What's New in WALS

Monday 'Minder 2025.04

smith's picture Submitted by smith on

Salutations!

Today's Topic:  Let's play "Find that Patron!!" 

With the rising costs of Hoopla and long hold lists on Libby, it is more imporant than ever to always, always, check carefully for duplicate patrons whenever issuing a new card. 

Complicating matters, it was determined at an ALL-WALS meeting that all WALS libraries would enter patron names "as written" (except in ALL-CAPS) on their ID or application form.  This means that VanderZanden gets entered as "VANDERZANDEN" and "Van der Zanden" gets entered  as "VAN DER ZANDEN."  This means last names won't sort together anymore. You need to search by Phone, Street, and Birthdate.  Read More...

Monday 'Minder 2025.03

smith's picture Submitted by smith on

Salutations!

Today’s Topic: How to get rid of all those Lost Item Alerts, or What to do when you get the “Item not found in Catalog” popup.

 When a patron doesn’t return an item, after 30 days it becomes LOST and the patron is Billed for the item. For 18-22 months, the item stays in LOST Limbo and remains in the database and on the patron’s record as LOST bill.  3-4 times/yr I run a report that moves these items and bills from LOST Limbo to UI Purgatory. This process removes the item from the database (so they don’t show in the catalog or WF), and removes the LOST bill, and replaces it with a UI-ITEM bill.  It also writes the item’s info to the patron record in the Lost Items Note field. Why do you care? ...Read more...

Monday 'Minder 2025.2

smith's picture Submitted by smith on

Salutations!

Today’s Topic: Creating displays with other library's materials...and Insert Link shortcut in MS Office.

Just a gentle reminder that borrowing time-sensitive books from other libraries to put on display in your library is not appropriate behavior for WALS libraries. We are asking libraries to honor patron holds and share their holiday materials when patrons place holds on specific titles, but that doesn't extend to "sharing" with staff from other libraries to create local displays of seasonal materials in their library....Read more...

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