Salutations!

Today's Topic:  To Bar, or Not to Bar? That is the question!
Tech Tip: Open Shared Teams docs in desktop app! 

Anytime a library wishes to stop a user from being able to use a library card, their status may be manually set to BARRED. Patrons may be Barred temporarily or more permanently. Barring a patron should not be done lightly. The Barred status excludes patrons from the normal database maintenance. 

BARRED is different than a status of DELINQUENT, which indicates the patron has unpaid fines or overdue items, and is set automatically as soon as the patron owes more than a penny. Despite the name, these patrons are still in good standing and may check out as usual.  A delinquent patron with too high fines or too many overdues may automatically be given a status of BLOCKED--which stops them from checking out. A Barred patron has been manually blocked from checking out.

Some examples of when patrons are set to Barred:

• Phone, email, or mail messages returned as invalid -- The account is barred until phone/email/address verified
• Patron complained of others using card – The account is barred, and then unbarred to checkout and rebarred after checkout is complete

Some examples of when NOT to set patrons to Barred(This changed ~2018):

• Duplicate card found -- Instead of Barring, move existing bills, holds, and checkouts to active card and then set Profile to REMOVE
• Deceased or moved patrons -- Instead of Barring, remove existing bills, holds, and checkouts and then set Profile to REMOVE

How to Bar a Patron:

• Click the Modify/Renew User Wizard
• Either scan patron card (if available) or search for patron through the User Search helper.
• Locate patron in hitlist (verify with birthdate and phone number)
• Highlight patron and click “Modify User”
• In user record, click on “Privilege” tab.In “Status” dropdown box, click the arrow and select “Barred”. Enter your override.
• Click on “Extended Info” Tab.
• In “Comment” box, write a note explaining why the status was set to Barred.
  • Notes will vary based on circumstances: see Deceased Patron and Duplicate User Record for two other examples.
  • It is extremely important that you include the library’s initials in the Note (ex: OS – Oshkosh Public Library), and be as detailed as possible, so that others can tell who placed the note in the record, and under what circumstances to unbar the card
• Make other changes to user record as necessary (indicating Duplicate or Deceased, removing email addresses, etc). 
• When finished, press Save to close the record.

To Unbar Patron:

• Click Modify/Renew User Wizard.
• Either scan patron card, or search for patron through the User Search helper.
• Type in Last Name, first initial of First Name. Press the Search button or hit the Enter Key
• Locate patron in hitlist (verify with birthdate and phone number)
• Highlight patron and click “Modify User”
• In user record, click on “Privilege” tab.
• In “Status” dropdown box, click the arrow and select “Okay”. Enter your override.
• Click on “Extended Info” tab.
• Remove any note in Comment box.
• Make other changes as necessary.
• When finished, press Save to close the user record.

Tech Tip: Open Shared Teams docs in desktop app! Just like you can change your Outlook settings to open attachments in Word or Excel(see Monday 'Minder 2025.01), you can set Teams to open documents in the desktop app, or in a browser, instead of in Teams(default setting). 

Click on the 3 little dots by your image (upper right), choose Settings, then go to "Files and Links."

That's it for this week... Make today a nice day!! 

Share & Enjoy!
Karla