LINKcat News

News Summary (8/1/2020-8/31/2020)

News (in case you missed it!

• 8/28/2020 One more round of patron record expiration extensions.  We have sent out the information and a survey link an email to all LINKcat directors and CIRc staff and in LINKcat News blog post.  Please, only submit one response per library.
• 8/28/2020 The minutes from the August 11 CSS Meeting are available online.
• 8/26/2020 4,313 bibliographic records were newly cataloged and/or updated in the database between 7/30/20 and 8/25/20.
• 8/26/2020 7,515 items and 633 bibliographic records (with only withdrawn items attached) were deleted in the monthly batch deletion of withdrawn items.
• 8/21/2020 The minutes and ILS Report from the August IC Meeting are available online.
• 8/19/2020 We have resumed running the Long In Transit report.  We have provided details about the resumption of this report in an email to link-announce and in a LINKcat News blog post.  Please read one of these information sources for more information.
• 8/17/2020 The following collection code was deleted from Bibliovation: GGML (Go Green, Main Level).  See the minutes from the August ILS Committee meeting.
• 8/3/2020 The monthly Bibliovation reports for July 2020 can be found online.
• 8/3/2020 The monthly LINKcat.info and LINKcat Mobile reports for July are posted.

SURVEY: One more round of patron record expiration date extensions

At the 8/25 Circulation Services Subcommittee meeting members had an extended conversation about the enormous number of patron records that are due to expire on October 1, 2020 and how to handle them.  As of today, there are 54,626 patron records with an expiration date of 10/1/2020.

 

These records originally had expiration dates set between 3/17/2020 and 9/30/2020.

 

The CSS proposed the following schedule of events to help libraries deal with this large number of expiring patron records:

 

Send out a survey to LINKcat libraries offering to extend the patron expiration dates one more time.

The two dates to be offered will be November 1, 2020 and February 1, 2021.

Responses to the survey are due by noon on September 7, 2020, in order to submit the work requests to LibLime staff in a timely manner.

 

Here is the link to the survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe1-FS_uMmk9cZpdaXGCmYXoPhsrh5bt_646DYdPjMbhY1DoQ/viewform?usp=pp_url

 

Once the expiration dates have been extended, we will follow this schedule for delivering "pre-expiration" notices to patrons that have email addresses:

 

Send a "pre-expiration" notice to patrons with an expiration date of November 1, 2020 (only) on October 1, 2020.  This will give them 4 weeks to contact their library and renew their record.

 

Send a "pre-expiration" notice to patrons with an expiration date between November 2, 2020 to November 30 to the patrons on October 12, 2020. This will give them 2+ weeks to contact their library and renew their record.

 

Send a "pre-expiration" notice to patrons with an expiration date between December 1, 2020 to December 31 to the patrons on November 16, 2020. This will give them 2+ weeks to contact their library and renew their record.

 

Send a "pre-expiration" notice to patrons with an expiration date between January 1, 2021 to January 31, 2021 to the patrons on December 14, 2021. This will give them 2+ weeks to contact their library and renew their record.

 

Send a "pre-expiration" notice to patrons with an expiration date of February 1, 2021 (only) on January 4, 2021.  This will give them 4 weeks to contact their library and renew their record.

 

Send a "pre-expiration" notice to patrons with an expiration date between February 2, 2021 to February 28, 2021 to the patrons on January 18, 2021.  This will give them 2+ weeks to contact their library and renew their record.

Resuming the Long in Transit report

In the spring of 2020 ILS staff conferred with the Circulation Services Subcommittee and we agreed that due to the pandemic and the unknown length of individual library closures, we would postpone running and posting the Long In Transit report.  

 

Since all of the LINKcat libraries are now open to some extent ILS staff have run and reviewed the current report  and we  think that that increasing the end date of the report to 2 months would be enough to cover possible multiple quarantine periods as well as taking into account reduced delivery periods and staffing at libraries.

 

However, when we ran the report, we saw that there are 1577 entries put into transit between 1/3/2018 and 2/28/2020.  We would like to give the libraries the opportunity to clean up these older entries before we start running the report on a regular basis.  

 

Today Michelle ran and posted a Long in Transit report for any items that were put into transit prior to 3/1/2020.

 

Libraries will have 3 weeks to clean-up the older entries before we run the next report.  The generic Long In Transit workflow is located  in the Circulation Manual, Section XII Circulation and Statistical Reports .  If you have a local library workflow for your staff, please use that.

 

Michelle will run and post the next Long in Transit report on Sept. 8, including all entries placed into transit prior to 6/1/2020.  If your library was not able to clean-up the older records they will remain on the report.

 

The next report after that will be run and posted on Sept. 22, entries prior to 7/24/2020.

 

Then we are back to the regular report run, on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month.  But instead of the previous parameters of 2 weeks the report will include entries for the 2 months prior to the date the report was run.

News Summary (7/1/2020-7/31/2020)

News (in case you missed it!

• 7/29/2020 1,450 bibliographic records with no items attached (that were created before 4/1/20) were deleted from the database.
• 7/29/2020 5,206 bibliographic records were newly cataloged and/or updated in the database between 6/25/20 and 7/28/20.
• 7/29/2020 11,880 items and 981 bibliographic records (with only withdrawn items attached) were deleted in the monthly batch deletion of withdrawn items.
• 7/22/2020 The Mobile App recommendation and cost comparison information is available online.
• 7/22/2020 The minutes from the July CSS meeting can be found online.
• 7/22/2020 The minutes from the July DIS meeting can be found online.
• 7/21/2020 The minutes from the July CMS Meeting can be found online.
• 7/2/2020 The monthly Bibliovation reports for June 2020 can be found online.
• 7/2/2020 The monthly LINKcat.info and LINKcat Mobile reports for June are posted.