Salutations!!

Today's topic: LibraryUse Cards, or, How should library staff checkout materials they use for their jobs? 

Materials checkedout to staff for purposes of doing their job does not count as circulation as far as your library stats go. That is why staff should never use their own personal cards for checking out Storytime materials, or books you're using for Book Clubs, etc.  Your personal card should only be used for materials you are checking out for your own personal use.  What should you do instead???? Read more.....

Circulation statistics reports decide which circs to count based on 3 broad criteria:

1. The WorkFlows Login used (which library gets the circ);
2. The item characteristics (how and what gets circ'd); 
3. The patron characteristics (to whom items gets circ'd). 

This 'Minder concerns the 3rd criteria.  The reports only count circ to certain User Profiles: BUSINESS, DEPOSIT, HOMEBOUND, J-RESTRICT, LIMITED, LIMITED3, PUBLIC, PUBLIC2, PUBLIC3, REMOVE, STAFF, TEACHER, and sometimes ILL.  Those are the profiles that represent actual, permanent, "real" patrons.  

So, in order to allow library staff to checkout materials that they need for their jobs, we have created a User Profile called "LIBRARYUSE." 

This Profile is excluded from statistics reports, it has an unlimited load period, and is FineFree, etc.   This profile is not to be used to checkout items for personal use--altho' the name on the record often includes the name of the staff person using it. In general, these users should have names like: "MENASHA LIBRARY, YS-KATHY" or "NPL STAFF, TECH LORI" or "DUMMY, OPL CIRC."  The point is that they are easily identifiable as "not a patron". They can either have a barcode that can be scanned, or can be text like "STORYTIME". The ID just needs to be unique.

For these LIBRARYUSE cards you may or may not want Charge History on. In theory, users with this profile shouldn't get any notifications, but just in case, you should use the address, demographics, whatever of your library, and a work (name@xxxxxlibrary.org) email address.  We recommend not entering a phone number and putting "?????"  in the Zipcode field as an added precaution to prevent any notifications except email.    

As always, if you have any questions, let Karla or Melissa know!

Excel Tip:  Format Painter is your friend!!  Located on the ribbon of the Home tab in Excel (upper left corner) there is the Format Painter icon. 

This is used to copy the formatting from one cell to another--or several others. If you highlight a cell and click the Format Painter icon it will apply the format settings from the first cell to the next cell or cells you highlight.   If you highlight a cell, and double-click the Format Painter, it will apply the formatting from the first cell to any cells you highlight until you  tell it to stop by clicking the Format Painter icon again.

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