SPARK Circulation Committee Meeting

August 8, 2023 @ 2pm

Meeting Minutes

8 participants, including Jessica Laganosky (chair), Katie Greenleaf-Martin (PaILS), Katherine Dannehl (PaILS), and Elizabeth Davis (PaILS)

1.       Welcome – meeting began at 2:03pm with Jessica welcoming everyone

2.       Catalog Refresh Update – Jessica reminded everyone to read Katherine’s recent email about the ChiliPAC refresh, with a video to be posted on the 15th

3.       Updates on Patron Privacy Policy – Jessica updated the committee on the proposed changes to the SPARK Patron Privacy Policy

a.       Data not approved to include on patron accounts include SSN, CC or Debit Card numbers, medical information, and Driver’s License or State ID numbers (except the last 4 characters – PaILS recommends not staring any ID number data)

b.       “Age circulations” – with no associated bills 18 months after the circulation close date. Patrons can still view circulation history if opt into the service

c.       Patron accounts flagged for deletion if no activity in 5 years and anonymize name & address data in accounts with no activity for 10 years

d.       Natalie mentioned issues with Driver’s License numbers currently in SPARK and asked if there would be a redacting process to remove any extra numbers from the field

                                                               i.      There will be an audit of the data field

                                                             ii.      The system will be able to truncate in batch but still allow the last 4 digits to display

                                                           iii.      Script will run monthly to scrub/truncate data – it will identify what fields need shortened to last 4 digits

e.       These changes refer to PA law changing in 2022 related to data privacy and will help protect SPARK Consortium from any issues if there is ever a data breach

4.       Billing How-Tos with Elizabeth

a.       Elizabeth shared the Evergreen Documentation link to billing info: https://docs.evergreen-ils.org/eg/docs/latest/circulation/billing.html

b.       There are two types of bills: circulation (charges through the system) versus grocery (charges by staff)

c.       There are also a number of things to think about when onboarding to SPARK; if not sure of settings, let PaILS know

                                                               i.      Daily fines and max fines

                                                             ii.      When an item goes to lost and bills for the price of the item

                                                           iii.      Should a lost bill be voided upon the item’s return? How long do patrons have to return the item before a lost charge does not void?

                                                           iv.      Processing fees and whether or not to void the fee upon an item’s return

                                                             v.      Should an overdue fee be voided when the item goes to lost? If the lost item is returned, should the overdue fee be reinstated?

d.       Void versus Adjust to Zero – official documentation says adjust to zero

                                                               i.      Voids look at the total bill, even if a portion of the line has been paid, which will create a negative balance

e.       Refunds – this function is slightly buggy; if there are any issues, PaILS can help

f.        Credit available – PaILS can turn on or off this function, which would allow patrons to advance pay or “keep the change” on a payment made

g.       Lost items will stay in Special Circulations until the bill is paid

h.       Deposit in an item’s information means a rental fee

                                                               i.      It was mentioned during the meeting that a deposit has come up before with a different library’s material – since the deposit is attached to the item’s information, the deposit will pop up even if circulated at a different library

i.         To view cash reports, go to Local Administration – Cash Reports

                                                               i.      Report can run for each billing type

                                                             ii.      There is a cash report refresh in 3.11, where users can view cash reports by workstation and by staff user

5.       Issues/Comments/Questions

a.       Meeting ended at 3pm

b.       Next meeting: November 14, 2023 at 2pm

Submitted by Jessica Laganosky

SPARK Circulation Committee

2nd Quarter Meeting – May 9, 2023 @ 2pm

Meeting Minutes

Note: video of meeting can be found here: https://youtu.be/bd52wLYx2gM

Jessica opened meeting at 2:04pm with welcome and introductions

Jessica provided a summary of PaILS ask of the Circulation Committee – to start discussion on parameters for aging circulation data and deleting patrons.

Aging Circulation

Jessica opened the floor for discussion.

There was discussion about needs from accountants, running reports for billing, etc. Brandt mentioned the accountants’ needs for Adams County.

Betty noted that the staff who oversee weeding at her library have concerns about how anonymized circulation data will appear on weeding reports. At her library, those who weed look at not only the number of checkouts but also who checked out the item – if it was the same person who checked out multiple times, the item is still weeded. Elizabeth will look into this.

Katherine asked Diane and Michele, who were attending from other Evergreen Community libraries, if they have run into similar questions about anonymizing circulation. Diane indicated that her consortium looks to 3 years for anonymizing data. They also purge patron records 5 years after card expiration. Michele indicated her consortium ages circulation at 30 days and noted that unique patron data is lost; her consortium also purges patron data 5 years after card expiration.

PaILS proposes anonymizing circulation at 18 months. Those who attended the meeting found that to be an agreeable timeframe. PaILS encouraged those in attendance to follow up with their library administrators, as the consortium will need to vote on this. Discussion will continue into the next quarterly meeting.

Patron Deletion

Elizabeth described proposals from PaILS indicating patron data and deletion of patron accounts. PaILS proposes a consortium-wide policy to limit SSN, ID numbers to the last 4 digits in a patron account and to flag accounts for deletion with no activity for 5 years and anonymize patron data after 10 years. This would be a consortium-wide policy, with additional options in place for libraries that do not wish to follow the consortium wide policy.

Mary Beth asked if someone uses the card between the 5 years and 10 years if time will reset, meaning the patron can continue to use the card. Elizabeth indicated that no, once an account is flagged for deletion, the account cannot be found in SPARK.

For data from deleted patrons, information can be found through reports. Once an account is purged, information is not retrievable.

There was a suggestion that accounts with bills and overdues will need to be noted in the policy.

A question was asked about patrons who have passed away – if the accounts can be deleted prior to 5 years. PaILS can do so on a case by case basis.

Those in attendance recommended the consortium-wide policy of 5 years delete patron account and 10 years purge account.

Further discussion will take place next quarterly meeting.

Other News

Elizabeth will share information about billing in SPARK. If anyone has a scenario they would like Elizabeth to cover, please let Jessica or Elizabeth know.

Next meeting: Tuesday, August 8th at 2pm

Meeting officially ended at 2:57pm

Submitted by Jessica Laganosky, Circulation Committee Chair

SPARK 1st Quarter Circulation Committee Meeting

Tuesday, February 14th at 2pm via Zoom

Participants: 16

Hosted by: Jessica Laganosky, Circulation Committee Chair

Guests:

Katherine Dannehl – PaILS

Elizabeth Davis – PaILS

Katie Greenleaf Martin - PaILS

1.   Welcome and Prior Meeting Minutes:

Jessica opened the meeting at 2:01pm with welcome and sharing of the link for prior meeting minutes:

https://sites.google.com/view/sparkugboard/committees/circulation-committee/agendaminutes-circulation-committee?authuser=0&pli=1

2.   User Group Annual Meeting and planning for Circulation Committee Topics:

Jessica opened discussion for potential topics at this year’s Circulation Committee portion of the User Group Annual Meeting month.

·         Mary Beth recommended billing. There are different functions within the billing feature that may be unfamiliar to some in SPARK. An explanation of the varying components of billing, including a general overview, methods of payment, forgiveness versus void, and refunds. Katie mentioned PaILS could also provide information on how PaILS staff can offer support with billing, including setting up credit card payments through the ILS.

·         Angie mentioned the recent issue with a very popular book and how the hold system did not work – what was the process to identify the holds process was broken and getting the patch in place to fix the situation.

·         An overview of 3.10, highlighting the new features and updates on current features. The demo server may be updated to 3.10 by May, so a possible demo of some of these new features may be available.

3.   Future Project Discussion – continued from December:

Jessica recapped the discussion from December, with Elizabeth providing clarifying points on the two potential projects, aging circulation and deleting patrons.

·         Aging circulation anonymizes circulation data, and can be a different rate/frequency than deleting patrons. This is also an all or nothing process – ultimately, libraries would vote on this. Bill information for the item would be retained, and the circulation information would indicate “patron” rather than a specific link to a patron name. Reports for this process would be impacted, so collaboration with the Reports Committee is needed.

·         Deleting patrons is an opt in for libraries – once parameters are set, libraries could decide if an option works for their organization. Katie reminded everyone that the state looks at 3 years of data for the annual report, and a few options could be made available to libraries for retention. Also, to keep in mind that libraries should talk to their auditors about their preferred retention time.

·         Conversation started on recommended time lengths and concerns that not enough committee members have been present to discuss the projects. Jessica mentioned saving the discussion for May. Angie and Linda suggested discussing the projects through the listservs, as not everyone is able to attend meetings and would allow this discussion to continue. Jessica indicated she would talk with PaILS staff on implementation and how to proceed.

·         Time frame suggestions included Terri mentioning to have circulation data for the last patron listed on an item, in case of an issue with the item that needs to be addressed. Linda thought a year for aging circulation and 3 years for deleting patrons would be good retention times. Angie asked the average expiration of library cards and possibly using that data to guide the decision process – double the expiration length to come up with the deleting patron number. Elizabeth said there are a mixture of expiration lengths, so maybe 6 years.

·         Jessica ended this piece of discussion with another mention of speaking to PaILS about whether or not to have a formal discussion at the May meeting or through the listserv.

4.   Issues/Concerns to address with committee:

Jessica opened discussion on any issues or concerns found in SPARK that the committee would like to address.

·         Elizabeth mentioned the patch for Spare that had been applied Monday evening and wondered if anyone had seen anything out of the ordinary with the hold list/processing of holds. Jessica indicated no issues in Adams County.

·         Betty asked if the recent patch update was related to her library’s ongoing issue with the hold dates and library open dates and holidays. Elizabeth said it does not fix that specific issue but fixes an issue of hours of operation for those who are closed during part of the day. This fix will display the split hours.

5.   Next Meeting: Tuesday, May 9th @ 2pm via Zoom

Jessica reminded everyone to sign up for the circulation listserv and to post any comments or concerns on that listserv.

The next meeting will be Tuesday, May 9th, which will also serve as the circulation portion for the User Group meeting. Jessica indicated topics will officially be advertised in the coming weeks.

Meeting ended at 2:30pm.

SPARK 4th Quarter Circulation Committee Meeting

Tuesday, December 20th at 2pm via Zoom

Participants: 11

Hosted by: Jessica Laganosky, Circulation Committee Chair

Guests:

Katherine Dannehl – PaILS

Elizabeth Davis – PaILS

Katie Greenleaf Martin - PaILS

1.       Welcome and Prior Meeting Minutes:

Jessica opened the meeting at 2:02pm with welcome and sharing of the link for prior meeting minutes:

https://sites.google.com/view/sparkugboard/committees/circulation-committee/agendaminutes-circulation-committee?authuser=0&pli=1

2.       Circulation ListServ:

Jessica reminded everyone that the Circulation Committee listserv is now live. Jessica shared the link to register for the listserv:

https://mail.hslc.org/mailman/listinfo/spark-circ

3.   3.9 Issues/Concerns:

Jessica asked the group to share any issues or concerns with 3.9. No concerns were addressed at this time.

4.   2023 Project Opportunities and Discussion – Elizabeth:

Jessica invited Elizabeth to share possible project opportunities for the Circulation Committee. Further discussion will take place in 2023.

a.       Aging circulation- This will allow us to anonymize circulation history.  This means that all the check out information is retained and only patron information is removed from the items after a defined period of time.  Patrons will still be able to know their check out history. It’s just the information on the item level that will be replaced with the phrase Aged Circulation instead of a person’s name.   More info- https://docs.evergreen-ils.org/eg/docs/latest/admin/aged_circs.html .

The committee would look at parameters for aging circulation, answering questions such as “How long should information (checkout data, return date data, etc.) be accessible?” Patrons will still be able to see circulation history and hold history with these items, but it is ultimately a way to safeguard patron privacy. Other Evergreen consortia follow a similar process, with aging anywhere between two weeks to two to five years. This would also impact some reports, which would also require communication with the Reports Committee.

b.      Deleting Patrons- We’d like to discuss the option of an opt in deletion of patrons project.  This would happen on the background and automatically under a set of mutually agreed upon parameters.  For example, If they opt in, we would delete patron accounts after an account has had an expiration date of more than 5 years and/or that have the active box unchecked.

The committee would decide expiration date and inactive date parameters. This does impact the Annual Report, so directors would have to okay this for their libraries or library systems. Libraries may also need to consult their auditors to see retention of data needs. It is opt in, so not a global change. This also ties well into the Aging Circulation project, as one of the parameters to think about is aging circulation. For instance, if aging circulation is set to 3 years, then a patron could be auto deleted at 5 years. There are pieces of this as well that Equinox can choose what pieces of data can be deleted – Equinox can be “granular” in their approach to this. Equinox can also flag patrons as deleted, but the patron is not deleted.

c.       Retention Interval on Notices - With the newly functioning Triggers Events/Notifications Log under the Other in a Patron account, we’d like to discuss the option of how long you wish to retain that information.  For example, do you want to keep it a year or 6 months?  We want to make sure that everyone understands that this is a trouble shooting tool, so we don’t want to delete things too quickly.   This can be set at the library or system level depending on how we have your notices set up.

This is not necessarily a committee project but every library or library system can view their current notifications and retention and determine the retention period. Each notice type can have a different retention period, so it can be customized. Thanks to 3.9, it is easier to see when a notice is generated, which helps when troubleshooting with a patron – did the patron receive the notice, for instance.

5.   New Business:

Betty mentioned an issue with the hold expiration date and the holiday date – her library is noticing that one business day is missing in the calculations, and notices are not being generated to tell patrons of the modifications, so the library has to notify everyone about the modified hold expiration date. There was discussion about notices for hold expirations and canceled holds – PaILS can set up reminder notices and canceled notices for patrons.

6.   2023 Meeting Dates and Times:

Jessica asked if Tuesdays at 2pm still worked for committee meetings, and the consensus was yes. 2023 committee meetings will be:

Tuesday, February 14

Tuesday, May 9

Tuesday, August 8

Tuesday, November 14

Jessica ended the meeting at 2:35pm.

Submitted by: Jessica Laganosky, Circulation Committee Chair

SPARK Circulation Committee 3rd Quarter Meeting

August 9, 2022 @ 2pm via Zoom

Welcome and Summer Check In

Jessica opened the meeting at 2:01pm with welcome to 15 attendees. Jessica reminded everyone that prior meeting minutes can be found on the Circulation Committee website: (https://sites.google.com/view/sparkugboard/committees/circulation-committee/agendaminutes-circulation-committee?authuser=0 )

Jessica asked if everyone was seeing more activity at their libraries this summer than in the last couple of years. Jessica mentioned the increased activity in Adams County libraries, with this being the first summer since 2019 that in person programming was back for the summer. Jessica said the library system is also looking at circulation policies and procedures, as new staff are coming into the system and increased activity has made it a good time to see how policies and procedures are working.

Other libraries expressed how busy they are. Stephanie at Indian Valley and Angie at Emmaus indicated very busy activity. Linda at East Monroe said her library has started autorenewal and fine free and have received back lost items from the fine free campaign. Betty at Easton said her library is fine free now, and things are going well.

Discussion then turned to ways that libraries are coping with staff turnover and increased activity. Beth at Meyersdale indicated her library has installed hold lockers and is currently working out the kinks in that system. Betty asked about self-service stations. Mary Beth at York County Libraries and Jessica at Adams County Libraries said their libraries have self-checkout stations.

2nd Quarter May Meeting and Annual Meeting Session Follow-up

a.       Questions from presentations?

b.      Try anything new from presentations?

Jessica asked if anyone had follow up questions on Angie’s presentation from May. No follow up questions indicated.

SPARK/Evergreen Updates

a.       SPARK Circulation Listserv – work in progress

b.      YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGeKWR6vUJyRphz8unVrbUA ) - Jessica noted that the User Group May Meeting sessions are on YouTube, as well as a few tutorial videos.

c.       3.9 Upgrade – this fall (November)

d.      equinoxEDU: Spotlight on Evergreen 3.9, August 31st @1pm (https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/5812609326989537294 ) – Jessica encouraged those interested in learning a bit more about 3.9 to sign up for this spotlight session. Katherine also mentioned that those interested in testing can sign up through this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BPFGYBR . There are also drop in sessions every Friday with those who have questions.

e.      Evergreen International Conference

                                                               i.      What did you learn?

                                                             ii.      Notes for 3.8 and 3.9; simple reports; new alert/message interface; reset patron password email

Jessica mentioned her excitement for Simple Reports. Both Betty and Angie said they look forward to simple reports and the password reset option.

New Business/Issues/Questions from the Committee

a.       Jessica will talk with PaILS Staff about needs from the Circulation Committee

Jessica mentioned she is scheduling a meeting with PaILS staff in the coming weeks to talk about the Circulation Committee and what PaILS staff needs from committee members and how PaILS staff can support the committee. Jessica will report back in November.

Betty asked about the Internet Access Level in the patron record and if the filter/unfiltered/no access selections work with programs like PC RES. Katherine checked with Katie and Elizabeth, and the database is designed for that entry to communicate via SIP. Linda said that when “no access” is selected, patrons are not able to log on using their card. Jessica did not think that CASSIE, which Adams County uses, looks at that entry for computer assignement.

Betty also asked to follow up on the self-service discussion. Easton is thinking about self-checkout but was not sure if it would ease any pressure from the staff. Jessica indicated that each Adams County Library location has at least one self-checkout station, but most are not used heavily. The stations in Adams County do not provide receipts, and patrons who need to check out DVDs must check out at a staff desk, as the DVD cases are locked. Jessica also mentioned that patrons sometimes confuse the ISBN barcode with the library barcode, which causes some issues in the checkout process. Linda said self-checkout may also not register everything, such as alerts on accounts or items.

Jessica closed the meeting around 2:30pm with mention that the next meeting will be on Tuesday, November 1st, at 2pm, due to Election Day falling on the 2nd Tuesday.

Submitted by Jessica Laganosky, Chair, Circulation Committee

Circulation Committee Meeting

Tuesday, May 10th @ 2pm via Zoom

In attendance were 35 Participants, including Jessica Laganosky, Circulation Committee Chair (jessical@adamslibrary.org); Katie Greenleaf Martin, Executive Director PaILS; Angie Devers, Emmaus Public Library; Andrea Buntz Neiman, Equinox; Angela Kilsdonk, Equinox

Katie Greenleaf Martin opened the meeting welcoming participants to the committee meeting

Curbside Module Discussion

Angie Devers of Emmaus Public Library presented on using the curbside module. Links to slide for this presentation and her going fine free presentation is here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/16JLfEImUx-31JnFQb5PHH7i3wPC5TRrEDIUOnQJ2dJ4/edit?usp=sharing

Andrea Buntz Neiman of Equinox spoke briefly about the curbside module implementation

·         The module development took 6-7 weeks, so a very quick turnaround

·         The goal was simply to create a baseline for functionality

·         PaILS was one of the sponsoring consortia for this module

Katie indicated that any SPARK libraries interested in setting up the module should contact SPARK support

There was a brief discussion based on a question about patron response to the curbside module

·         Some patrons have commented that they prefer using curbside pickup than going into the library

·         Some libraries also see more interest from patrons in the curbside module as other area libraries close for various reasons – patrons from those libraries use the curbside module to pick up library materials

Going Fine Free Discussion

Angie Devers presented on Emmaus Public Library’s experience going fine free (see link listed above for presentation information)

Barb Mitchell asked if Angie knew what percentage of the library’s operating revenue came from fines. What was the dollar amount, and how did the library decide to offset the change?

·         Angie indicated that the amount of revenue from fines was small, about 3-5%.

·         Katie said 3-5% tends to be the amount of revenue generated by fines

Rose from Pike County discussed her organization’s transition to going fine free. Currently, Pike County does not charge fines on juvenile cards, which are 15 and under.

Ellen at York County Library System asked Angie if Emmaus is fine free for all ages, and Angie said yes

·         Rose indicated that Wayne County, the neighboring county to Pike, is also fine free, so another reason for Pike County to go fine free

·         Ellen asked Rose if Pike County has seen any concerns with parents using a juvenile card in order for fines not to accrue; Rose said they have not seen this

Sarah said some libraries in PA have fine free on children’s materials and not on the juvenile library cards themselves

Jonathan asked if those libraries who are fine free bill patrons for items never returned

·         Katie indicated that each library does “fine free” differently. Some choose fine free but consider billable items as fees.

·         Angie said at Emmaus, a patron is billed for a lost book when the item was not returned 28 days after the due date, including renewals

·         Beth said her organization has auto renewal plus one additional renewal, so essentially 3 renewals before accruing fines. The director wanted an incentive for books to be returned that are on hold. Her organization tends to forgive fines once a book is returned.

Barb asked if libraries that have chosen to go fine free have received more “on the spot” donations from patrons

·         Angie said that while Emmaus tracks donations, she does not know if there has been an uptick of “on the spot” donations because the library is now fine free

·         Betty indicated that EAPL instituted “no money May” to start introducing going fine free. In 7 days, they received 92.00 in donations

Sarah says, “When you present information to your board remember quantitative information including funding is always great but those personal stories (qualitative) is what the community and your staff remember.  Between going fine free in LCLC and reducing other fees so many barriers have been taken away between the library resources and patrons.  We are seeing patrons return after years of being away. There are way less unhappy patrons at the circulation desk as well.  We have been billing less and less for damages too.  It is the cost of doing business.”

Says Barb, “We also discuss 'stepping over dollars to get to dimes' in regards to having to pay staff salaries, postage, printing costs, etc to send out mailed notices.”

Stephanie Kratz indicated her library is starting auto-renewals next week

Betty asked if libraries send out emails and/or postcards letting those patrons know their fines were cleared

·         Angie said paper mailing was sent as well as information was included in their e-newsletter

Says Natalie, “As Angie mentioned, our cooperative began with implementing auto renewals as well as adding an additional renewal, then we went fine-free. I think having this multi-step approach to going fine-free made the transition smoother...the overdue fines were beginning to diminish by implementing auto renewal / extra renewals so by the time we went fine-free our overdue fines were already on the decline.”

Claire said her organization sent a mailing to say library accounts are cleared

Angela Kilsdonk from Equinox said the discussion in Pennsylvania is very similar to the discussion nationwide

Angie said a huge thank you to the back end team at Equinox & PaILS - huge difference makers to have a great team

Additional links posted in the comments related to Fine Free:

https://www.anchoragelibrary.org/about/about-apl/library-news/anchorage-public-library-is-now-late-fine-free/fine-free-research

https://vimeo.com/705945626

https://www.urbanlibraries.org/resources/fine-free-map

Equinox also hosted a Spotlight on Going Fine Free in April

Jessica mentioned that the meeting minutes for this meeting will appear on the Circulation Committee website.

Meeting ended before 3pm

Next meeting: Tuesday, August 9th at 2pm

Submitted by: Jessica Laganosky, Circulation Committee Chair

SPARK Quarter 1 Circulation Committee Meeting

Tuesday, February 8, 2022 at 2pm

In attendance were 16 participants, including Jessica Laganosky, Circulation Committee Chair (jessical@adamslibrary) and Ann Shincovich, Circulation Committee Vice-Chair (ann@poconolibrary.org)

Jessica opened the meeting at 2:02pm with welcome and introductions.

Jessica invited everyone to view the November 9th 4th Quarter Circulation Committee Meeting minutes on the Circulation Committee’s web page: https://sites.google.com/view/sparkugboard/committees/circulation-committee/agendaminutes-circulation-committee?authuser=0

PaILS Update included mention by Jessica that as of next week (February 14th), all PaILS staff positions are filled.

After a 2 year hiatus, the PaILS Annual Meeting will take place virtually on Tuesday, May 17th at 1pm. More details to come on the topic. The last Annual Meeting was held at the Evergreen International Conference in Valley Forge in 2019.

The Circulation Committee’s session for the Annual Meeting will be during the regularly scheduled 2nd Quarter Meeting, on Tuesday, May 10th at 2pm. Jessica asked the participants for suggestions on topics for this meeting. Participants suggested discussions on the Curbside Module and libraries going fine free. It was decided that the topic for the May 10th meeting will be both curbside services and going fine free.

Ann from Pocono Mountain Public Library brought up issues with viewing information between the new staff view and the patron view. Suggestions from participants included reducing screen size to better see content. Katie at PaILS recommended Ann and anyone with issues to submit a ticket for assistance in workflow.

Discussions on circulating equipment also rose. Many libraries are now circulating hotspots, laptops, and other devices to patrons. Katie recommended libraries with questions on how to circulate equipment, including the setup of the circ modifier, should submit a ticket to PaILS for assistance.

Jessica discussed committee projects currently on hold. Because of the recent changes in PaILS staffing, Jessica will reach out to the staff to see if the pending projects are still relevant to the needs of PaILS and the SPARK Consortium or if there are any new project ideas of which the committee should focus.

Committee members with project ideas can reach out to Jessica.

Jessica will also talk with PaILS staff about the permission level discussions from the last two meetings. The group consensus of keeping the same permission levels, but having the ability for individual libraries to choose certain actions and apply them to the permission level that best serves their needs will be discussed with the PaILS staff for feasibility.

Jessica asked participants how things are going at their libraries with 3.7, ChiliPAC, and NoveList. Jessica discussed her appreciation for Hopeless Holds, which she uses on a weekly basis for Adams County Library System. Jessica then demoed how to find Hopeless Holds through the Administration tab. Betty, Angie, and Mary Beth also said their organizations use this on a regular basis, with Betty noting that she checks it weekly.

Angie mentioned how thankful she is for the snow day/emergency closer handler, as she does not need to run several reports for checkouts, due dates, and holds expiring

Ann returned to the topic of circulating equipment and the specific guidelines that must be followed under the eRate program. Because patrons must attest that they cannot access Internet anywhere else without using the hotspot from the library, how do other libraries track this agreement? Discussion began with creating stat cats for eRate fulfillment, which Katie said PaILS staff can set up for anyone who would like this stat cat.

Angie supplied some details about the eRate program and offered the email address of Julie, who is the eRate contact.

Beth mentioned her organization uses CSB2 to circulate Chromebooks and hotspots acquired through the eRate program.

Jessica asked if there were any other issues or concerns that the participants wished to address. She mentioned looking into town halls or workshops in between quarterly meetings to help with troubleshooting issues or offer assistance on aspects of SPARK.

Jessica said the next meeting will be the 2nd Quarter meeting, which is May 10th at 2pm. Additional important dates include the PaILS Annual Meeting (May 17th at 1pm); the Circulation Committee 3rd Quarter Meeting (August 9th at 2pm); and the Circulation Committee 4th Quarter Meeting (November 1st at 2pm).

Jessica ended the meeting at 2:32pm.

SPARK Circulation Committee Meeting

Quarter 4

November 9, 2021 @ 2pm

Led by Jessica Laganosky, Circulation Committee Chair jessical@adamslibrary.org

• Welcome

  • Jessica opened the meeting with introductions at 2:01pm

  • 17 participants

  • Jessica reminded everyone to visit the Circulation Committee meeting minutes for past discussions: https://sites.google.com/view/sparkugboard/committees/circulation-committee/agendaminutes-circulation-committee

• PaILS, User Group Meeting, and Project Update

  • PaILS

    • Since last meeting, Rachel has resigned as Executive Director

    • Katie Greenleaf Martin is interim director

    • Details will be shared when a new Executive Director is announced

  • User Group Meeting

    • Need for an User Group Meeting in 2022, especially with no meeting in 2020 or 2021

    • Planning stages now for 2022 – will be either in person or virtual

    • More details will be shared as they become available

  • Project Update

    • Projects are still pending, as Jessica wishes to check with PaILS staff, once staff are hired, as to the need for the current projects

      • Notification Project

      • Patron Barcode Deletion Project

    • Projects should help all in the consortium – if there are any ideas for projects, please let Jessica know

  • Permission Levels – Continued Discussion – any additional thoughts?

    • Jessica reviewed the discussion from the 3rd Quarter meeting, with thoughts at that time from attendees that libraries either provide the Circ Supervisor Permission Level to everyone frontline staff member; find the Circ Clerk Permission Level to work for their frontline needs; or there is a need for individual libraries to select the functions available within a permission level rather than a consortium decision

    • Jessica shared a list of functions for each permission level, found on Knowledge Books: https://sparkpa.helpspot.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=76

    • Discussion continued on libraries using the Circ Supervisor permission level for all staff, especially because a supervisor is not always in the building to handle a situation, with similar comments made by Linda C at East Monroe and Sarah at Lower Macungie

      • This helps with efficiency for patrons

      • It empowers frontline staff to work with a situation

      • Some libraries, including  Pike County per Linda K, designate one or two staff members per shift with the Circ Supervisor Permission Level to work with situations that go beyond the functions of Circ Clerk

    • Discussion also prompted the statement that the Circ Supervisor permission level should be renamed to better reflect who has the permission level provided to them

    • Discussion circled back to allowing individual libraries to pick and choose the functions from the list for each staff member/workstation

      • Mary Beth Long of York County (YCLS) noted that this used to be the case – LibAdmin staff could select which functions fit for each work permission/staff permission setting (changes did occur a few years ago when the then Executive Director and the PaILS Board updated bylaws)

      • Angie at Emmaus also indicated that this used to be the case as well

      • Katherine at PaILS noted that some changes were made during the shift in cataloging permissions and said she will talk with Katie and Equinox about the pros and cons of allowing the picking and choosing of functions again; Katherine will report back

    • ChiliPAC and 3.7

      • Town Hall/Workshop Needed? – There were several participants who expressed interest in ChiliPAC

      • Mary Beth noted that YCLS is currently exploring naming conventions for staff lists in ChiliPAC; possible look at naming conventions on a consortium level, including ways to identify consortium lists versus specific library lists

      • Questions also came up about the admin side of ChiliPAC; Katherine noted that ChiliFresh has mentioned attendance from SPARK libraries with their ongoing training sessions.

      • Katherine said ChiliFresh is creating a webinar for more information on the admin side and will share that session(s) when available

      • Angie shared a couple of sites related to ChiliFresh to explore:

        • https://wiki.chilifresh.com/doku.php/start - ChiliFresh wiki with help guides for all facets ChiliFresh

        • Support site for ChiliFresh: https://admin.chilifresh.com/login

          • Please note: Katherine suggested to submit any tickets for issue with ChiliPAC to PaILS support

      • Jessica will look at opportunities for a session on ChiliPAC in conjunction with the ChiliFresh webinar

    • New Business

      • 2022 Meetings

        • Tuesday, February 8th at 2pm

        • Tuesday, May 10th at 2pm

        • Tuesday, August 9th at 2pm

        • Tuesday, November 1st at 2pm – changed from the 2nd Tuesday due to Election Day

Jessica adjourned the meeting at 2:34pm.

MINUTES

August 10, 2021

Circulation Committee 3rd Quarter meeting

GoToMeeting – webinar 2:00 pm

Hosted by:

Jessica Laganosky, Circulation Committee Chair   jessical@adamslibrary.org

Ann Shincovich, Circ Committee Vice-Chair   anndirector_pmpl@yahoo.com

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Jessica Laganosky opens the meeting at 2:00 pm. 

Jessica asks what people are doing for their Summer Reading Programs (SRP), and if people are still doing both virtual and in person programs.

She indicates they’ve had an increase in new patron cards at Adamstown and that people are wanting to use the library.

She mentions the Evergreen International Conference that was at the end of May, 2021.  Jessica says that the conference was virtual and that it was very interesting because of upcoming things that are under development, especially the version 3.7.  There is also a new “hopeless holds option” being developed.  Jessica reminds us all that the conference proceeds can be watched b/c most of the conference was recorded.

Jessica also that the PaILS Spark conference has been postponed because of Covid-19 concerns, and it may be in October. 

She mentions a particular issue with ILL workflows in PaILS because of items that are in Spark libraries and items that are not in Spark libraries.  A good solution for everyone is still not determined.

Jessica mentions that the Cataloging Committee is working on different permission levels for cataloging features.  This is being handled primarily by Jonathan Moore who is the Chari of the Cataloging Committee.  Anyone with thoughts, questions or comments about the cataloging permission levels should direct them to him.

Jessica discusses issues related to Circ desk permission levels.  Most of the libraries just log all staff in as “Circ Supervisor” because the permissions never seem to work efficiently, and some libraries do not have manager level staff available at all times.  There is a discussion about different options that allow for more customization rather than just “Circ Supervisor” and “Circ Clerk”.  Ann mentions it would be nice to have a “Circ Trainee” setting.  Some members indicate that the current 2 levels work for them.  Linda K. says that each library should be able to choose the permissions levels for circulation staff according to their individual needs, and notes that her library does not have supervising staff working on Saturdays.  Also to be considered is that some libraries have volunteers working their circ desks. 

Jessica notes that permission levels are set at the PaILS Spark level and not at individual libraries level, so any new permission groups have to be agreed upon at the consortial level.

Linda Crooks from EMPL questions why people need to override so much – she indicates that EMPL rarely needs an override.  Some people respond that it was an issue during Covid closures, or other closures with weather, with changing fines or due dates, etc.  Other issues that require overrides are:  negative balances, quarantine rules with delayed check-ins, waiving fines, adjusting home libraries, and updating patron info.

Jessica reminds us that negative balances can be fixed and demonstrates this. 

In other business, Jessica indicates that she has switched duties at Adams Co libraries and now part of her responsibility oversees all Spark circulation operations and reports.  She keeps track of transits, and one thing she noticed is there are a lot of erroneous transits in the Spark system because of mis-scans.  Jessica reviews with everyone the “Erroneous In-Transits” that can be discovered by going into the Administration/Local Administration/Transit list and running a print out.  She reviews hers every 30 days to look for hanging holds.   You can also see the transit to and transit from in this list. 

Jessica recommends contacting the library that is waiting to receive or fulfill these items that are hanging or if items are going to be cancelled.  A new status called “Cancel Transit” will appear and the items may also be on the shelf at the libraries.

Items can be stuck in cancel transit so everyone needs to get the item off the shelf and scan it to get it back into available status.

Occasionally items that are in pre-cat status can get stuck in transit or a hanging hold. 

Jessica asks if there are any other issues.  Linda Crooks likes the new barcode with a red line if there is a mis-scan.  Most users are not familiar with this feature.   Anna B. says the red line only shows up when circ settings are set to “strict barcode is checked” in check-in mode.

The next quarterly meeting of the Spark Circulation Committee will be on November 9, 2021 at 2:00 pm. 

Submitted by Ann Shincovich 9/10/2021

MINUTES

May 11, 2021

Circulation Committee 2nd Quarter meeting

GoToMeeting – webinar 2:00 pm

Hosted by:

Jessica Laganosky, Circulation Committee Chair   jessical@adamslibrary.org

Ann Shincovich, Circ Committee Vice-Chair   anndirector_pmpl@yahoo.com

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Jessica Laganosky opens the meeting at 2:03 pm. 

Jessica refers everyone to February 2021’s Q1 Meeting Minutes on the Circulation Committee website: https://sites.google.com/view/sparkugboard/committees/circulation-committee/agendaminutes-circulation-committee?authuser=0

Jessica reminds everyone to keep putting heat on bugs and to use the Knowledge Book.  She also reminds everyone about the Launchpad. Address to Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/evergreen

There is a need for more current circulation manuals in the Spark Knowledge Book, so anyone who has recently updated their circ policies or manuals, esp. as regards different practices or changes in procedures because of the Covid-19 pandemic are asked to please share their manuals. Betty Renzulli offered to submit EAPL’s Circulation Manual, and Jessica indicates she will upload the manual to the SPARK Knowledge Book page.

Current projects for PaILS remain slowed down because of the pandemic and some other changes in PaILS.  The notification project is still slow, but there is still a need to standardize notifications across the Spark user group to make things more efficient.

The patron deletion project is moving slowly too.  We are waiting for guidelines from PaILS.  There is a sub-committee working to finish the parameters for automatic patron deletion. 

Elizabeth Davis asks if patron deletion project changes or parameters will go to the user group for review and comment, or will the parameters only be handled by the Circulation Committee?  Jessica responds that because this is such an important project that will have significant impacts on all the member libraries, it will likely go to a regular review and comment period by everyone. 

Jessica asked if there are other questions for today’s meeting.

Betty Renzulli asked about automatic billing for long overdue/lost fines that have accrued.  She indicates at her library the value of max overdue fines are coming off two times when the item is checked back in, and it should only be the lost item fee that comes off.  There is an issue because the max overdue fine should still be on the item even when it’s returned and is no longer “missing” status. 

Ann Shincovich suggests this reminds her of a problem from years ago when a 24 hour grace period was inadvertently added to their settings and that messed up the fines/returns process.  She only suggests to check and see if a grace period or other type of setting got altered or added by accident.  Betty ran a large report to review this discrepancy and noticed that expired patrons also showed issues.  They manually corrected all the problems.

Jessica wonders if there may be a problem with a setting for quarantining/back-dating.

Linda at Pike county remarked on some of her experiences with the complexities of different settings and how they are connected to the transaction, especially for grace periods, lost items settings, etc.  At Pike County libraries, lost items get charged at 90 days and the system will reverse overdues.  She had to manually adjust negative fines, and had troubles with an amnesty conflict with the overdues/renewals.

Jessica says that at Adams county if an item is set to lost, and the gets returned, their settings revert to an overdue charge.

Ann Shincovich asks again about the Patron Deletion project because she’s concerned that during 2020 with all the restrictions there may be a large number of people who’s cards have expired, and she does not want to lose a large number of patrons at one time. Jessica indicates that the parameters would potentially reflect a period longer than 2-3 years, but PaILS will provide guidelines for the sub-committee to consider. 

Jessica asks everyone if they are still quarantining items or not.  There seem to be a variety of practices now.  Adams County is at 7 days. LCCS is doing 24 hours;  PMPL is no longer doing it;  IVPL is soon going to stop…

Jessica reminds everyone that nominations for Spark user group boards ends on May 14, 2021, and to please nominate someone or join and participate. 

The Virtual Evergreen Conference is coming soon, scheduled for May 25-27, with a pre-conference on May 24. Jessica asks Katherine if PaILS still had scholarship opportunities for the conference, and Katherine indicates that PaILS does.

June 16 & 17 is the PaILS Spark Conference with morning sessions that Jessica encourages people to attend.  There will be a Circulation Committee Break Out on that Wednesday morning and the topic will generally be about how we all had to adopt new workflows because of the Covid-19 pandemic and what came from that with changes in policies and practices. [Note: the Circulation Committee will now meet on Thursday, June 17th during the conference.]  

The next quarterly meeting of the Spark Circulation Committee will be on Tuesday August 10, 2021 at 2:00 pm. 

Submitted by Ann Shincovich 5/19/2021

MINUTES

February 9, 2021

1st Quarter Committee Meeting

GoToMeeting – webinar 2:00 pm

17-19 participants

Hosted by:

Jennifer  Bruch Spark ILS Application Specialist   jbruch@sparkpa.org 

Jessica Laganosky, Circulation Committee Chair   jessical@adamslibrary.org

Ann Shincovich, Circ Committee Vice-Chair   anndirector_pmpl@yahoo.com

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Jessica Laganosky opens the meeting at 2:03 pm.  There were about 19 individual present at the virtual meeting.

Jessica indicates that that Circ Committee has been kind of quiet the past quarter, and that there was a lot more activity during the Covid-19 closure last  year.

The Cataloging Committee is doing a lot right now, and the Reports Committee is prepping for the annual state report time. 

Jessica wants to examine how the new normal with library functions is affecting circulation functions.  Also, she reminds everyone that they can review new things going on in the Circ Committee website.

The more important new PaILS circ activities are for Auto  Renewal, Curbside Scheduler, and Fine Free status changes. 

Jessica wants to know how that’s going for everyone.  Ann Shincovich mentions what’s up at Pocono Mountain PL and that it’s going pretty well; that she’s using these tools – fine free, clearing out old fines, auto renewal to create a fresh start for patrons for someday when the library can have a “grand reopening” after covid restrictions are gone. Also the Jennifer Bruch had a lot to do with getting everything changed and ready to go for PMPL.  Jessica mentions that Clymer Library in Monroe County also just went to auto renewal.  Angie Devers also thinks that using these tools create a clean slate which is good.  LCLC libraries are also going to auto renewal. 

Jessica mentions that libraries should focus on cleaning up their accounts and simplifying overdue notifications as part of the auto renewal change.

Jessica asks everyone what they are currently doing for quarantining items – the same as before or different?  Most indicate the same behavior with 7 days, 4 days, or 72 hours, and a few make comments about back-dating checkins. 

There is a discussion about trying to coordinate overdue notices with the autorenewal function and checking settings so things don’t get messed up. 

Natalie from LCLC indicates they turned off the first overdue notice to help manage autorenewals.  Bethlehem made their first due date to fall after their first renewal notice goes out.  Jennifer Bruch will work with anyone who needs to review and coordinate notices. 

There is discussion about how fine free takes the pressure off of patrons for returning items late, especially with covid restrictions. 

Bethlehem is now not charging fines.

Jessica brings up issues and trends with the circ module.  Jennifer send out a BUGS list and wants everyone to put some heat on the BUGS that affect us so they get pushed up the delvelopers’ list.  Jennifer also explains and demonstrates how to create an account in the launchpad and how to then put heat on a BUG.  Most of us have not done that yet so it was very helpful.  You can also look in the Knowledge book for how to put heat on a bug.  See the Sparkpa.helpspot.com/index.  Jennifer also reminds us all that BUGS are searchable and you can find a lot of bugs (not just PaILS) in the list.  Once you find the bug you are interested in click on the green link “This bug affects various people, does it affect you?” and that will make the bug attach to your user account so you can track it, and it also adds points to the heat number.  Also, any staff/user can create a launchpad account to create heat for a BUG.

There are “BUG wranglers” who  keep track of all the BUGS and redundancies when different people basically ask for the same thing.  Jessica encourages all of us to create a launchpad account so we can add heat to the BUGS.

Matthew Rothfuss from BAPL has an issue that he would like a new status setting for items that have been put on a display to show that they are on but also can be put on hold by patrons, and also so that the staff know where these items are.  Display items cause some trouble in his larger library – they’re not on the shelf and people don’t know where to look for them.  It wastes their time and causes confusion. 

Jennifer and Betty discuss status/display. Other attendees echoed the same issue. Betty says they also stopped using status/display because it’s confusing.  Also status/library use only is a problem because it’s not holdable.

Jennifer recommends to run reports for unfilled holds to see if that can help.

Jennifer review Spark status settings.

There is also a copy status configuration that are consortia wide.  If people want to make changes to status settings, it would have to be agreed upon by the whole consortia.  There are already 22 different spark status settings.  “Status ID less than 100” are system level statuses.  “Status level above 100” is set by Spark.  There is also an “is available” setting; “on display” is also active.  Perhaps this can be changed to show up on a pull list.  Jennifer can find out if everyone wants this type of change and ask the whole consortia to weigh in on it. 

Jessica thinks it’s a good time to do a review of the system status settings.

Jessica indicates it’s time to make nominations for the Circulation Committee User Group.  WE need a Committee Chair.  If anyone is interesting in this, please reach out to Jessica and she will create a ballot for it.   Otherwise, Jessica will continue to do it this year.  She put a link for the Committee Chair duties and responsibilities in the chat box.  https://sites.google.com/view/sparkugboard/committees/circulation-committee/charter-circulation-committee

Jessica reminds everyone that the big Notifications project that was started before all the Covid-19 problems is still on pause.  This project will resume when things become more normal.  She asks everyone for ideas for circ projects. 

Jennifer mentions the need for standardized 14 digit barcodes in the system because work-arounds are increasingly difficult.  She discusses increased migrations into Spark consortia and that they are bringing in a lot of non-standard barcode configurations.  There needs to be a goal for a 14 digit standard for all libraries patron and item barcodes. 

Jennifer also reminds everyone that patron deletions can be automated at regular intervals, and anyone interested in this should contact her.   She needs to know a standard set of rules/parameters that would trigger the automatic deletions to help keep the patron accounts up to date and also save staff time.   This seems like a really useful function! Jessica called for interest in forming a sub-committee to explore parameters and received interest from Natalie Arnold, Terri Foster, and Jane French. Anyone else interested should contact Jessica.

A future development can be designed for ways to satisfy patrons who put in requests for items that have publication dates way in the future. Some libraries use the wishlist/purchase request a title function.  Some book vendors have the ability to provide Bibs that are for future pubs.  Ann suggests it would be interesting to have a favorite authors function in “My Spark” that would trigger a message to the patron when an item is added to the collection by that author.  Jennifer creates a BUG for a notification for favorite author during our meeting !!!  The bug delineates a need for: author, keywork, subject, favorite.  This BUG is called “Wishlist notify patron when new titles are available.”  Please put some heat on this BUG!

Jennifer reminds us all with this demonstration how the user group has the power to make a change to the system. 

Jessica ends the meeting reminding everyone to create their launchpad account to put heat on the BUGS and to also notify her if you are interested in the automatic patron deletion project.

A reminder that the next meeting is on May 11, 2021 at 2:00 pm. 

Submitted by Ann Shincovich 2/17/2021

4TH Quarter Committee Meeting

Tuesday, November 10th at 2pm

Hosted By:

Jennifer Bruch, SPARK ILS Application Specialist, jbruch@sparkpa.org

Jessica Laganosky, Circulation Committee Chair, jessical@adamslibrary.org

Total Attendance: ~19

Opening Remarks

Jessica welcomed everyone to the meeting at 2:01pm.

Jessica apologized for not organizing an out of cycle meeting between today’s meeting and the 3rd Quarter Meeting

Jessica reviewed with attendees the link to past Circulation Committee meeting minutes, as well as ongoing projects and other pertinent committee information: https://sites.google.com/view/sparkugboard/committees/circulation-committee/agendaminutes-circulation-committee?authuser=0

Project Update

Jessica made note that the Notification Project is on hold for the moment and will be revisited at a later date.

Anyone with project ideas should notify Jessica

Reopening Status at Libraries

Jessica opened the floor to anyone who wished to discuss successes or issues their library faced as they reopen or if any library instituted a new procedure or policy or module through SPARK during this time

             Jessica mentioned Adams County Library System started patron self-registration, which has helped staff workflow. Adams County also reviewed and updated overdue notifications.

A discussion followed about who at each library runs reports – do attendees at the committee meeting run reports for their locations, or does someone else at the library run reports? Most attendees mentioned either running some of the reports for their library or all of the reports for their library.

Jennifer asked if any libraries are circulating hotspots – a few responded that they are either currently circulating hotspots or are in the process of setting up hotspots for circulation. Jennifer said she can help set up hotspots in the catalog (such as shelving locations).

Katherine asked if other libraries are seeing lost items checked in still showing as a billed item on a patron’s account. Betty also noted lost items appearing as a negative balance after checking in an item from a LOST status. Jennifer discussed why a negative balance may appear – the negative balance reflects a refund needed. In the Bill tab, adjust the negative charge to Zero to remove the negative balance from the patron’s card.

Kean mentioned a credit available on a patron’s account. Jennifer indicated that any credits on accounts should be sent to SPARK support for assistance.

Ashlee from Highland Community Library – Curbside Module and Auto Renewal

Ashlee provided a brief snapshot of Highland Community Library, which is part of the Cambria County Library System, including population numbers and 2019 circulation numbers. Curbside and Auto Renewal work for her location.

Curbside Module

 Highland began using the curbside module in July, and the staff love it. Prior to using the module, the staff used Google Sheets.

At first, patrons could make their own appointments, but the staff changed this, so patrons need to call the library to make an appointment. Staff make note the patron’s vehicle, and when the patron arrives, the staff bring the item(s) to the vehicle.

Staff love that they do not need to leave SPARK to make appointments – they can look up the patron’s information and gather what information they need within the curbside module.

The Note feature works well to indicate a patron’s vehicle make and model and color

Also, the ability to double check and make sure all items are checked out for the patron before clearing the appointment  - if an item arrives for the patron before pickup, the staff can see this in the module and make sure the item is also made ready for the patron

The staff have two suggestions:

             On the delivery for today tab, it would be helpful to also include upcoming appointments, to better facilitate gathering of items and staging

                             Jennifer indicated a report could be generated to show appointments for the day

             It would be helpful on the receipt for curbside to include all information needed for curbside – patron’s name and anything else staff would need to identify the item(s) for the patron

Auto Renewal

Highland just started to use this – a staffing issue was the practical reason for beginning this, as well as a way to step toward equity and move away from fines

Highland has noticed reduced number of overdue items

Currently, Highland is not sending out notifications about renewals, but plan to once patrons are allowed back in the building

Items are being returned in a reasonable amount of time

             Terri at Meyersdale, the other SPARK location that uses Auto Renewal, echoed support for Auto Renewal. The only drawback she noticed was patrons without an email address in the account do not receive a notification

Jennifer mentioned there is discussion to further development Evergreen to include a “beyond” curbside module for home delivery and mail delivery

Ashlee noted the staff looked to use curbside to book browsing and computer appointments with little success; the note feature did not help

             Jennifer indicated the booking module may be better; though there are noted bugs on the patron side, the staff side may be helpful for this

Final Remarks

Jessica opened the floor to the attendees for any other questions or comments

Jessica noted that a Doodle poll will go out to SPARK to determine times for the 2021 quarterly meetings. The Circulation Committee usually meets the 2nd Tuesday each quarter, which fall on the dates:

             February 9th

             May 11th

             August 10th

             November 9th

The Doodle poll is forthcoming

Jessica thanked everyone for their attendance and ended the meeting at ~2:45pm

Submitted by Jessica Laganosky

MINUTES

August 11, 2020

Circulation Committee 2nd QTR meeting

GoToMeeting – webinar 2:00 pm

<17 participants

Hosted by:

Jennifer  Bruch Spark ILS Application Specialist   jbruch@sparkpa.org 

Jessica Laganosky, Circulation Committee Chair   jessical@adamslibrary.org

Ann Shincovich, Circ Committee Vice-Chair   anndirector_pmpl@yahoo.com

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Be advised:

The next official Spark Circulation Committee Meetings is

Tuesday November 10, 2020 at 2:00 pm (4thQTR)

Out of Cycle (OOC) meetings TBD…

MINUTES from discussion:

Jessica welcomes everyone to our out of cycle meeting, and reminds everyone to use the knowledge book. 

Ann discusses the situation at PMPL and what happened when notices got turned back on, esp. as regards fines, lost and billed, reports and using the claims returned feature correctly.

Jennifer reminds everyone that if an items gets checked in at another Spark library, it should show transit status, BUT some other libraries handle fines and overdues differently. We should all pay attention because there are different procedures that may affect the fines on items, esp. if they are returned at another library.   Jennifer would like to develop a model in the future so that returns and transit are standardized across the consortia.

As per using Claims Returned status on check-in with an item that is lost and has replacement and fees on patrons card….

         1.  If you need to wipe fines/fees for an item that has been lost and you want to move it to claims returned so the patron can use their card….  You can check the item in, forgive or eliminate the fines/fees, and then check the item back out to the patron and then change the item status to claims returned.  Or,

         2.  You can put the items into a “discard/weed” status rather than Claims Returned status so that it’s not going to block the patrons account.  Or,

         3.  (As per Linda Crooks, EMPL), you can check in the item as damaged, and there is a choice in this process to charge a fine or not as a “yes/no” question, and this will also get the item off the card if you want to eliminate the fines.

Jennifer recommends that everyone should run some reports before they turn on all their messages, especially the Long Overdue to Lost report.  She also suggests calling patrons, especially those without emails to notify them of long overdue items before notices are turned on.

Jennifer indicates there are ongoing projects with Spark consortia. 

A big project is cleaning up the notifications.  There are primarily two issues.  One being that the consortia should develop some canned notices that can be automatically generated if there is another system wide crisis or event that would have system wide impacts. These notices would be triggered at the time of crisis so that Spark staff don’t have to make individual notices when we all have the same problem.  The second reason is that a ton of time is spent on managing notices, eg, 50 support tickets for notices when the solution is pretty much the same for everyone.  Jennifer had to tweak hundreds of different notices that resulted in similar outcomes for each library.  We could save time and money for consortia projects if the notices are standardized and contain less policy level information.  Jennifer recommends that the consortia push for this type of change in notices/policy because it has to be recommended by the group. 

Jessica mentions that there has been a bit of work on deleting patrons and cleaning up patron accounts.  Jennifer has done 10 support tickets for cleaning up patrons and fines.  This is expensive time intensive work at the Equinox level.  It may be a solution to create a window for patron cleanup projects every year so we can bundle the work across many libraries rather than just one at a time.  This would save budget funds.  Some of the goals and criteria:  cleaning out old patrons; making a 5 year term for deleting patrons; identifying expired patrons that came over with migration and eliminating them (or eliminating expired patrons as a priority before migration); making changes to the circ policies that affect the patron accounts.

Jennifer discusses the pros/cons of using amnesty on policy settings which is more streamlined than waiving fines on individual transactions. 

Jennifer discusses making a disaster plan for the entire consortia, and creating standardized policies and notices for the entire system that can override individual library policies at a triggered event. 

There was a chat question:  Jessica discussed whether any libraries had an increase in patrons who wanted items direct mailed.  No one indicated that is an issue.

Jessica discusses Adams Co Libraries:  there were a few new patrons who wanted items mailed, but not a ton.  They are seeing a massive increase in the use of digital collections, esp. for ebooks and eaudiobooks.  Adams Co staff are spending a lot of time helping people sign up and learn to use the digital collections they have. 

Ann comments that less people used mail-to than she expected.  Only 3 patrons signed up for it. 

Ann indicates that PMPL has temporarily changed their hold protection time to 3 months to help move new books out into the community faster. 

Jessica comments that the staff are doing a variety of different jobs to help with the altered patron services.

Chat comments (Nazareth):  they are limiting the number of patrons in the building; have reduced hours; and limited access to the stacks. 

Jessica indicates Adams Co is limiting browsing but people like curbside a lot an browsing is not very busy.  They may keep curbside because it is so popular.

Angie Devers from Emmaus comments that the library is operating almost like normal, with the addition of curbside. They are overwhelmed and concerned about being exposed; they are stressed.  Volunteers are back, and many of the staff and volunteers has compromised health and worry about catching Covid-19.   There was a lot of pressure from the board and public, even though they wanted safer choices. Some patrons are giving them a hard time about wearing masks.  They are very challenged by the situation.

Jennifer discusses they just turned on auto-renewal at Somerset County. She said some libraries are looking into this feature and libraries are weighing the pros/cons of losing fine revenue.

The Auto Renewal policy will; however, increase circulation stats.  The use of Auto Renewal is tied into notices, circ policies and other database settings.  If anyone wants to pursue Auto Renewal some other settings/policies need reviewed.  Just contact Jennifer.

Jennifer indicates two libraries are successfully using the curbside scheduling module, and they really like it. It seems that “staff only” as a setting for making scheduled pickups is better than letting patrons set the time.  They have turned this off as a choice for the module.  Jennifer stresses that we can only make better settings policies if libraries take the initiative to use and review new policies.

Jessica reviews the future projects.  She wants to really clean up the Knowledge Book pages and improve them. If anyone has any thoughts or ideas, or edits, please contact Jessica or anyone on the Circ Committee, Ann & Jennifer.

Jessica understands that most of us have more pressing concerns because of the issues related to operating with Covid-19 panedmic, but if anyone ever has an issue or suggestion for future developments, please let any of us know.

Angie Devers from Emmaus asks if anyone is using amnesty mode.  Jennifer comments that when using Amnesty mode, if an items has “open bill” they will be voided; if an item has a “closed bill” it will not change. 

Jennifer also reminds any library going to “fine free” that items checked out before the effective “fine free” status change will still show older policy rules, eg, will have fines, be lost, etc;  Items checked out after status change will have the new fine free policy.  Advise the staff so there is no confusion.  We should use Amnesty Mode to check in items that have fines. 

Catherine Steward in chat indicted they are using amnesty and it’s working well. 

Jessica also agrees that Amnesty is working good at Adams Co.

Submitted by Ann Shincovich August 17, 2020

MINUTES

GoToMeeting – webinar 2:00 pm

<15 participants

Hosted by:

Jennifer  Bruch Spark ILS Application Specialist   jbruch@sparkpa.org 

Jessica Laganosky, Circulation Committee Chair   jessical@adamslibrary.org

Ann Shincovich, Circ Committee Vice-Chair   anndirector_pmpl@yahoo.com

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Be advised:

The next official Spark Circulation Committee Meetings are on

Tuesday August 11, 2020 at 10:00 am. (3rd QTR)

Tuesday November 10, 2020 at 2:00 pm (4thQTR)

Near the end of summer, there will be a high demand audio book modifier.

MINUTES from discussion:

Jessica welcomes everyone to our out of cycle meeting.

Jennifer mentions her first partial “live” project is a new branch library in Dimmock as part of the Leigh Carbon Library Consortia (LCLC).

Jennifer discusses Age Hold Protection and how it was treated with  2 levels.  One setting keeps items from transiting at all (only use by local patron cards for home library), and the other setting keeps transits for the branch/system.   The system knows how to ignore the age hold protection and it is not a setting that ever needs removed.  It is just ignored by the ILS after the term ends.

The circ modifier for “high demand” items will prevent transiting elsewhere and can be used with shelving locations as a “new item”.

There is a question as to whether or not we can create consortia wide settings across circ policies to simplify it. This will be a long term goal to help clean up the ILS.

Jennifer indicates that you can run a report to check item status for “high demand” and then to a batch change to make then regular.

Jennifer asked if any libraries were getting spam type communications about resetting the PIN for patrons about length and character choices. She is going to monitor this. 

Jessica brought up a discussion about curbside pickup mod to see if anyone had any questions or comments about using it. There are only a few libraries using it; and it’s still being tweaked.  There will be more information coming about the experience of using it.

Jennifer discussed a particular highlight from the online Evergreen International Conference, and dropped a link for us to watch.  One big project that occurred in North Carolina involved a total review of staff and patron permissions to help make them better and more user friendly.  We haven’t got enough input from our own spark group to start an inititative like this, even though many libraries are not entirely satisfied with the limited permissions group.  There is an issue with “inheriting” the permissions from the level below.  Also, Ann mentions that her staff all log in as “circ admin” b/c they need to flexibility since she doesn’t have a lot of staff or a circ manager present at all times.

Linda from Pike County asked about long lost overdue items, and the status of that for her library, eg, whether or not it was turned on.  Jennifer reviewed her situation and indicated it is linked to a policy from Wayne County. 

Jennifer mentions that a lot of items will go directly to lost status b/c the status for most of the consortia is still set to only “overdue”.  We can run reports for “claimed returns” or for patrons without emails (who will not be getting automatic notices).  All libraries should check the status of their lost process before they turn it back on. Ask Jennifer for help.

The next meeting will be on Tuesday August 22, 2020 at 10:00 am, and this is a regular meeting.

Submitted by Ann Shincovich 7/24/2020

MINUTES

Hosted by:

Jennifer Bruch Spark ILS Application Specialist   jbruch@sparkpa.org  

Jessica Laganosky, Circulation Committee Chair   jessical@adamslibrary.org

Ann Shincovich, Circ Committee Vice-Chair   anndirector_pmpl@yahoo.com 

~11 participants

Jessica opened the meeting by welcoming those in attendance and introducing Sara Edmiston, Community Relations Librarian with the Adams County Library System, and inviting Sara to talk about the Adams County Library System's Library by Mail Program

Sara detailed the program:

• Open to those in Adams County who cannot physically visit the library

• Adams County Library System (ACLS) set up the Outreach Patron Profile for all Library by Mail patrons

• 6 week checkout; all library materials circulate through the program, except ILL materials

• Patrons may provide a list of titles, or they may indicate genres of which they like to read, or ask Sara to select any materials for them

• 3-6 items sent out in a bag through USPS

• ACLS meters mail and provides a metered tag for patrons to return materials

• As items are returned to the library, new items are sent out to the patron

Jennifer provided a website with an example of Flat Canvas Transit Bags: 

https://www.usbanksupply.com//index.cfm/go2/view/productID/965

Brandt from ACLS also mentioned mail metering and options, other than visiting the post office. At a former library in which he worked, ShipStation was used for shipping materials, rather than visiting the local post office (the local post office cited restrictions, though area post offices did not have said restrictions). Jennifer provided a link to ShipStation for more information: 

https://www.shipstation.com/pricing/

Jennifer demonstrated the Curbside Pickup module currently being tested by a few SPARK libraries and Equinox

Things to keep in mind with this:

• Curbside time/appointments is based on the hours of operations set in the org unit

  • To view/change: go to Admin-Local Administration-Library Settings Editor

  • Search for "curbside"

• Appointments can be scheduled as early as two (2) time slots in the future

  • Example: If set parameters for sixty (60) minute time slots, can schedule appointments as early as two (2) hours in the future

• Closing Time: hard wired to leave one (1) time slot before closing

  • Example: If set parameters for sixty (60) minute time slots, last appointment time is an hour before closing, or 5pm last time slot for a 6pm closing time

• Appointments do not appear in the staging area tab until two (2) time slots before pickup time

• Module set up to think of all workflows

  • Option to mark a patron arrived if asking patron to contact library upon arriving at the library

  • Notes areas to make note of make/car color or who is picking up materials or whatever note staff will need to recognize patron with materials to pick up

  • There is an option for patrons to schedule an appointment via their online account, but this option need not be turned on in the module (rather, the patron will be directed to contact the library to schedule an appointment)

  • Items can be checked out directly through the module, rather than accessing the patrons' account to check out

• During every step, if an item arrives for a patron before pickup, a note will appear for staff to pull and combine all arrived holds for the patron to pickup

• There are still glitches to work through, but progress is being made with this module

Jessica asked if anyone in attendance had any concerns or issues to address

Terri noted that SPARK was running slow; Jennifer noticed this too as she was demonstrating the Curbside Module, and Jennifer submitted a ticket to Equinox

Jessica noted the next Out of Cycle meeting date is to be determined and will let everyone know when the date is announced

~Submitted by Jessica Laganosky, June 20, 2020

MINUTES

Hosted by:

Jennifer Bruch Spark ILS Application Specialist   jbruch@sparkpa.org  

Jessica Laganosky, Circulation Committee Chair   jessical@adamslibrary.org

Ann Shincovich, Circ Committee Vice-Chair   anndirector_pmpl@yahoo.com 

~21 participants

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Jessica opened meeting by welcoming everyone and offering this meeting as a time to ask questions and express concerns about any SPARK processes as libraries move to limited services

Jennifer described current workflows being compiled by PaILS and Equinox to better facilitate libraries’ reopening and showed those on the call the newest Knowledge Book Page devoted to all things COVID-19: https://sparkpa.helpspot.com/admin.php?pg=kb.book&book=18

·         Staggering Due Dates: Jennifer sought feedback from attendees regarding a global setting to stagger due dates based on a concrete factor, such as circ modifier

o   Global setting would be consortium wide, without an opt-in/opt-out capability; all libraries on SPARK would receive this feature

o   Jennifer ran a report detailing the number of items consortium wide due in the system; the number for July 1 reached above 170,000 materials, which is a concern to volume levels locally and on a consortium scale

o   Jennifer reminded that notifications are not being sent out at this time, but she is in the process of developing a one time notification to go out to all patrons with items checked out, detailing the due date for their item(s) checked out

o   The staggering due date would be based on something, like a circ modifier, which would make it easier for Equinox to process. Jennifer suggested high demand items, for instance, or those items that are guaranteed to have a waiting list

o   Majority of those on the call agreed to this setting, with a few expressing their directors/supervisors would have to okay anything like this

o   Addendum: Information about this projected project had been sent to the Consortium with an option to opt out of the service. Libraries are currently responding via the SPARK-Users listserv as to whether or not their libraries will be participating

·         Lost Items: It was discovered that the lost processing function was not turned off immediately

o   Some libraries have found that bills were applied to accounts of items that were due prior to the libraries’ closures

o   Jennifer will generate a report and distribute the report to libraries for any items that have a 2020 due date set prior to the Emergency Closing Handler setting (prior to mid-March)

·         Notes and Alerts

o   Jennifer has also been looking for more consistent ways of libraries using notes and alerts; she mentioned that notes are viewable consortium-wide, but alerts only appear at the library system or library that generated the alert

·         Receipt Templates – Templates are now available that modify libraries’ current receipt template for holds; these templates offer last name, phone number, and language to describe quarantine practices

·         Hold Pull List – Jennifer recommended not to change the settings to populate the Hold Pull List until the library runs an initial list

o   There is a known bug related to what appears and what does not appear on the pull list

o   Keep in mind that the list may be long and each library can determine what should be pulled and when, and when to contact a patron about incoming holds

There was a question regarding the Emergency Closing Handler – while the Emergency Closing Handler is turned “on,” anything checked out during the set parameters and anything actively being checked out will be due on the date that appears in the Emergency Closing Handler setting. 

·         Example: many libraries with the Emergency Closing Handler currently turned on will have all due dates of July 1.

Jennifer asked how libraries were handling curbside pickup

·         Variety of responses, with libraries reporting morning, afternoon, and evening hours, as well as a few weekend hours

Jessica announced that she and Ann will look at their calendars for the next Out of Cycle Circulation Committee Meeting and will let those interested know as soon as possible

·         Date will most likely be a Tuesday, and could either be morning or afternoon, depending upon availability of Jessica and Jennifer

Jessica closed meeting at about 3:30pm

 ~Submitted by Jessica Laganosky, June 3, 2020

MINUTES

May 12, 2020

Circulation Committee 2nd QTR meeting

GoToMeeting – webinar 2:00 pm

<22 participants

Hosted by:

Jennifer Bruch Spark ILS Application Specialist   jbruch@sparkpa.org  

Jessica Laganosky, Circulation Committee Chair   jessical@adamslibrary.org

Ann Shincovich, Circ Committee Vice-Chair   anndirector_pmpl@yahoo.com 

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Be advised: 

The next official Spark Circulation Committee Meetings are on 

Tuesday August 11, 2020 at 10:00 am. (3rd QTR) 

Tuesday November 10, 2020 at 2:00 pm (4thQTR)

The Circulation Committee will be hosting weekly “out of cycle” open forum meetings as long as we are closed and everyone still wants them on every Tuesday at 2:00 pm.  Please watch for emails with the proper GoToMeeting link to join or call in.  We need to share ideas before we go back into service!

MINUTES from discussion:

Jessica welcomes everyone to our 2nd QTR regular Spark Circulation Committee meeting.  

Jessica shows everyone the page and LINK for the spark user groups board meetings, and also reminds everyone that Jennifer is recording the meetings.  We are using the out of cycle meetings to help give everyone a chance to get some ideas, share concerns, learn things, etc.  Also a reminder that everyone can read the minutes and ask questions when they need to either during the meetings or by contacting any of us above (Jessica, Jennifer, or Ann), or by directly contacting spark support.

Jessica mentions that the Circ Committee has set a priority for email notifications revision project to standardize email notifications.

Jennifer shares a LINK with us about this project and the tentative auto messages that will be pushed out by the ILS when different actions take place in the system.  Jennifer is requesting people provide feedback for this project, especially regarding the following:

·         Using preferred names rather than just the first name

·         Auto inserting the library’s home website page URL and contact info

Jennifer informs us that the Spark PaILS systems can be streamlined by using a standard form for all libraries that are incoming to the consortia, as well as existing libraries, to standardize their notifications.  She is working with Equinox to set up “forms” that will input the library specific information into a standardized email communication, eg, welcome notices, renewal notices, items due notices, etc.  There are a few reasons for this:

·         Simplify the use of notices across the consortia to standardize communications and PaILS revisions and management of them

·         Save server space at Equinox and speed up transactions

·         Make it easier to manage for the Spark staff when adding or maintaining libraries in PaILS

·         Streamline the management of notices by being able to activate notices at the System level and have those notices automatically drill down to the individual branch libraries

·         Reduce or eliminate conflicting email notices between home library and owning library during circ transactions and across resource sharing 

Jennifer wants to remove customized, special language on policies or other information that is unique to each library from the standard forms. These revised and streamlined notices can be cloned by all libraries in the consortia.  Policy driven communications with library specific language can be pushed out using other email notifications, and not the standard emails for standard communications across the consortia.  Examples of special notices for communications/policies are for library or system specific fines, overdues, lost and billed, circ/renewal limits, etc.

As for the management of email notifications, Jennifer does most of that work for Spark PaILS, and streamlining the email notification management will reduce the amount of time she needs support from Equinox.  She doesn’t want to go to Equinox for all the special customized email notifications every time a library makes a change or is added to the consortia.

Question (Brandt Adams Co): When we reopen, can notices get turned on or off by us or by the consortia, and which ones can be turned off/on?  What about automatic hold notices, etc?

Jennifer:  Yes, the consortia can turn off the automatic notices.  Some libraries are managing this at their individual level, and if this is the case, she will have to do each one separately.  (Again, reason for making the notifications easier to manage, as per above.)

Jennifer wants to get notices managed at a system level so it is easier for her to manage this type of work.  If the change can be made at the system and have it drill down to the individual libraries, it is more efficient.

A question as to what will happen with holds arises from this thread.  Jennifer has been working with Equinox as to ideas how to manage holds and curbside pickup based on other models/states’ libraries.  

One idea coming from Equinox in lieu of changing system policies, is that if a library wants to quarantine incoming hold items, and the library doesn’t want notices to go out right away, then libraries can use an existing check in modifier “as local transit” to put the items in limbo/quarantine without triggering the hold notification to the patron.  (After the item is done with quarantine, it can be scanned again for availability and the notice goes out to the patron.)  Jennifer and Equinox think this is a very manageable solution rather than changing a lot of policy settings.  

Also, as per reopening….A major issue for PaILS is managing all the notices that will be triggered on the day that libraries “reopen” with staff.  We don’t want thousands of notices to trigger in the first few hours or the first day the library is scanning and processing returns and holds, etc.  

Jennifer is concerned about triggering courtesy notice spams from across the consortia, which would be very bad.  She is working with Equinox to create staggered check ins, notices, and hold expired dates.  She is really working hard to get this new work flow developed because there will be thousands of transactions processing across the consortia in the first few days that the libraries reopen.

Ann asks about the timing of 6 months hold protections b/c of the loss of time with closure.  Jennifer indicates that this setting won’t add back time that was lost during closure.  The 6 months will stand from the date it was established regardless of closure.

There is a lively discussion about stopping or re-starting resource sharing in the consortia.  Jennifer and Equinox would have to put a lot of work into changing policies to stop resource sharing settings, and this may not really be useful for a variety of reasons.  Not the least of which is there are hundreds of items waiting to be transited back to their home library sitting around in different libraries while we are closed.  All those items have to be transited to their home library.

There are ways to adjust resource sharing at each local library by using work arounds, and we all have to just deal as best we can.  Items need to be returned and libraries can choose to cancel or adjust requests, etc.  Each library will have its own issues and we all have to be understanding and cooperative.  It would be a massive amount of work and coordination to get Equinox to change all the resource sharing settings for all the good it may do since many libraries will have different re-opening dates and staffing issues.   Jennifer asks that everyone make a real effort to just cope with this timeframe and resource sharing/transits, and ask for help if you need it.

Terri comments in chat:  she thinks staggering items flow will help prevent a deluge of items incoming to her library. 

Ann asks if a banner message can be put on OPAC view indicating that transits and activity may be slower for a time.

Jennifer is glad to help all libraries, but reminds us all that it is currently JUST HER working at PaILS and that she will coordinate with Equinox as much a she can to find consortia wide solutions.  So ask for what you need, provide lead time, be patient and try to cooperate with consortia wide objectives as much as you can to make this all more simple for the future and any other tragedies or events that will affect us consortia wide.  Please be flexible and mindful that all the libraries will have different return to service dates based on their own situations.

Linda Crooks asks about expired cards and whether they will continue to have extensions/grace periods.  Jennifer indicates she can look at the expired cards and can ask Equinox to do that if necessary.  Please provide lead time if you want help with this.

Terri asks if we can review what we are able to do at the Admin level to help try and do some of these things ourselves.  

Jennifer is happy to help, and would rather advise and help than have to correct something done very wrong, BUT she does show us how to get into the Admin level settings for triggered events and also how to alter scanned items in check-in mode with “capture local holds as transits”.  

Jennifer indicates that extending the emergency due dates handler can be done by PaILS, but can also be done at the individual level.  Please let Jennifer know if you want to use the PaILS consortia wide setting or if you want to do it yourself.  

Jennifer shows us how to get into Administration, Local Admin, Notifications & Actions Triggers and how to filter results. Please ask if you want help or training with this.  Also, a reminder that you need Admin privileges to do this stuff, and that the patron facing settings can be tricky, so please ask for help!!

Also, it’s totally normal for a lot of libraries to have no data or settings in triggered events depending on how they were set up at the system level.  

For example, “HOOK” notice triggers on enabled = False 

You can set up a processing delay for how long it takes a notice to get triggered.  Jennifer reviews triggered events in the Admin view for event definitions, see form and code. 

Linda Crooks asks about the consortia wide closure backdates and wants to know if we need to recreate hold notices.  Jennifer indicates that check-in modifiers can be used, eg, “Capture Local Holds as Transits” if she wants to.  Linda indicates they will likely check in the next day or after quarantine so they don’t have to change their policy settings or hold slips.  EMPL will likely not scan until they are ready to get the items to the patrons b/c they are creating specific pick up times for patrons to control the number of patrons coming to the building.  

Terri asks how to get into the different notice triggers.

Jennifer shoes how to get to the notice triggers but advises that no one should do this without help b/c if it gets messed up it’s more work to fix.  

Jennifer reminds everyone to be cool, ask for help, and prepare to deal with the unusual situation b/c nothing like this has ever happened before to libraries since there was electronic ILS!   It’s all new and we will get through it.  She also recommends using the new revised email notices (when that is done) to help with kind, gentle communications to patrons during this stressful time.

Jessica reminds everyone about other projects for the Circ Committee, and that other sub-committees can be established for specific projects; and that some of the projects have to be reviewed by the PaILS board.  Anyone can suggest an idea or project to any member of the Circ Committee if they think there is something useful for the consortia.  But right now we are focusing primarily on work to help everyone reopen and deal with the fall-out from being closed so long.

Jessica shows us the for the Knowledge Books, https://sparkpa.helpspot.com/index.php?pg=kb.book&id=9 , and reminds everyone that if they’ve created policy or training documentation for their own library, that they can share this to the consortia in the Knowledge Book.

Jessica wants to review the contents of the Knowledge Book pages, and she is adding the content from last week about Self Check-Out.  There is also provides the link to the Circulation Committee page, https://sites.google.com/view/sparkugboard/committees/circulation-committee 

Jennifer updates the group about what PaILS is doing.  She is focusing on clean up projects, and discusses completing the municipal stat cat project and clean up of old patron data at Terri’s library.  There was a special project to also remove all the fines off of the juvenile cards so they are all good to go for the summer reading program.

PaILS has extended expired cards through July 1, 2020, and can extend dates further.  Please email support if you want to do this.  You can also ask about circ modifier clean up too.

Linda Crooks ask a question about the emergency handler – is the extension of grace periods automatic or do we have to contact support?  Jennifer prefers that at everyone sends an email indicating they want PaILS to do these grace periods and extensions.  

Elizabeth Renzulli & Jane ask again if the consortia will do it even if you don’t notify support.  Jennifer indicates that you should all notify her because each library will really end up with different opening dates for return to service.  But depending on inputs from everyone, she may consider extending all the grace periods through the end of June for the consortia.  Right now the current grace period ends on May26.  Again, PaILS and Equinox are worried about all the libraries’ transaction and notifications spamming out on May 27 b/c of the massive increase in circ transactions after closure.

We are reminded that Governor Wolf has left RED counties closed through June 4.  Some libraries are in yellow and some in red counties.  A goal is to have all circulations and notifications/transactions staggered through the end of June to manage reopening without spamming or crashes, etc.  

There is a question about the shelving location editor and notification/action triggers -she wants help and training.  Jennifer indicates that anyone who wants training on these Admin level settings to manage reopening should email support and schedule training/help.

Donna asks if any PA libraries are open yet, even in yellow. The answer is no.  OCL has not provided guidance to reopen.  The Governor and OCL have created strict rules that could affect state aid, etc, if a library opens without permission.  We all understand that local/political issues and local funding are causing friction in some areas of the state as per the Govenor’s guidelines.  Some libraries are getting pressured for curb-side pickup, etc.

Jennifer reminds us all to stay cool and just accept that our stats will be really terrible this year.  There is really nothing we can do, and we are acting for the benefit of the community and our staff while we are closed.  There is certainly a conflict for us because our patrons need our services but we can’t do much right now.

Jessica reminds everyone about future meetings and indicates we can continue the out of cycle meetings while we are closed.  Quite a few people say they like the extra meetings, but will have trouble attending too many meetings once we are busy and reopened.

The upcoming official quarterly meetings are:  Tues August 11 at 10:00 am and Tues November 10 at 2:00 pm.  

Also – save the date - the Evergreen Conference is now virtual on June 9 - 11, 2020.  A link will be coming soon with more information.  Jessica will email that information to the group when she gets it.

The annual Spark User Group meeting is currently in limbo, and the planning committee is trying to decide what to do.  It will either be rescheduled for the fall or be virtual.  We will let you know as soon as there is more info.

Jennfier reminds people to suggest topics for the out of cycle meetings so we can keep learning while we are closed.  

Jessica signs off with a thanks!

Submitted by Ann Shincovich 5/15/2020

MINUTES

May 5, 2020

Circulation Committee “out of cycle” meeting

GoToMeeting – webinar 2:00 pm

<20 participants

Hosted by:

Jennifer  Bruch Spark ILS Application Specialist   jbruch@sparkpa.org  

Jessica Laganosky, Circulation Committee Chair   jessical@adamslibrary.org

Ann Shincovich, Circ Committee Vice-Chair   anndirector_pmpl@yahoo.com 

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Be advised: 

The next official Spark Circulation Committee Meeting is on 

Tuesday May 12, 2020 at 2:00 pm.

The Circulation Committee will be hosting weekly “out of cycle” open forum meetings every Tuesday at 2:00 pm.  Please watch for emails with the proper GoToMeeting link to join or call in.  We need to share ideas before we go back into service!

MINUTES from discussion:

Jessica reminds everyone that even though there is an agenda, there is a lot of time for people to ask other questions. She reviewed briefly last week’s meeting about self-check.

Jennifer reminds everyone that there is a recording from last week’s meeting about self-check, and there are org unit links for self-registration that she is setting up. 

4.28.20 Out of Cycle Circulation Committee Meeting, featuring self-check out:

https://register.gotowebinar.com/recording/7354002565226783235?assets=true

Org Unit Settings:

https://register.gotowebinar.com/recording/5290820672751436289?assets=true

 Jennifer has been reviewing existing PaILS/Equinox “pre-coronavirus” projects that are pending or not complete.  She is reviewing the timeline for all the scheduled work to make sure there is time for any extra work needed to come back from closure.

 Question:  about the recorded links for our webinars and how to link to them and register to hear them… Jennifer is still working out the bugs, but contact her for help. (Note:  take off the brackets < > before and after the link to make it work properly. 

 Natalie:  notes that using staggered due dates  (circ mod) won’t really work well until we have dates for reopening.  Also, to think about extensions of due dates or fine free grace periods.  

OCL is still waiting for guidelines from Department of Education, etc.

There will be a spotlight on the smallest of our libraries as the rural north central part of the state will be going “yellow” first.  

Jennifer mentions the guidelines for taking and recording staff temperatures within recommended thresholds.

Leslie Wishard:  All libraries must wait for OCL instruction to open regardless of yellow status of county, even though the Governor has indicated May 8 for the north central counties to go yellow.  Leslie mentions that libraries may want to coordinate similar opening strategies to work better with proximal libraries and systems, esp. when trying to find supplies.  She believes it will take us all a while to get organized and figure out the best way to go forward. 

Jennifer reminds everyone to think about their emergency close dates, due dates and grace periods.  She is spending way too much time reviewing many libraries use of the emergency close dates editor vis-à-vis the consortia wide settings.  In the future she will make a note to make a “PaILS” notation on any of the close dates editor setting to differentiate the consortia wide settings from individual library settings.  She also recommends that we seriously consider the power of using a managed solution for crisis of any kind across the consortia rather than using an individual strategy.  Jennifer is planning on a consortia wide plan for just such emergencies so we can all “go together” for major emergencies based on a policy.  

Ann mentions that there could be issues when yellow and red counties are adjacent and may affect resource sharing or patron usage when some are closed and some are open, or some have a different fines/grace period/due dates issue; and that delivery may be affected by different open/close status and the different settings in Spark.

Jennifer indicates a good reason for us to stick with consortia wide settings for emergencies, etc, like even if there is a hurricane or blizzard, etc.

Leslie W.:  in her system a lot of her staff and patrons don’t have reliable or any access to internet at home.  Communication about status’ becomes tricky.  Some of her Directors still thought all the settings are still consortia wide.  

NOTE: (They are unless they’ve been changed at the individual library level.)

Jennifer discusses the relative confusion about helping and reviewing all the closure settings b/c they all say something like “Covid-19”.  

Jennifer wants to make a consortia wide closing for the end of May for all the libraries BUT HAS NOT YET DONE THIS.

Leslie W.:  we should use the different Spark Board and User Groups to review this situation, make suggestions for a plan, and discuss pros/cons of consortia wide decisions, settings, etc.

Ann asks Jennifer to review what is going on with the close dates editor, and any consortia wide settings that have been made, the process, etc.

Jennifer:  As per the close dates editor, you MUST adjust the date filter to see any prior settings, etc. She uses Monroe County as an example.  Monroe County is relying on Spark to set all the close dates.  The first round of close dates go from March 2 through April 6.  The second round are currently scheduled as April 7 – May 26.  

Please note:  you should always put close dates in the middle of the week to avoid weekend dates and help with grace periods.

York has already extended their close dates/grace periods through the end of June.  They wanted to test to see if they put the setting on at the system level, if that setting would trickle down to the individual libraries without having to do each library separately.  It did seem to work as expected.  (Systems may want to coordinate settings.)

Please note: IF YOU ARE RUNNING REPORTS based on a system level setting, you must drill down to each library to check about number of circs, transitions, etc., because AT THE SYSTEM LEVEL IT WILL ALWAYS SAY ZERO for circs and transactions, etc. 

Question:  What were the results of the Spark survey?

Jennifer:  she is still trying to sort them all out, but provides a basic overview with some graphic data in the meeting.  Next time she may use google.

It’s a mixed bag.  

For “new services”:

            The largest response was 31% curbside service, with items by mail, home delivery and other as responses.

For “fine free”:

            The majority responded with fine free for three months, the rest is a mix bag.

For “changes in loan periods”: 

            48.5% indicate they do not want to change their loan periods, and the rest is a mix bag. 

For “self-check”:

            55% indicated they want to use it, and almost an equal amount don’t to varying degrees.  There will likely be a self-check workshop/how to with the technology to allow those who want it to proceed. 

For “items returned by patrons”

            Very few/almost none wanted this

A discussion ensued about handling materials/best practices:  Items coming into the library should be quarantined. Each library should set up their own practice and stick to it all the time.  If you have your own process, it won’t really matter what other libraries are doing.  

A lot of libraries are concerned about resources sharing and transit and how to do this the best way.  Even if a library want to stop resource sharing and transit, it may be tricky because patrons are used to returning items at different locations.  

Nicole:  How long should items be quarantined?  Paper? Plastic?

Jennifer:  she refers everyone to the OCL guidelines: 

https://www.statelibrary.pa.gov/Covid-19/Communications/Pages/May5.aspx

Jennifer mentions that some libraries are interested in the “my account” privacy waiver, and that there will be training.  Please ask if you need help, etc.

Jessica encourages us all to share vendors if we are able to find the necessary supplies recommended by OCL.

Jennifer:  she suggests an idea that Carrie had about putting weeded items out front of the library with a please take one sign.

Leslie, Ann, Jane & Nicole had a lively discussion about what libraries are doing to share books with patrons and the community: free new books; free withdrawals and donated books; other activities and materials.

Elizabeth Renzulli asks how is everyone planning to do curbside returns?  Or just use bookdrop?  

Linda Crooks indicates that EMPL will be only using book drops for returns and instead of checking them every hour, they will only do so once per day.  

Leslie Wishard indicates her library will also only be using the bookdrop; and will only receive materials on certain days.  She is considering coordinating the book drop being open/closed on the same days the library is open/closed.  They are going to use some space inside the library where they have a book store to quarantine items.

Ann indicates PMPL will only be using the bookdrop.  

Jennifer reiterates that everyone should do what is best for them because library building and curbs are very different.

Jessica emphasizes that all these new procedures (that may be changing or confusing to patrons) are a good reason for us to have fine free grace periods right now.  It takes the pressure off both the staff and the public.

There is a lively discussion about how to start up services again. 

Jessica mentions that patron notifications can be set to anticipate delays because of extra handling, esp. as pertains to patrons placing holds and how soon they can receive items.  

Linda Crooks:  EMPL is planning on turning off all the notifications and only using phone calls to tell patrons items are ready.  

Jennifer reminds us all that you can turn off all automatic notifications if you only want to use the phone calls, but this is a Spark level change, so please anticipate lead time.  This may be more work than it’s worth.

Karen (from chat) suggests that items just not get checked in until after items are through with quarantine, and then you scan them when they are ready for patrons.

Linda Crooks indicates that EMPL will likely try to create a system where patrons select a pick-up time.  They want to control the flow of patrons to the building as much as possible.

Ann suggests that perhaps a text alert notice can have a different message. Rather than your item is ready for pickup, something like “staff will call you to arrange when you can get your item”.  

Jennifer reminds everyone that each library can set up its own work flow to deal with holds and transited items.  The CDC is not really worried about items that go through the mail for carrying virus too long.  

Jennifer likes the idea of sending items in the mail to homebound patrons.  IDS may also provide a solution for all of us to defer shipping directly to homes or use budgeted IDS funds that were not utilized since we’ve been closed.   Jennifer is studying how North Carolina uses regional shipping hubs to transit items around the state to patrons.  

There is more discussion about using mail for patrons including; IDS, more items, less items, using return posted envelopes, finding money to do it, lead time, lost items, fines accrued, etc.  

A few libraries mentioned they were already piloting mail at home and serving home bound  & high risk patrons who are stir crazy and eager for more library materials.

Maybe we can use UBER?

Jessica reminds everyone about the official May 12 Spark Circulation Committee meeting.  Please watch for email with links. 

Jennifer reminds everyone to get changes to her so there is time to do everything.  

Ann asks if the self-registration link on the My Account/OPAC are also able to be embedded on a webpage, and Jennifer says: YES!

Submitted by Ann Shincovich 5/8/2020

MINUTES

April 28, 2020

Circulation Committee “out of cycle” meeting

 GoToMeeting – webinar 2:00 pm

25-27 participants

 Hosted by:

Jennifer  Bruch Spark ILS Application Specialist   jbruch@sparkpa.org  

Jessica Laganosky, Circulation Committee Chair   jessical@adamslibrary.org

Ann Shincovich, Circ Committee Vice-Chair   anndirector_pmpl@yahoo.com 

`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````

Be advised: 

 The next official Spark Circulation Committee Meeting is on 

Tuesday May 12, 2020 at 2:00 pm.

The Circulation Committee will be hosting weekly “out of cycle” open forum meetings every Tuesday at 2:00 pm.  Please watch for emails with the proper GoToMeeting link to join or call in.  We need to share ideas before we go back into service!

MINUTES from discussion:

 Jessica reminded everyone that the point of the weekly meeting is to highlight features of Spark that can help us get ready for return to service.

 Also, members can view minutes from our meetings on the Spark User Group Board.  

https://sites.google.com/view/sparkugboard/committees/circulation-committee/useful-links-circulation-committee?authuser=0

 Jennifer reminded everyone to fill out the PaILS Spark survey to help PaILS focus on what users need the most to return to service.  She reminds everyone not to wait if they need to communicate to decision makers (boards, directors, etc.) as per fines, grace periods, extended loan periods, etc.  The sooner you get the info into PaILS the easier it is for them to get changes ready for return to service.

 https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/reopen2020

 Jennifer posted the link for CDC  best recommendations for handling items/quarantine, etc. 

https://www.statelibrary.pa.gov/Covid-19/Pages/default.aspx

 Participants had a brief conversation about what we’re planning, eg, curbside service; the need for PPE for staff; how will stay at home mandate affect library service; PROS/CONS of the situation, including the unique situation for public libraries b/c we get our materials BACK, not like stores or restaurants that only send products away.

 Jessica mentioned again about the fines/fine free discussion from last week, as well as patron services for when we are back in service, esp. using self-check.  She invited Tom Giuffreda, Systems Manager at Adams County LS to explain how he did the self-check for ACLS.

 TOM GIUFFREDA:

There is an official page from Evergreen 3.2 explaining self-check.  

http://docs.evergreen-ils.org/3.2/_initializing_the_self_check.html

There was a lot of patron demand at ACLS, so they wanted to do it.

 They used Windows 10 with google Chrome browser.  A discussion should be had about the print out for patrons b/c it is trickier to set up.  This would be a local decision, but Tom can tell people how he did it. Tom emphasizes a number of times that the way he did it may not be the only way to set up the self-check and he’d be happy to talk to anyone, do more training, or speak to tech people.

 Tom explained about the right way to set the Chrome “flags” having to do with setting a PC up like a kiosk rather than a fully functioning workstation with limiting the start menu and URL.

 He advises setting up the self-checkout station as it’s own “user login” to keep from getting PC settings messed up and also for better reporting on circs at the self-check.

 ACLS only use a scanner, keyboard and mouse to set up the self-check.  He said touchscreen is a choice.  It is set up that when the patron is finished scanning, they click “logout” and it finishes the transaction and prints the receipt.  

 The user view for self-check is a basic Evergreen screen, and at this time is not customizable to match the library’s OPAC view. 

 Tom advises that there are more things that can be done to customize self-check than what they did at ACLS, and he is happy to advise.  Eg, log-out and time-out can be customized. Please see the Evergreen document link for more information on this. 

https://gist.github.com/stompro/7811c59905a321807518

 Tom found settings for auto refresh to be a problem and sometimes the self-check gets frozen.  He programmed a special script to reload the page to keep it from freezing.  Please ask if you have any questions about this script, etc. 

 Tom uses Porteus kiosk mode for self-check.  

 Tom mentioned some technical and work-flow issues, including:

• Auto hot key script

• Deepfreeze issues (recommends not having Deepfreeze on the self-check PC)

• Porteus kiosk software

• Ubutu - Linux software to upgrade old PCs to Microsoft 2010 compliancy

• Don’t use old PCs that aren’t Windows 10 compliant b/c may have security problems, or problems with maintenance, upgrades, etc.

• Kiosk extensions for firefox

• Kiosk mode

• ACLS only allows for books to check out at self-check.  DVDs have to go to main desk

• Choice to have a desensitizer for targets at the self-check – local decision

• Spend a few days “babysitting” self-check when you first do it to make sure it’s working the way you want, troubleshooting, and also training patrons

 Users can edit Chrome for shortcuts. He will provide a guide that will demonstrate.

 Jessica comments that the patrons like the self-check a lot, so they don’t seem to care or notice that it’s a standard Evergreen view and not the view that looks like OPAC.

Question about whether self-check may induce libraries to reduce staff.  Jennifer and Jessica commented not necessarily b/c of the need for training, and that staff will do other work when not doing every circ.  Not all items can be checked out at self-check.  Consideration should be made about whether items going to self-check have security targets or not, and the workflow.  

 Ann asked if you can set self-check to not print, and he said it’s a setting in the Chrome “flags”.  See guide or ask for more information. 

 Tom’s email is Tomg@adamslibrary.org

 Tom’s Guide and Notes can be found under the Self-Check Out Chapter of the Circulation Knowledge Book:

 https://sparkpa.helpspot.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=479

            Click on “SELF CHECK OUT MODE”

            https://docs.google.com/document/d/1F_C7TVKtSWGhzMxLtaJUK-rP37r4orzimt4f12oEy2w/edit

 Jennifer:  she can schedule a special meeting/training for anyone interested in self-check, and will review documentation from PaILS in the knowledge book link.  

https://sparkpa.helpspot.com/index.php?pg=kb

 Jessica discussed patron Pre-Registration, and asked if anyone was using it.  She mentioned that ACLS is not using pre-registration, and it will be reviewed more fully at the next out of cycle meeting on May 5, 2020.

   http://docs.evergreen-ils.org/2.12/_patron_self_registration.html

 Members discussed different work flows using the pre-registration or “request a card” with more manual work. 

 Elizabeth Davis from LCLS that they use pre-registration and the requests go into a pending account queue.  Every day the staff review this pending account and then finish creating the patron account. When the patron account is saved, an automatic email goes to the patron with the barcode and then the card is mailed to the patron.

 Linda Crooks at EMPL uses pre-registration but they do not mail the card, only email the barcode.  Patrons get their card when they come to the library and show valid ID.  They are providing barcodes during the closure for online only permission, with the cards set to expire in July 2020.

 Jessica and Elizabeth confirm that either PaILS or Admin level authorized users must turn this feature on, it’s not automatically there.

 Kathryn at Nazareth indicates they just started to use Pre-Registration during closure and have it set to automatically send an email with the barcode as soon as the card is saved by staff.  They also send the PIN, and notification that they can get their card when the library is open and must bring in ID.  They made about 32 cards since closure.

 Elizabeth Davis indicates a lot of interest in barcode numbers at LCLS during closure.

 Jessica from ACLS indicates that they have a form they use to request cards and do not use the pre-registration feature.  They use data requested to set up patron accounts and then email the barcode number to patrons. They’ve had a lot of interest.  They send out the physical card later. They did almost 200 cards during closure !!!  The pre-registration process through SPARK may be easier for staff.

Elizabeth Davis says it does make it easier to use the Pre-Registration feature.

 Jennifer Bruch indicates that PaILS can work with anyone who wants to do it, and also recommends that you get your auto generated “letters” ready for the emails that are sent out.  She confirms it’s one of the Administrative level privileges and those with that level can do it themselves if they want to.  It shows up as a message in the OPAC view.  

 Jennifer also recommends that you may want to review the standard fields staff use to create patron cards, because they will be the same for the Pre-Registration (not stat cats).  The patrons see the fields and you may want to review it.

 The patrons will get a welcome email after they submit.  Prepare your messages

 Betty R is impressed with this b/c her library does it all by hand.  She is very interested.

 Jennifer: you can still control the permissions, expired date, etc, because staff still have to finish off the registration.

 Betty:  she wants to know if they can still call it an “ecard”?

 Jennifer:  is says “request a library card” on the OPAC page

 Betty:  they make their ecards into real cards when the patrons come in with ID.

 Terri:  they make theirs internet only

 Jennifer:  that is a local workflow and permission decision

 Question:  what is “internet only”?

 Ann:  it is a setting we have in permissions for our MC group because EMPL needed it to serve restricted patrons.  We can use it to make these cards until we have ID.

 Linda Crooks: yes, they made that setting  so everyone has access to PCs whether they have fines or not, or if they don’t have a permanent address

 Jennifer:  you can check your permissions group to see if that is a setting choice;  not everyone will have it; permissions can be changed so please send a request to spark support if you want this.

 Elizabeth R:  they sell computer only cards for $2 for 3 months

 Jessica thanks everyone for all their great input and questions.  And will send out the link for Tom G’s self-check guide.  

 Reminder about the next out of cycle meeting.  

 Submitted by Ann Shincovich 4/28/2020

• MINUTES 

April 21, 2020 

Circulation Committee “out of cycle” meeting 

GoToMeeting – webinar 2:00 pm 

25 - 30 participants 

Hosted by: 

Jessica Laganosky, Circulation Committee Chair   jessical@adamslibrary.org 

Ann Shincovich, Circ Committee Vice-Chair   anndirector_pmpl@yahoo.com  

Jennifer  Bruch PaILS  ILS Application Specialist   jbruch@sparkpa.org   

Carrie Clear, Outgoing PaILS Executive Director   carrie.clearly@sparkpa.org 

Be advised:  

The next official Spark Circulation Committee Meeting is on  Tuesday May 12th, 2020 at 2:00 pm. 

The Circulation Committee will be hosting weekly “out of cycle” open forum meetings every Tuesday at 2:00 pm.  Please watch for emails with the proper GoToMeeting link to join or call in.  We need to share ideas before we go back into service! 

Notes and Highlights from discussion: 

Welcome Jessica the new Committee Chair!  Jessica is Public Services Manager at ACLS. 

Welcome to Ann Shincovich, Committee Vice Chair.  Ann is Director at PMPL 

Please do not forget about the opportunity to change policies, or cleanup patron or bibliographic data, call numbers, etc, during this time we are working from home.  Also, the opportunity for self training, running reports, etc.  Watch for emails with action items from the Circ Committee and PaILS. We appreciate your participation.  

Most important:  please do some thinking about changes that you want to make for fines, lending periods, grace periods, etc, so that changes can be made before we return to service. 

Let Spark support (Jennifer) know if you need a special report created for you.   

Question:  What can PaILS Spark do for us while we are closed for fines and overdue fees? 

Please see the survey from Jennifer Bruch that will be emailed to the user group about fines, loan periods and special services your library may be interested in.   

Leave comments in the survey for any special ideas or needs.  Please answer by April 27 or 28 (if not sooner) so we can get a lead on responses and actions before we open.   

Carrie indicates that in some cases PaILS and Equinox may need lead time to establish new policies.  The sooner that you can establish a new practice/policy for return to service as per fines, lending periods, special services the better.  BUT do not rush your decision b/c we don’t want to have to “undo” a major policy change if we can avoid it.  We want to be ready after the stay at home policy is lifted and staff return to work so we can test, train and be prepared for patrons.  Please ask if you need more guidance. 

Jennifer indicates the new stay at home order from Gov Wolf extended until May 8.  OCL does not have a different date.  This gives us a few weeks to prepare with changes or different policies.  Make sure you have lead time to communicate needs and changes to decision makers and board if necessary.  Don’t waste time.  

Please note:  if your library was relying on the PaILS consortia wide emergency closing for this fine free grace period and due date extension, you can check the dates that were established by looking at the emergency close dates editor.  You will see all the emergency close dates that were established for the closure of the libraries bc of the coronavirus.  Spark libraries can continue to rely on PaILS for extending the due dates and fine free periods.  (Jennifer will send an email update to let people know how this will be handled: if you change your own dates or enter your own date range before (May 20, which is the Decision date for extending emergency closing handler user…). However, for those who choose to do it on your own—you are now on your own.  We can’t guarantee everything will work or be tested if you choose to do it your own way…). You do have the choice to do it yourself.  If you choose the change the range of the time for the emergency closure, you MUST enter a whole new setting to cover the period. Do not try to edit/alter the dates of the existing closed settings, as they will not take/process correctly.  Please contact Spark Support if you have any questions. 

Question:  Will the closure/fine free status affect items already overdue when we went out?   

Carrie:  fines will not accrue during the closure period, but they will test this to be true.  Fines may start to re-accrue once the closure setting is lifted, not to include all the dates we were closed. 

Comments:  two libraries in the session indicated they had some troubles with lost items getting fines/billed.  There is a ticket out on one of them. Linda Crooks from EMPL ran a report and found lost items that had fines, and did a manual override to delete the fines.   (PaILS is investigating this: it seems that items that went through lost process and some ILLs may have been a problem.) 

Jennifer:  yes, you can ask PaILS to work with Equinox to make a policy change to wipe out ALL old fines if you choose to do so.  Please ask for more guidance on this. 

Jessica:  as per hold policies during the closure – people may want to consider how long they will allow for generating notices.   

Jennifer:  Consider quarantine policies for items and using a “reshelving” status when items are checked in to cover X# of days for best practices.   A delay can be set on status when items are checked in, eg, “30 min”, that can be altered for longer periods, eg “48 hours” before an item is available again.  It is a Library Setting called Change reshelving status interval.  SPARK can consider setting this at a system level or your library can set it locally to meet needs. 

Question: (Terry) She is concerned with touching recently returned items, including items that should go on the hold shelf.   

Jennifer:  If you don’t want to touch items right away, you can put them on a shelf or bin, and then back date items once they are through quarantine and you feel comfortable handling them.  Also, you may let items coming back from transit stay in transit while in quarantine mode, but should establish a standard work flow or policy to keep track of dates those items came in, etc,  and when they should be scanned for status/return to shelf.   

Staff discussed the use of gloves and disinfectant cleaner to wipe down hard surfaces such as counters and hardware and equipment.  There are guidelines about the life of the virus on hard surfaces and paper.  Jennifer directed us to a link: see https://www.statelibrary.pa.gov/Covid-19/Pages/FAQ.aspx for more information on cleaning and quarantine for items, as per OCL.   

There are no strict guidelines from OCL yet about returning to service, but resources and suggested plans.  Ann mentioned the “phased return” that is circulating from PaLA, see https://www.palibraries.org/page/coviddirectorsinfo 

There are many webinars that people can participate to help guide with return to service and everyone should do the best they can. 

Question:  what about maximum overdue limits?   

Jennifer:  they should not be accruing during the consortia wide closure.  But there may be some that were nearly triggered before we went out and that may resume accruing once the settings for the grace period is over.  Please ask for more help – a report can be run. 

Jennifer:  Please note that libraries can choose to use extended grace periods, eg, 30 days, repeatedly, if they can’t decide or need more time to decide if they want to go fine free; or to get a feel for what fine free “looks like”; or because they need some data about the effect on patrons or fines collection/budget.  Please consider using extended grace periods as a viable option if you don’t know which way to go.  Also, it may be easier to do repeated, extended grace periods for those that are unsure, and as a boost to patrons for the time being, than to “undo” being fine free which is a more lasting policy setting.  

Linda Crooks:  ideas at EMPL are for limited number of patrons in the building at one time, and also checking out ILL items ahead of time so they are already processed for curbside pickup, eg, starting the clock ticking and checking out the ILL while it’s still waiting for pickup,  and so making it easier to get out the door with less patron involvement when there is curbside pickup, etc. 

Ann indicates they may limit the number of items patrons can check out b/c she is concerned about too many high interest items ending up in quarantine. 

Jennifer indicates a good solution may be to allow for more items to circ for longer circ periods to help patrons get materials with less trips to the library, and  help staff with less handling, cleaning and quarantining.   

It may be a useful practice to create longer circ periods that do not need renewals (eg, 30 days) to help with this unusual and difficult time.  Please ask if you have any question about how to manage this and how it could work with high interest items. 

Jennifer: Now is the time to reflect upon policies that may not viable or good anymore considering how quickly things have changed.  How can we or should we serve our patrons?  This is a good time to do things differently. 

Carrie:  a lot of library policies are for how things were 10 years ago and may not be so useful anymore.  

A conversation came up about allowing for others to pick up items for patrons, especially considering the “curb side” service that may occur at some locations once we can circulate items again.  It is observed that some libraries use a note, message or alert on the staff side to indicate people who are allowed to pick up items for other patrons. Evergreen has the Privacy Waiver feature that can be implemented easily. 

If you want to allow for patrons to alter this pick-up information/status on their “my account” themselves a library must tell Spark support.  I believe LibAdmins can adjust this setting for themselves, or ask SPARK Support:  https://sparkpa.helpspot.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=213    

If your library chooses to change this privacy setting to allow patrons to do this themselves, staff should be trained and ready.   

Carrie: Locations currently using the Privacy Waiver feature as is include:  BC_LS, CLEAR_CURW, CLEAR_CCPL, LEHCAR_WTPL, MC_PMPL (just activated), JUNB, YCLS, WAPI, RTPL. 

If you have used notes/alerts/messages consistently, it may be possible to arrange for PaILS or Eqinox to do a data move so that this information on the staff side is moved to the correct “other user” location for the patrons and staff to see who is authorized to use the account.   

Jennifer & Carrie:  Clean up your messages, there are reports to help with kind of project!  Don’t over use them for exactly this reason. They can impact the self-check experience.

Jessica: explained about Adams library using self-check b/c patrons really wanted it.  A lively discussion of pros/cons & how to for self-check ensued.  Jessica discussed ease of use, theft of items, miss-scans, location of self-check, etc. 

Jennifer:  as per self-check, you need training for patrons, good signage, and good planning to make it work.  Consider where you put the self-check. Think creatively about spaces and flows.  Some items (those with lots of alerts) may not be good for self-check and will have to be checked by staff or at the circ desk.  She mentions a possibility of using the MS Windows setting for 2 monitors to create a forward and backward facing view of what the patrons are doing so that staff can help b/c they can see what the patrons see (if the self-check is set up on a desk the staff are behind).   

A discussion about self-check, DVDS and theft of materials ensued.   

Carrie:  the self-check interface is integrated into Evergreen and doesn’t need fancy equipment to implement, and there is documentation for that.   

http://docs.evergreen-ils.org/3.2/_initializing_the_self_check.html 

Concerns about social distancing at self-check and at regular circ desk. 

Angie:  A self-check in station could be set up for patrons to RETURN items and put them in a quarantine bin/returns cart.  Very interesting concept to alter handling process for staff.  

A discussion of self-check, social distancing, the use of plexiglass, touching grody items (including DL and patron cards), ensued.  Consideration of gloves and disinfecting materials: be mindful of the patron experience and CDC recommendations.  

Jessica announced the next meeting for Tuesday April 28 at 2 pm.  And thanked everyone for their lively and useful comments. 

Jennifer updated the survey link and will send it out to the email group and reminds everyone to get it back asap.  She also provided the link to the Circ Committee User Group/Useful links and reminds us all  to use it.   

https://sites.google.com/view/sparkugboard/committees/circulation-committee/useful-links-circulation-committee?authuser=0 

Submitted by Ann Shincovich 4/21/2020 

Agenda:

Discuss scheduling for the rest of the year

Staff UX Demo: Upload barcodes to Item Status

Patron UX Demo: Renewing items like a Patron

Circ Mod Cleanup Project

Notices Project Update

Binge Boxes: https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2020/01/02/binge-boxes-ready-to-binge-watch/ 

Annual Meeting Topic Requests 

Meeting Minutes

• There were some technology issues at the beginning of the session due to some expired links. Jennifer B. sent out a new meeting room link and that seemed to address the issue.

Meeting Dates Survey

Jennifer B. shared a Survey to ask for input about meetings for the rest of the year.

• https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScLOaDv9ILfA4ClfdYQEpXb9gB8bxCBeXRrBj0FC7H_75yEUw/viewform 

• The SPARK shared calendar can be seen here:   https://sparkpa.org/events/

• It is updated when PaILS Staff know about any meeting that is being planned. 

Batch Edits using CSV Files Demo Video

• New video at the Knowledge Book Page about using CSV files to do batch editing with items and patrons

• Knowledge Book: https://sparkpa.helpspot.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=433 

• Demo Video: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/recording/1343965353669099265?assets=true

Renewing Items in the OPAC Demo Video

• Knowledge Book: https://sparkpa.helpspot.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=431 

• Demo Video: https://register.gotowebinar.com/recording/5230023175772359939?assets=true 

Input Out of Range Error: Have you seen this?

• Has your library seen this error on the Check Out screen? Please let Carrie know.

• Screenshot: https://launchpadlibrarian.net/467381270/inputoutofrange.jpg 

Documentation

• Who has documentation of workflows and policies pertaining to Circ? Are they willing to share it with SPARK? If so, please share with Carrie or Jennifer B. so they can post them on the Knowledge Book pages here: https://sparkpa.helpspot.com/index.php?pg=kb.book&id=9 

• During the course of this conversation, many confirmed they do not have any documentation that is current after their transition onto SPARK.

Circ Mods Clean Up 

• Briefly discussed the discovery that an item with no Circ Mod will often not check out with the proper loan rules applied. 

• Jennifer B. asked the Circ Staff to check with their necessary people who would work on a project to clean up items in their library. They can then contact Carrie for the next steps.

• There is a report you can run to find items without Circ Mods:   It is in Shared Templates:  PaILSCarrie-->PaILS Share-->Collections-->Items missing Circulation Modifier (cleanup and verify)

Notices Project

• Reviewed the email conversations the Notices Project group has been having about the necessary Elements of a Notice.

• Shared the discovery that almost 15 smaller libraries are sharing print notice templates set up outside of the Evergreen Trigger Notice environment. Carrie is working to address this.

Binge Boxes

• Shared the article about Binge Boxes: https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2020/01/02/binge-boxes-ready-to-binge-watch/  

• EAPL shared some info about their program. They bundle about 5 DVDs by a theme (Tom Hanks movies are big;) and they circulate for 1  week. 

• It seems like a good idea to circulate duplicates. Some might consider having them circulation for longer to get space on the shelves.

Auto-Renewal

• Elizabeth D. at Lackawana has completed her Auto-Renewal project and many things were learned through the process. 

• While the new feature works as expected, Lackawana decided not to implement it for their library.

• Contact Carrie if you are interested in setting it up for your library, this would be a phased and scheduled project that needs special resources and your location would need to dedicate time to implementation.

Fine Free

• During Open discussion several libraries brought that they are investigating going Fine Free and need reports and other resources. Carrie mentioned that Oswayo Library already has and she can help any library who wants to do so. Jennifer B. mentioned that is seemed like a good topic to discuss during the Annual Meeting on May 13th.

Patron Clean Up Projects

• Some discussion about Patron Types and how a library using a type that they were set up for can have loan rules and fine issues.

• Jennifer B. mentioned after the Notices Project is done a Patron Clean Up Project might be in order for all the libraries. 

• You could start by running a report to see patrons by profile type or a report by Zip Code and cleaning up incorrect entries.

Booking Feature

• Carrie is looking for libraries interested in setting up the Booking Feature for their library for things like Museum Passes etc. 

• There are several that interested in it and would like to start learning how to use it.

• Since the meeting, Carrie got feedback from Easton on some Booking features that were not working as expected.  Don't let this stop you from trying it out.

Survey from Carrie

• Carrie would like everyone to fill out the shared survey.

• https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/CCFeedbackFeb2020

December 5th, 2019 @ 2:00 PM Minutes

Emergency Closing Handler

• Where is it (Administration --> Local Administration --> Closed Dates Editor)

•  How to use it (Add Closing --> Mark Emergency --> Mark Process Immediately)

• How to use in spite of the bug (Mark closed multiple days until next regular open day)

• Date Filter - When adding an Emergency Closing Day that is in the past, it will process and disappear from the list. This is because there is a Date Filter in the right corner of the page that defaults to the current date. If you want to the see the successfully processed Closing you have to backdate the Date Filter.

Bug? What bug?

• Where to find bugs (https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen)

• How to create an account (Login/Register in to right corner)

• How to add heat to a Bug (https://sparkpa.helpspot.com//index.php?pg=kb.page&id=307)

  • SPARK has 100+ library locations, that is more than 400 points of bug heat!

  • Practice adding heat to bugs using the list at the end of the minutes.

When the system is slow or down

• Why isn’t the listserv enough? Because sometimes SPARK Staff are in a meeting.

• Where is the Support site (https://sparkpa.helpspot.com//)

• How to submit a ticket (Knowledge Book: https://sparkpa.helpspot.com//index.php?pg=kb.page&id=3)

•  Mark it Urgent

• SPARK Staff will notify the community via the listserv that a Ticket with Equinox has been opened

Forums

• Where to find them (https://sparkpa.helpspot.com//index.php?pg=forums)

• They can be used as RSS Feeds, Feedly is one suggested tool.

• Feedly website and Feedly Notification Chrome Tool

  • https://feedly.com/i/welcome

  • https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/feedly-notifier/egikgfbhipinieabdmcpigejkaomgjgb?hl=en

Notices Project Page

• https://sites.google.com/view/sparkugboard/committees/circulation-committee?authuser=0

Patron Data Cleanup Projects

• Karen O. from PCL recently started investigating some sketchy data that she ran across.

• In this case when looking at counts of patrons by Home Library and Municipality there were some numbers that did not look right to Karen O.

• As a result of a screen sharing session Jennifer B. made two reports to help address the issue. One report template to identify “Outlier” Patrons Counts and another report template Lists “Outlier” Patrons Accounts so they can be cleaned up by staff.

• Briefly reviewed using the Patron/User Bucket Tool. Currently however, it cannot bulk update Stat Cats on Patrons accounts. Sounds like a Wishlist Bug to add to the Bug tracker.

Bring on the Hot Sauce!

Here are some other Bugs relating to Patron Stat Cats, practice adding heat to them:

o   https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1751353

o   https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1751356

o   https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1789263

o   https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1825022

Emergency Closing Bug

o   https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1818912

Volunteers to work on the Notices Project:

• Terri Foster

• Catherine Stewart

• Barb Mitchell

• Nicole Lenz

Minutes 09/05/2019

Attendees: Jennifer Bruch, Carrie Cleary, Lugene Shelly, Betty Renzulli, Anna Barbouni, Karen O’Connell, Terri Foster, Jessica Langanosky, Angie Devers, Natalie Arnold, Melanie (from IVPL), Christina Thomas, and some others who dropped in and out throughout the meeting

Topics Discussed:

System Slowness

• The group was asked if there was any improvement noticed regarding general system slowness.

• Some saw improvement in check in speeds and searches, while others did not see much improvement.

3.3 Update

• The update to 3.3 went smoothly for the majority of the group. 

• It is noted that some Catalogers do not like how some screen changed for usability reasons.

• It was not discussed directly but one screen to change is the edit item screen, the Save button is now on the bottom and almost always has to be scrolled to use. This affected Circ, Reference, and Cataloging people who might change an item’s status or shelving locations in the course of the day.

Inventory Date Field

• BAPL is hoping to do a Fall/Winter inventory project to test out this new feature. BAPL hopes to document a workflow and any necessary reports and provide it SPARK for documentation purposes.

• Several other libraries are interested in trying this out as well (APL, EAPL, Emmaus, etc.)

Notifications

• BAPL is in the process of evaluating email and print notifications for the best patron experience.

• For example, removing the written letter feel to email notifications. Making the item information fields consistent and meaningful across notices etc.

• A welcome letter for new users is also being considered.

• Several other libraries in the meeting expressed an interest on this process.

• It was noted during the meeting that notices for overdue and lost items are generated by the library that checked out the item. This is something to consider for libraries that are resource sharing, patrons might be getting notices from several different libraries during the course of a checked out item’s life cycle. Those libraries might want to consider working together to have consistent formatting and wording to avoid confusion for the patron.

Open Discussion:

• Some libraries who are resource sharing wondered if they needed to notify a library that their items were overdue when it was checked out somewhere else. Usually, such reports will filter on the owning library and not the library that checked it out, so perhaps not.

• The workflow for when an email notification bounced was discussed.

Minutes 05/16/2019

• Welcome to Carrie Cleary, SPARK’s new Executive Director

• Charter update: accepted by SPARK User Group Board

• Evergreen International Conference: overview and feedback (Please see links at bottom)Discussed upcoming transition to 3.3, which has a tentative date at the end of Aug.

• Carrie will share info on when the Test Server transitions to 3.3, and we can start testing it out

• Discussed testing and importance of documentation and training materials

• Call out to any libraries who would be willing to make circulation training documentation or videos for SPARK

Carrie asked for feedback on the following:

• General slowness of SPARK

• Live Support offering

Which led into discussions about:

• Refreshing the screen after every ten check-ins to combat slowness

• Prevalence of miss-scans resulting in transactions (transits, checkouts, rather than an invalid scan message)

• Questions of policy regarding unserved areas and access stickers on purchased cards (a statewide list of unserved areas might be helpful)

• Easton noticed “On Display” items did not get pulled for holds, there is a ticket in progress for this issue

Shared links:

2019 Conference Session Presentations

https://evergreen-ils.org/conference/2019-evergreen-international-conference/2019-presentations/

Link for Evergreen International mailing lists (recommend subscribing to the general and the circulation lists)

https://evergreen-ils.org/communicate/mailing-lists/

As a general reminder, here are some links for SPARK communication!

SPARK Facebook https://www.facebook.com/SPARKPA/

SPARK Users group   https://mail.palibrary.org/mailman/listinfo/spark-users

SPARK Catalogers group  https://mail.palibrary.org/mailman/listinfo/spark-cat

SPARK Reports group  https://mail.palibrary.org/mailman/listinfo/spark-reports

SPARK Knowledge Book  http://support.sparkpa.org/

SPARK Support Request  http://support.sparkpa.org/index.php?pg=request

Minutes 01/17/2019

• Jennifer Bruch asked the committee members to review the newest draft of the charter and approve via email.

• The practice of deleting patrons vs. marking patrons inactive was reviewed. In most cases libraries felt no need to mark patrons as inactive, using the expiration date to fill this role as usual.

• The SPARK policy on the practice of deleting patrons was reviewed in detail via their website. We discussed why the 5 year waiting period was place. This has to do the SPARK Aged Circulations rule, which is also set to 5 years. During this time circulation data and patron data are linked to each other. Thus if a patron is deleted with in this time frame, the reporting database could have errors when trying to run reports on circulation.

• Jennifer Bruch as emailed with Lugene Shelly and Equinox about this issue in the past and been reassured that deleting of patrons with certain parameters is still perfectly allowable. Several libraries emailed her in the past weeks about this issue as the beginning of the new year is typically when such projects would be arranged.

There are two circumstances in which it is safe to delete a patron account.

1. The first is if they have not used the account in the last 5 years, some say 6 years just be safe. Few libraries have been on SPARK that long for this rule to be of use.

2. The second circumstance is if the account has not been used at since it was migrated on SPARK. For example, a library card that expired in 2012 and never been used from a library that migrated to SPARK in 2018. In this circumstance it should be eligible to delete.

• In either case, a report can be run to find accounts to delete and they can be deleted by the library using Evergreen’s User Buckets or they can be submitted to Lugene and then Equinox for them to delete. This is recommended for reports with more a few thousand accounts. The User Buckets have some workflow bugs that make the process onerous for more the a few hundred.

• Karen at the Parkland Community Library asked for any thoughts on how to handle several hundred patrons accounts that were improperly merged during their migration. They are moving towards another merge in the future and they were hoping to find a way for these accounts to not create further chaos.

• No other topics were brought forward for discussion.

• The rest of the session was devoted to building a report to find expired patrons. How to use excel to filter and sort those results into manageable parts. Then how to save the barcodes as a csv to upload to User Buckets. Then we briefly reviewed using User buckets to changes parts of the patron record or to delete them, even if they owed fines. 

Agenda 

• Vote on last Meeting Minutes (see attached)

• Vote on Circulation Charter Final Draft (see attached)

Member Requests for Information:

• Tracking sales by non-members (Bill Patron system like Altoona?)

• Tracking Computer Usage (if no automated system, google forms?)

Minutes 10/03/2019

Attendees: Jennifer Bruch, Betty Rensulli, Terri Foster, Heather Lindskold

Action Items:

• Approved the Meeting Minutes for the June 6, 2018 meeting.

• Approved the final version of the Circulation Committee Charter, has been sent onto the User Board.

Agenda Items:

• After dealing with some technology challenges during the meeting, Jennifer will explore shared conference call subscriptions with SPARK for board and committee meetings. One standard way of conducting these meetings with a shared subscription might help ease some issues for members who want to be active in the SPARK community but have budget and technology limitations.

• Discussed reporting of bugs in Webby using Launchpad and the need for further training on its use. The more active the SPARK group is in reporting and tracking bugs the more likely our concerns will be addressed.

• Tunkhannock library asked for input on methods for tracking computer use because they do not have an automated system. They do have a solution in Evergreen that is working but they want to explore other options as well. Assigning their computers barcodes and then entering them into in house use was suggested. Another was barcodes that were check onto patrons account or a dummy account named computer use and then checked in when finished. These would be then traceable using reports. Jennifer will continue to explore their needs and solutions via email.

• Tunkhannock also asked for option on tracking bills paid by non members and the Altoona method was suggested for them. They would need to set up a dummy Bill Patron account then track it using the reports on payments, there are two in the reports committee shared folder that might work. Jennifer will continue to explore their needs and solutions via email.

• Easton desired a report to find teens library accounts by birthday. Jennifer experimented with a report using the between operator on the birth date with the year transform that might seems to meet their needs. Easton will continue to tweak it further. 

Minutes 06/06/2018

1.  Went over the charter—there were no objections to how it was written.

2.  If you have concerns or issues that need to be addressed sooner rather than later (outside of a Circulation Committee Meeting), please email those questions/concerns to Scott and Lugene. You can also email them suggestions for implementation.

3.  Join the Webby list serv for ongoing information about Webby development and to ask/answer questions from other Webby users.

4.  Mary (Equinox) had a webinar on searching SPARK which she recorded and made available for people who couldn’t make the webinar. The link to the recording was emailed out to the Committee by Jennifer.

5.  We discussed mis-scans due to barcodes not being uniform throughout all libraries. Some libraries still use shorter barcodes on materials and this is causing mis-scans to happen. What can we do about having consistent barcodes across the SPARK consortium?

6.  We discussed the idea of standardizing circulation policies and procedures across the SPARK consortium, recognizing that this is definitely a long-term goal.

7.  Discussed circulation statistics re: owning vs. circulating library. How does your particular consortium/group of libraries handle this?

8.  Does your library use stat cats for municipalities so you can report on those statistics? Jen will share her report used for patron count by municipality.T

9.  The rest of the meeting was about reports:

   1. •  When cloning reports, change the name a bit so you can tell them apart and remember which is the “good” one (Test 1, Test 2, etc.)

      •  Report requested for shelving locations so books in incorrect shelving locations can be corrected (report for items and barcodes in certain shelving locations)

      •  Went over how to create a report from scratch