by consensus with a minor date change. 

b.      Discussion: M. Navarre Saaf noted that under 4di January 7 should be changed to December 7.

c.       Vote: motion carried.

 

3.      Action Items

a.      None.

 

4.      Discussion

a.      Patron Expiration dates – 32 locations had patron expiration dates changed to the parameters proposed by the CSS.

                                                              i.      Discussion: H. Oliversen reviewed the process.  We didn’t need IC approval because it was a per library opt-in choice.  Libraries that replied to the survey with “No”, or did not respond to the survey did not have the expiration date for their patron records changed. H. Oliversen sent out an email with a link to the survey to libraries with a deadline of January 25 to opt in.  LibLime completed this work on January 29. 

b.      Updated RFID tagging guidelines (T. Miller)

                                                              i.      Discussion: T. Miller has been to several libraries to install RFID pads and provide training on how to tag materials.   So far these libraries are only tagging books but they need updated documentation, with photos, for other materials types they may own.  She is able to provide photos of tagging locations on DVDs and CDs but needs photos from other libraries for formats like Playaways, MP3, Games, etc.  NEK does not check out materials to patrons in dedicated cases.  Instead, they put them in plastic sleeves.  When sending them out to fill a hold, they place copies of the insert in blank case.   They are thinking of buying new shelving and redoing this collection, but it is not a high priority.  COL also does not keep CD cases and use vinyl sleeves for them.  Does that change the way we should RFID tag these items?  NEK and COL are exceptions for this practice so the updated tagging documentation does not need to address these situations. Providing an RFID tag for an item will require a dedicated case and insert.  At some point, NEK will need to decide how they want to proceed with this collection.  Please email Tracie pictures of the tag location on your Playaways, MP3, Games, etc. so she can complete the updated documentation.

c.       Retaining Messages.  Setting up an automatic process to clear messages from a patron’s record after X amount of time (one year? 6 months?).

                                                              i.      Discussion: H. Oliversen demonstrated this in the sandbox.  If libraries don’t clear these messages themselves, there is an option to put in a time frame by which these print messages will automatically be removed from the Print Messages table AND will also remove messages older than the parameter from the Message Queue in the patron’s record.  How long would libraries like to retain the display of these messages?  Six months was the consensus.  H. Oliversen still needs to confirm this with LL and complete some testing (before implementing it in production).  This will need to go to the IC for approval by all of the LINKcat Directors as this change would affect all patron records and the Print Messages table.   

d.      Draft of LINKcat patron registration form

                                                              i.      Motion: M. Navarre Saaf moved to send the draft LINKcat patron registration form to the IC for final approval.  J. Clark seconded. 

                                                             ii.      Discussion:  H. Oliversen sent the proposed revisions out to the group. E. Kersten recommended removing the gender question all together and the rest of the group agreed.  She also suggested that instead of primary phone and cell, we should say primary phone and secondary phone. People often have their primary phone as their cell phone.  Do we need a secondary phone listed?  After some discussion, it was decided to leave off the second phone number altogether.  Patrons can be the one to choose what phone number they want to list.  The CSS members thought this draft is ready to go to the IC for further input. 

                                                           iii.      Vote: motion carried.

e.      Section IV Renewals

                                                              i.      Discussion: H. Oliversen made changes to the Renewals section of the manual based on responses she received and reviewed them with the group.  She also added some new screenshots.  E. Kersten asked if we should add a note that when you are overriding blocks now it won’t show you the number of holds on an item.  This is a drastic change from before as you aren’t prompted if you really want to override blocks.  H. Oliversen will add this note about renewal blocks and send it out to the group to review again before posting it to the web site.   She reviewed and posted the Checkin section but forgot to send it to this group for a final review beforehand.  If you have any changes to that section, please let her know.      

f.        Discussion of parameters for assigning PSTATs to Bulk Loan (BLK) and Organization Patron Categories (ORG, FFO)

                                                              i.      Discussion: H. Oliversen reviewed the email she sent out to libraries about this.  POR asked about the PSTATs for FFO and ORG patron categories, like teacher/school accounts.  Some of the teachers may be using their cards to checkout items for reading in class (which counts as a circ) and some are checking out large numbers of material to allow children to take items home (these may not count because teacher isn’t the “end user”).  And some teachers do both.  ILL needs to be counted in a different way so we have to have accurate PSTATs for these statistics.  M. Navarre asked if it would helpful to see if Lucas might be able to mandate a PSTAT for certain patron categories in the MPL Firefox extension.  We should wait to get a response from DPI before we make any changes to his extension, but if Lucas can add it this would certainly help to remove guess-work out of it for library staff.  H. Oliversen will report back to this group when she hears from DPI (after they are done dealing with the 2020 State Annual report).

g.      CSS going back to meeting every other month

                                                              i.      Discussion: Can we move back to every other month schedule for CSS Meetings?  Rio is going live June 1 and Marshfield is potentially going live in mid-September. There will also be a new version of Bibliovation to review in the coming months.  We could move to reviewing two sections of the manual at the meetings in order to stay on track with that project.  H. Oliversen can post sections that need review in Google Docs and ask libraries to finish reviewing one week before the next meeting.  Group thought it would be easier to stay on a one section per month plan.   We will meet on March 9 at 9:30 am via phone/videoconference and then return to the every other month meeting schedule, second Tuesday of the month at 9:30 am.

h.      Bibliovation Response Time form

                                                              i.      Discussion: At the Feb. 3rd ILS Committee meeting, libraries reported and discussed recent response time problems.  We’re going to ask libraries to track this information because we need to provide data to LibLime and having the libraries record the exact day/time/action may help to determine patterns.  This will be going out next week.  This will not replace notifying the Help Desk for outages and urgent problems.  This is for libraries to report details when they experience intermittent or sporadic slowdowns in Bibliovation.

5.      Plan for Next meeting:  March 9, 2021 at 9:30 am

 

6.      Adjournment at 2:42 pm

 

 

For more information about the Circulation Services Subcommittee, contact Heidi Oliversen.

SCLS staff are available to attend cluster meetings to share information and answer questions pertaining to this committee meeting and other departmental projects.

 

Circulation Services Subcommittee/Minutes/02-2021