Removing Patrons--Dead or Alive!

There has always been some confusion about what to do with patrons whom you are sure are never coming back into your library or who ask to have their record removed. Perhaps they moved to Turkmenistan, perhaps they died, perhaps both.  The procedure for dealing with these patron records has changed in the past year or two. Here is the current procedure:

Use Modify User to edit the patron record. 

  • Change the User Profile to REMOVE.   Do not use DISCARD.
  • In the address, change the zip code to ????? and remove the email address. This will prevent notices from being sent.
  • If the patron is dead, add the word DECEASED and a space before the last name of the user.   Example: DECEASED, DOE, JOHN
  • On the extended Info Tab, enter a note to indicate which library made the change and the date of the change:
  • Example: OPL-Moved. Do not use. 6/24/2004

Be sure to save the changes after making the edits.

Periodically, reports are run to remove older, unused records from the database.

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