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Monday 'Minder 2021.11

smith's picture Submitted by smith on

Salutations, and Happy Memorial Day!

Today's Topic: Spring Housecleaning! aka Database Maintenance

Just as one cleans out one's garden at certain times of the year, so I do periodic cleaning of our shared database. It is frustrating for patrons to see search results with copies that say "Withdrawn". Also, since WALS fees are based in part on the number of items and patrons each library has, and we take that snapshot in early June, I always make sure to to a thorough spring cleaning in May to clear out as many old, unused records as possible.  

The obvious ones to clean up are those items you all weeded. You check out weeded items to your WD-XX user (ex WD-PO, for PoySippi), and that changes the status (Current Location) to WITHDRAWN2 which patrons can't see in the catalog.  The next step is a report to move all those withdrawn items to a special, system-location of DISCARD.  As I said, those are the obvious ones, but there are a bunch more. For example...

Monday Minder 2021.10

smith's picture Submitted by smith on

Salutations!

This week's Monday 'Minder is about MISSHOLD, or what to do when something is supposed to be on your Holds shelf but isn't.

First, let's make sure we're all starting from the same place: Y'all are logging into WorkFlows REPORTS every morning and looking at your Clean Holds report and removing from your Holds shelf any/all titles that appear on that report, right? Right??!!   Look, I know it seems faster just to scan your shelf/ves for things that weren't picked up--but that is doing a disservice to a bunch of patrons out there. The Clean Holds report is more than just holds that didn't get pickedup.  It also lists holds that patrons have cancelled.  The report tells you if there is another patron hold on that item. The report puts all expired or cancelled holds INTRANSIT.    Often there are other folks waiting for those titles, don't make them wait longer than necessary or wonder why it takes 5 days for their hold to arrive when the catalog shows it's on its way just because you don't want to bother looking at a report, OK? OK. Anyway, about MISSHOLD...

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