Circulation Services Subcommittee Minutes

August 10, 2021, 9:30 am

Phone/video conference

Action:
The Circulation Services Subcommittee recommends changing the RTH date setting from 120 days back to 60 days.

Present: Zach Ott (BAR), Steev Baker (SUN), Jeff Kauffeld (MAD), Margie Navarre-Saaf (MAD), Emily Harkins (WAU), Kelly Heasty (MCF), Erica Kersten (PIN), Eddie Glade (STP), Barbara Henderson (MID), Jo Clark (REE), Autumn Baumann (POR), Robin Behringer (STO)
Absent: Ronda Evenson (VER)
Excused: Tanya Bolchen (FCH), Emily Noffke (MTH)
Recorder: Michelle Karls (SCLS)
SCLS Staff Present: Heidi Oliversen, Cindy Weber

1. Call to Order at 9:35 am

a. Introduction of guests/visitors

i. Robin Behringer from STO will be replacing Bailey Anderson on this subcommittee.

b. Changes/Additions to the Agenda

i. M. Navarre Saaf added Discussion items (4e) changing the expiration date for the Limited Use Patron category to 1 year instead of 6 months, (4g) helpful communication during downtimes, and (4h) Keyboard Accessibility.   

c. Requests to address the Committee

i. None.

2. Approval of previous meeting minutes: May 11, 2021

a. Motion: The May meeting minutes were approved by consensus.

b. Discussion: none.

c. Vote: motion carried. 

3. Action Items

a. None.

4. Discussion

a. Change RTH date setting from 120 days back to 60 days (MCM request to change).

i. Motion: M. Navarre Saaf moved to change RTH settings from 120 day to 60 days.  B. Henderson seconded. 

ii. Discussion: This request came from E. Norton at MCM.  Delivery is back to mostly normal.  Should we change this back to 60 days (pre pandemic setting)?  This change was made due to decreased delivery routes, reduced staff, and libraries wanting to keep materials at the check-in locations longer (and because materials needed to be quarantined).  Changing the setting back to 60 days means that materials won’t stay to fill holds at the checkin location as they had been, but patrons at locations that don’t own the items or are not a check-in library will start getting materials on hold again sooner.  The group agreed that it was time to change the setting back to 60 days. 

iii. Vote: motion carried. This recommendation goes to the ILS Committee for final approval. 

b. Future CSS meeting options:  remain all virtual, hybrid (some at HQ, some virtual), all in-person at SCLS.

i. Discussion: Based on recent survey results, the majority of people who responded would prefer training to remain virtual, so we wanted to ask how people feel about meeting in person.  After some discussion, the group decided to have virtual meetings for the remainder of 2021.  We will put this on the November meeting agenda to discuss potentially meeting in-person in spring 2022.    

c. Section 7 Fines and Financial transactions

i. Discussion: Thanks to everyone for their input on this section of the manual.  H. Oliversen made the suggested changes and re-sent the section out in early July for review.  No additional changes were proposed but there are still a few outstanding questions/changes.  She will work on adding screenshots as suggested and an updated picture of the current “Lost/Paid Refund” form.  The group thought this would be helpful.  The group also discussed formatting changes (i.e. making it easier to read, more white space).  We need an official policy that states libraries will issue refunds to other libraries who have had items going missing from their hold shelves.  That has been a practice for many years but was never quantified as a policy.  Is there a better way to handle this than having one library pay for the item (after 6 months) and then the owning library having to provide a refund if/when the item is returned?  Some libraries experience difficulty getting checks cut and dealing with refunds is always time consuming for staff.  This seems like a larger issue so we will put this on next month’s agenda and everyone should think about an easier practice for dealing with Items that have gone missing from the hold shelf. 

d. Section 15 Offline Circulation

i. Discussion: H. Oliversen did receive a few edits, but overall this section is still fairly accurate.  She reviewed the changes made and will re-post this as soon as possible. 

e. Changing the expiration date for the Limited Use Patron categories to 12 months instead of 6 months

i. Discussion: M. Navarre Saaf mentioned that MPL uses the Limited Use Patron category quite a bit (i.e. homeless patrons, patrons that don’t have proof of address, etc.).  One issue that staff raised is that the WEB Use ONLY patron category has an enrollment period (sets the expiration date in months) of 12 months but the Limited Use categories (LU and LUJ) have an enrollment period of only 6 months. Can we change the enrollment period for the LU and LUJ patron categories to 12 months?  To be consistent with the WEB Use ONLY patron category?  There would be less confusion and less work required for staff needing to renew patron records every 6 months.  Patron categories are used by all libraries so this change would have to be agreed to by all LINKcat libraries.  MAD can make manually these changes for their LU and LUJ patron records but wondered if other libraries thought this would be useful for their own patrons.  STP uses limited use for temporary addresses (i.e. crisis center, etc.) and they set it manually for three months.  H. Oliversen and M. Navarre Saaf will create a survey. We will review the survey results at the September meeting and see if there’s enough of a consensus to make a recommendation for change to the ILS Committee.    

f. Helpful communication during downtime

i. Discussion: M. Navarre Saaf received feedback from library staff about frustrations during the server move downtime and slowdown.  One suggestion was to update the status wiki more frequently, like every one to two hours (even if there is no new news).  Some members thought that every hour would be useful.  M. Navarre Saaf appreciated V. Teal Lovely’s email explaining what happened, but it came on the second day.  Could information be sent out on the first day, even if we don’t know what is happening?  Library staff like information.  Another suggestion is posting an All Clear on the status wiki when things have returned to normal (i.e. libraries should stop using offline circulation).  K. Heasty asked if we could use less jargon and state the problem more plainly.  We will take these suggestions back to the ILS and Help Desk staff for discussion.

g. Keyboard Accessibility

i. Discussion: A MAD staff member asked if when a “Hold Found-Transfer required” pop-up displays during check-in, can we have the “Confirm” button be the active/focused part of the pop-up so that staff can just hit the “Enter” key on the keyboard instead of using the mouse? We do have a Pending ticket with LibLime for this particular question. 

5. Plan for Next meeting:  September 14, 2021 at 9:30 am via phone/video conference

6. Adjournment at 10:47 am

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/08-2021