When copies of a book are needed for a reading club the simplest solution is to place a hold for each member of the club.
If you need to wait for all books to come in before distributing them to patrons, here is the recommended procedure:
- Create a Yourlibrary Book Club card with a profile of LIBRARYUSE.
There are multiple ways of doing this: Last Name “BOOKCLUB” First Name: Person running the club, or Last Name: LIBRARY First Name: BOOKCLUB, etc. Decide whose address to use, whose email to get the hold notices, etc
*** The main point is to use a profile of LIBRARYUSE instead of PUBLIC. *** - Place holds on all the copies you need using this card.
- As items arrive (or are about to expire), check them out to the GL Book Club card.
- As patrons arrive asking for the books, re-check them out to each individual. It will require an override, but that's OK.
This means that the copies have a Current Location of Checkedout so they don't appear Available, and you have a nice long window of opportunity to wait for the readers to come in and pick them up.
Using the Profile of LIBRARYUSE means there won’t be extra padded circ for checking the item out twice.
Since the book club titles will be out of the owning library for a longer period of time, titles should selected that have enough copies and are don’t have more than a few holds.