LINKcat News

Updated instructions for Assigning PSTATs and the complete 2018 list of PSTATs for Wisconsin municipalities.

In January 2018 SCLS staff completed the multi-year project of updating and converting the PSTAT codes in Koha to county-based codes.  The project was initiated in 2015 when we added granular codes for adjacent counties that had high circulation numbers and progressed to additional counties each year.  Our intent was to eliminate the Generic System PSTATs and provide county-based codes for all counties in Wisconsin.  All counties adjacent to any SCLS county have PSTAT codes/descriptions down to the city, town or village level.  Counties that are not adjacent to SCLS counties have only a "COUNTY" WITH LIB, a "COUNTY" NO LIB and an ILL-COUNTY code/description.  We have also eliminated the X-ILL code and created individual ILL codes for all SCLS counties.

The updated instructions for Assigning PSTATs have been posted to the SCLS website and are linked from two locations: Member Resources & Services/Library Management/Day-to-Day Library Management/Assigning PSTATS and ILS Support/Codes/Patron Statistical Classes (PSTATs)

The 2018 list of PSTATs for Wisconsin municipalities is linked from within the instructions and also as a separate link on the CODES web page.  Feel free to download this spreadsheet to your PC and sort it according to your needs.

Please have all staff that enter library card registration forms and/or staff that update patron addresses read this updated information. When staff are populating or modifying the sort1 field (PSTAT) in a Koha patron record, all of the municipality choices  available to you will display in the pull-down list.  Do Not enter the actual codes, either from a printed list or from memory.  A large number of old codes are slated for deletion and will cause problems in the monthly PSTAT reports if used.

 

If you have any questions please contact Heidi Oliversen.

PSTAT changes for 2018

This month, SCLS staff will be replacing existing, generic System-based PSTATs with more granular county or municipality-based PSTAT codes and descriptions for all of Wisconsin. The primary reason for doing this is to provide granular information to adjacent counties during the Adjacent County reimbursement process. The other is to remove system-based codes and replace them with County-based codes.

The addition of all of these codes will make your pull-down list enormous. However, the sort1 field is a responsive field so you only need to start typing the name of the municipality to get to the section of the list that you want.

DO NOT ENTER CODES or NAMES OF MUNICIPALITIES DIRECTLY INTO THE sort1 FIELD IN THE PATRON RECORD. THIS IS A FREE-TEXT FIELD AND IF YOU OR YOUR STAFF ENTER OLD, INCORRECT CODES OR MISSSPELLED NAMES THE SYSTEM WILL ACCEPT THEM. USE THE PULL-DOWN MENU TO SELECT THE MOST SPECIFIC MUNICIPALITY; village, town, city or county; BY NAME.

AS ALWAYS – if you are uncertain about which municipality to select, choose the UNDETERMINED option and make sure you go back later and update the patron record with the most granular and correct PSTAT possible.

UPCOMING CHANGES:
For those counties that are not adjacent to SCLS Counties, we will be replacing the generic System codes and descriptions, like these examples
    O-IFLS Indianhead Federated Library System
    O-IFLS-I ILL-Indianhead Federated Library System

with county-based codes and descriptions for each County in that system.
    BA-LIB BARRON COUNTY-WITH LIBRARY
    BA-ILL ILL-BARRON COUNTY
    CH-NOLIB CHIPPEWA COUNTY-NO LIBRARY
    CH-ILL ILL-CHIPPEWA COUNTY
    CH-LIB CHIPPEWA COUNTY-WITH LIBRARY

For those counties that are adjacent to SCLS Counties, we will be replacing the System-based codes with County and Municipality-based codes and descriptions, like the following examples:

Old code            New code          Description/Municipality
O-ALS-ROCK       RO-AVON-T           Avon, town (Rock county examples)
O-ALS-BEL-C       RO-BEL-C             Beloit, city
O-ALS-ROCK       RO-BEL-T              Beloit, town
O-ALS-ROCK       RO-BRA-T             Bradford, town
O-ALS-ROCK       RO-CEN-T             Center, town
O-ALS-CLI-V       RO-CLI-T               Clinton, town
O-WVLS-CKNL    CL-BEA-T               Beaver, town (Clark County examples)
O-WVLS-CKNL    CL-BUT-T               Butler, town
O-WVLS-CKNL    CL-COL-T               Colby, town
O-WVLS-CKNL    CL-CUR-V               Curtiss, village
O-WVLS-CKNL    CL-DEW-T               Dewhurst, town
O-WVLS-CKNL    CL-EAT-T                Eaton, town

Municipalities that are in multiple counties or municipalities in different counties but with identical names will have a County identifier in the Description field ONLY if they are in an SCLS or adjacent county. For example:

The City of Wisconsin Dells is in 4 counties so multiple options will display in the list, like these examples
WISCONSIN DELLS, CITY (ADAMS)           A-WID-C
WISCONSIN DELLS, CITY (COLUMBIA)     C-WD-CC
WISCONSIN DELLS, CITY (SAUK)             S-WD-CS
WISCONSIN DELLS (JUNEAU)                 JU-WID-C

Similarly-named municipalities in non-adjacent counties will not have their own descriptions or codes so the County description/code will need to be used. Some examples are
Lafayette, town (Chippewa)             CH-NOLIB
Lafayette, town (Walworth)             WA-NOLIB
Lafayette, town (Monroe)                MO-NOLIB
Or
Lac La Belle, village (Jefferson)         JF-LLB-V
Lac La Belle, village (Waukesha)         WK-NOLIB

We are in the process of updating the entire list of municipalities in Wisconsin and will update the link to the PSTAT codes on both the Assigning PSTATs page and the ILS Support/Codes page.

 

Crystal Report Tweaks

Two of the reports in Crystal Reports have received minor changes.  First, the Weeding report now shows the "Other Status" field.  This was requested to help libraries determine what to do about items on the Weeding report without having to look the item up in the catalog to see if it had an "Other" status (AV Repair, Defect Reported, Mending, Parts Missing, etc.).  For a full list of "Other" statuses, see the Item Statuses page.  http://www.scls.info/ils/codes/item-status/statuses.pdf

The second tweak was to remove items that have a status of "withdrawn" but are still in the catalog from the Item Count report.  This will give a library a better sense of progress during weeding projects without having to wait until the monthly deletion of withdrawn items.  All other items statuses are still included on that report. 

November 2017 Annual Batch Deletion Reports posted

Twice a year we run cumulative reports of items that have certain problem items statuses that are eligible for batch deletion, according to SCLS procedure.  These reports help libraries keep track of older, problem items and give them the chance to take appropriate action on these items, according to their local policy, or leave them for the annual batch deletion.

 

Typically, the reports are run each November and May. Items that appear on the May reports but are not modified or resolved are batch deleted in July. Items that appear on the November reports are there to let the libraries start working on the list of items that will be included on the May reports so there are not so many items to deal with before the actual deletion in July.  Any items that are not resolved will appear again on the report run in May 2017.  

 

Libraries need to review these reports and

1. Decide if they are going to keep the record of the item, or the item itself in the case of Damaged items, or
2. Delete the record from the database, or
3. Leave it and let the annual batch deletion process delete the record the database.

If a library does not already have workflow for reviewing these reports, here are some questions to ask to see if the status of the item can be changed.  This list is not exhaustive.

• Were broken items mended?
• Were replacement parts ordered?
• Did patron pay for damages?
• Were magazines with Current Issue/No CKO status correctly updated?
• Were items marked as In Processing correctly checked in?
• Do patrons with “Lost items” need to be reminded about payment?

The November 2016 Annual Batch Deletion problem reports are:

• ABD Damaged. This report is posted on the Reports page, Batch Deletion folder.
• ABD Other (Missing Inventory, Lost in Transit). This report is posted on the Reports page, Batch Deletion folder
• ABD Lost (Lost, Missing, Trace).  A "hidden" link to this report is emailed to the Director of each library because it contains patron information.  This report is not posted on the Reports page.  

Items with a status of Claims Returned, AV Repair, Defect Reported, Mending, In Processing and Parts Missing are not included in the Annual Batch Deletion.

2015 Purge of Inactive Patrons

The annual Purge of Inactive Patron records will take place at  end of  December 2015.  For the purposes of this report and purge, SCLS libraries define "Inactive Patron records" as patron records that have not checked out items in the last 2 years AND have been expired for at least one year AND owe less than $20.00.

Your library will be sent a list of patron records that are eligible to be purged. These patrons will:

•     have your library listed as their home library;
•     have not checked out items since December 2013;
•     account expired before December 2014; 
•     have no holds on their record and
•     owe less than $20.00. 

 
When you receive your report, please review the records, especially the records with a Patron Category of WEB.  If these WEB records are for temporary Internet or Database use, you may not want to delete them. If there are records that you DO NOT want purged, you must (manually) Renew those records so they will not be included in the final extraction.  Otherwise you need do nothing further.

The deadline for review is Friday, December 18, 2014. We will re-run the report on Monday, December 21 to exclude any records that are modified, and will submit the records to be deleted that day.

Updated procedure: Changes to the Annual Batch Deletion process.

Twice a year we run cumulative reports of items that have certain problem items statuses that are eligible for batch deletion, according to SCLS procedure.  These reports help libraries keep track of older, problem items and give them the chance to take appropriate action on these items, according to their local policy, or leave them for the annual batch deletion.

Typically, those reports are run each November and May. Items that appear on the May reports but are not modified or resolved are batch deleted in July.

Last May we discovered that the 4.18 upgrade had converted all our timestamps to 4/16/2014, so we could not run the semi-annual problem item reports for the Annual Batch Deletion process.  Because of that timestamp change, we could not batch delete older, problem items in July.  We came up with a plan last November and were able to batch delete items that were unchanged from the Nov. 2013 report.

Given that we now run monthly “problem item” reports, we needed a better way to label these semi-annual reports.  In conjunction with the changes to the Reports page we have come up with some changes that we hope will provide clarity.   We missed our May deadline but will be back on track this November.

For this current cycle, the first round of ABD (Annual Batch Deletion) Problem Item reports were run and posted on June 22, 2015.  SCLS Staff will re-run these reports in late August.  If any of these items are unmodified, we will mark them for batch deletion at the end of August.

Libraries need to review these reports and

1. Decide if they are going to keep the record of the item, or the item itself in the case of Damaged items, or
2. Delete the record from the database or
3. Leave it and let the annual batch deletion process delete the record the database.

If a library does not already have workflow for reviewing these reports, here are some questions to ask to see if the status of the item can be changed.  This list is not exhaustive.

• Were broken items mended?
• Were replacement parts ordered?
• Did patron pay for damages?
• Were magazines with Current Issue/No CKO status correctly updated?
• Were items marked as In Processing correctly checked in?
• Do patrons with “Lost items” need to be reminded about payment?

The June 2015 Annual Batch Deletion problem reports are:

• ABD Damaged. This report is posted on the Reports page, Batch Deletion folder.
• ABD Other (Missing Inventory, Lost in Transit). This report is posted on the Reports page, Batch Deletion folder
• ABD Lost (Lost, Missing, Trace). A "hidden" link to this report is emailed to the Director of each library because it contains patron information.  This report is not posted on the Reports page.  

Items with a status of Claims Returned, AV Repair, Defect Reported, Mending, In Processing and Parts Missing are not included in the Annual Batch Deletion.

New monthly reports for May

As some of you may have already noticed, there are a number of new monthly reports.  First are the new "YTD" or "year-to-date" reports.  There are four new YTD reports:

• Total Checkout by Collection Code YTD
• Total Checkout by ITYPE YTD
• Total Checkout by PSTAT YTD
• Total Checkout by PTYPE YTD

These reports have the same information in them as the non-YTD versions, but they have the numbers for each month of the year so far and a total column so libraries don't need to copy and paste their information into a separate spreadsheet to get the year-to-date totals. 

The second set of reports are the "by Owner" reports.  There are two new reports in this category:

• Total Checkout by Collection Code by Owner
• Total Checkout by Dewey by Owner

The reports are a lot like the Total Checkout by Collection Code and Total Checkout by Dewey reports respectively but the counts are by the owning library of the item, not the checkout location.  For example, if a Reedsburg item was sent to and checked out at Middleton to fill a hold, the "by Owner" report would have the checkout credited to Reedsburg, not Middleton. 

The Claims Returned report is back!

We have made changes to the Claims Returned report.  As of January 2015 we will be running and posting the report as a monthly report and the report will consist of ALL items, with the payment status of Claims Returned, sorted by owning library.

This month's report is posted in the Reports calendar on January 29, 2015.

Once the report is posted, you can download the report and then exclude/delete all  items not owned by your library. 

This report is also slated to be added to the Crystal Reports dashboard so your staff will be able to run it on-demand.  When we have added the report to the Crystal Reports dashboard we will send out another email, post it on the LINK 2.0 Koha blog and add the instructions to the ILS Support/Reports/Crystal Reports main web page .​

Best Practice - Why is there a Withdrawn item on my Holds Queue report?

A number of libraries have reported finding Withdrawn items on their Holds Queue reports (aka pick lists).  SCLS staff tested several scenarios trying to get items with a Withdrawn status to appear on the Holds Queue report.  The only way we were able to get an item with a Withdrawn status on the report was to mark the item Withdrawn after the hold alert appeared on the Holds Queue report.   

The system is designed to populate your library's Hold Queue report (pick list) only with items that, at the point of generating the report, have a Current Library equal to your library and have a status of Available. 

​If a hold is placed on a bib record that includes an item with a Withdrawn status, the library that owns the item with the Withdrawn status is ignored as the hold request "travels" through the Hold Sequence.  

If an item with a Withdrawn status is the only item on a bib record, neither patrons nor staff are able to place a hold on the record. Staff are not able to place an item-level hold on items with a status of Withdrawn.

Marking an item Withdrawn after it appears on your pick list will not remove it from the Holds Queue report.   If something appears on your Holds Queue report that needs to be Withdrawn,  you or your staff must mark it Trace on the Holds Queue report and “Submit” the change to the report in order to remove that hold request from the report.  Only after the hold request is removed from your HQ report should you mark the item as Withdrawn. 

If you do find a Withdrawn item on your Holds Queue report, you should mark it Trace to remove it from your report and move the hold through the Hold Sequence. Please note that all items with a Withdrawn status are deleted once a month (near the end of the month). If the Withdrawn item is the last item on the bib record, then the bib record, and any attached holds, is deleted as well. 

October 2014 Annual Batch Deletion

If you are unfamiliar with our Annual Batch Deletion process, please read this blog post for infomation on the usual procedure.

Normally we would have done a batch delete of "problem items" in July 2014. This did not take place last July because we could not identify qualifying "problem items" due to changes in the item record timestamp field. The timestamp field was updated with a current date when our data was "migrated" from the 4.16 Koha software to the 4.18 Koha software In April 2014.  

As a result, we were not able to generate the PI (Problem Item) reports for May 2014 that only included items at least one year old. Therefore, we were unable to do a batch deletion in July. However, we have recently figured out a way to use the item barcodes from the November 2013 PI:Damaged and PI: Missing, etc. reports to do a batch delete of older problem items.  

We will take the item barcodes from the November 2013 PI reports through the Batch Item Editor and confirm that a) these items still have a problem item status and b) do not have a Last Seen date more recent than  2014-04-15.  If both of those conditions are true, we will mark the item Withdrawn and the item record will be deleted in the October monthly batch deletion of Withdrawn items, which will take place this week on Thursday, October 30. When the batch delete of withdrawn items is complete, a notice will be posted on the home page of the ILS support web site. 

Items with a status of Lost will not be included in this process. Deleting items with this status removes the item hyperlink from the patron record, which breaks the link to pertinent item information, like title, barcode and owning library. In order to delete these items, libraries have to review these items and the attached patron records on an individual basis.​ With the 4.18 development, title, due date and items barcode are now included, in text, in entries in the patron's Account and Account History screens. (That way if the item record is deleted, we no longer lose that data in the patron's record.)