Hello Daniel (& koha-dev), I'm reading your RFCs abour hourly circulation policies. and I have a question about them. Here in France, a common situation is the following : the students can issue ON SITE (in the library) some books (say 10), for the day. If they are happy with the book, they can take it at home, and, thus, make a "classic" issue. Thus, I was wondering wether your proposal can handle that. I don't think yes, but maybe i've misread something... If I'm not misreading, isn't it something that could be interesting for US libraries ? isn't it a common feature for what we call in France "conservation libraries". I mean here libraries that have large parts not accessible to the public : - the patron ask for a book, to see what is written here - a librarian goes in the undergrounds to get the book - it's issued for the day to the patron - 2 hours later, the patron comes back to the issuing librarian and ask for a "out of library" (ie : daily rules) issue -- Paul POULAIN http://www.biblibre.com Expert en Logiciels Libres pour l'info-doc NOUVEAU TELEPHONE : 04 91 81 35 08
Hi Paul, This is interesting. The scenario you describe would not be accounted for in the Hourly Circulation Policies specification. Libraries that I have talked to in the US and UK that have significant closed-stack or reserve collections don't seem to follow the model you talk about below. (Possibly I have led too sheltered of a life there.) The one thing that they do do is sometimes allow materials that are ordinarily library-use-only to leave the library overnight if the patron checks them out close to closing time. It actually would be a significant improvement in service if you could do it the way you describe though. From a system perspective, I think you would probably need more than one type of loan, so that you could give the patron an "in-library" loan for a few hours, using an hourly circulation policy, then let them upgrade some charges to an 'out-of- library' loan for a longer period of time. The circulation policies for each would be distinct. It might be hard for the circulation desk staff to always be sure what kind of loan they were giving someone. The existing model, with one kind of loan, is really simple--once the circulation staff have to pick more than one loan type the user interface becomes hard to manage. I'm just thinking out loud here-- there might be a better way to do that. Does that make sense to you? Thanks, salut, Dan --------------------------------------------------- Daniel Sweeney Senior Business Analyst - LibLime phone +1 (888) 564-2457 x718 skype daniel_f_sweeney email daniel.sweeney@liblime.com --------------------------------------------------- On Oct 15, 2008, at 8:38 AM, Paul POULAIN wrote:
Hello Daniel (& koha-dev),
I'm reading your RFCs abour hourly circulation policies. and I have a question about them. Here in France, a common situation is the following : the students can issue ON SITE (in the library) some books (say 10), for the day. If they are happy with the book, they can take it at home, and, thus, make a "classic" issue. Thus, I was wondering wether your proposal can handle that. I don't think yes, but maybe i've misread something...
If I'm not misreading, isn't it something that could be interesting for US libraries ? isn't it a common feature for what we call in France "conservation libraries". I mean here libraries that have large parts not accessible to the public : - the patron ask for a book, to see what is written here - a librarian goes in the undergrounds to get the book - it's issued for the day to the patron - 2 hours later, the patron comes back to the issuing librarian and ask for a "out of library" (ie : daily rules) issue
-- Paul POULAIN http://www.biblibre.com Expert en Logiciels Libres pour l'info-doc NOUVEAU TELEPHONE : 04 91 81 35 08
On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 6:30 PM, Daniel Sweeney <daniel.sweeney@liblime.com> wrote:
From a system perspective, I think you would probably need more than one type of loan, so that you could give the patron an "in-library" loan for a few hours, using an hourly circulation policy, then let them upgrade some charges to an 'out-of- library' loan for a longer period of time.
One thing that worries me about hourly circulation is that it should not conflict with a "regular" loan. Case: patron A has 10 books on her account, which is the maximum allowed; she comes to the library to read something "in-library", it just so happens that what she wants is in the stacks: we can't have Koha refuse to do this hourly loan because she has already reached the maximum number of documents on loan for her account. So yes, I think your make an important point here: hourly circulation should not be a "regular loan", just shorter; it should be a different type of loan. My 2 cts. Nicolas
The circulation policies for each would be distinct. It might be hard for the circulation desk staff to always be sure what kind of loan they were giving someone. The existing model, with one kind of loan, is really simple--once the circulation staff have to pick more than one loan type the user interface becomes hard to manage. I'm just thinking out loud here-- there might be a better way to do that.
Does that make sense to you?
Thanks, salut,
Dan
--------------------------------------------------- Daniel Sweeney Senior Business Analyst - LibLime
phone +1 (888) 564-2457 x718 skype daniel_f_sweeney email daniel.sweeney@liblime.com ---------------------------------------------------
On Oct 15, 2008, at 8:38 AM, Paul POULAIN wrote:
Hello Daniel (& koha-dev),
I'm reading your RFCs abour hourly circulation policies. and I have a question about them. Here in France, a common situation is the following : the students can issue ON SITE (in the library) some books (say 10), for the day. If they are happy with the book, they can take it at home, and, thus, make a "classic" issue. Thus, I was wondering wether your proposal can handle that. I don't think yes, but maybe i've misread something...
If I'm not misreading, isn't it something that could be interesting for US libraries ? isn't it a common feature for what we call in France "conservation libraries". I mean here libraries that have large parts not accessible to the public : - the patron ask for a book, to see what is written here - a librarian goes in the undergrounds to get the book - it's issued for the day to the patron - 2 hours later, the patron comes back to the issuing librarian and ask for a "out of library" (ie : daily rules) issue
-- Paul POULAIN http://www.biblibre.com Expert en Logiciels Libres pour l'info-doc NOUVEAU TELEPHONE : 04 91 81 35 08
_______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel@lists.koha.org http://lists.koha.org/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel
Nicolas Morin a écrit :
On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 6:30 PM, Daniel Sweeney <daniel.sweeney@liblime.com> wrote:
From a system perspective, I think you would probably need more than one type of loan, so that you could give the patron an "in-library" loan for a few hours, using an hourly circulation policy, then let them upgrade some charges to an 'out-of- library' loan for a longer period of time.
One thing that worries me about hourly circulation is that it should not conflict with a "regular" loan. Case: patron A has 10 books on her account, which is the maximum allowed; she comes to the library to read something "in-library", it just so happens that what she wants is in the stacks: we can't have Koha refuse to do this hourly loan because she has already reached the maximum number of documents on loan for her account. So yes, I think your make an important point here: hourly circulation should not be a "regular loan", just shorter; it should be a different type of loan.
What I was thinking was having something like : * circ rules are doubled. We have the "standard circ rule" and the "alternate circ rule". each of them being completly independant (one can be daily, one hourly, or both daily...) * on issuing screen (issue.pl), a checkbox let the librarian choose between "default" and "alternate" circ rules. The checkbox being preserved from one issue to the other. Thus, the library can issue quickly on a rule or another one. -- Paul POULAIN http://www.biblibre.com Expert en Logiciels Libres pour l'info-doc NOUVEAU TELEPHONE : 04 91 81 35 08
Hi Nicolas and Paul, In the North American case, and the way I have it written up now, an hourly loan is basically a regular loan, just shorter. A patron can't borrow the items for more than two hours, the same way they can't borrow the item for more than three weeks for a different kind of item. For a given item, there is only one way it can be, so having a single set of policies works in that model. As Nicolas points out, this is not true in the reservation libraries model. In the reservation libraries case we've been talking about, the way that Paul describes it was what I was thinking about a little bit, where there were two sets of policies available, and the circulation staff member would choose one or the other with a checkbox or a menu. The policies are easy to understand--there are two kinds of loan with different policies. That aspect of it is an interesting user interface design challenge-- people usually want the circulation work areas to be optimized for fast processing, but there are a lot of options available in there. The actual user interface might get cluttered and staff might start to loan things with the wrong policies, or get annoyed that they have to switch the menu back and forth from one loan type to another. Those two things start to conflict. I might be worrying too much about it--just adding a sticky drop-down menu for the checkout type might work there. I think this is something that someone could add as a separate project after the initial hourly loans work is done--the actual hourly loans are independent of having more than one loan type. Best, Dan --------------------------------------------------- Daniel Sweeney Senior Business Analyst - LibLime phone +1 (888) 564-2457 x718 skype daniel_f_sweeney email daniel.sweeney@liblime.com --------------------------------------------------- On Oct 16, 2008, at 7:41 AM, Paul POULAIN wrote:
Nicolas Morin a écrit :
On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 6:30 PM, Daniel Sweeney <daniel.sweeney@liblime.com> wrote:
From a system perspective, I think you would probably need more than one type of loan, so that you could give the patron an "in-library" loan for a few hours, using an hourly circulation policy, then let them upgrade some charges to an 'out- of- library' loan for a longer period of time.
One thing that worries me about hourly circulation is that it should not conflict with a "regular" loan. Case: patron A has 10 books on her account, which is the maximum allowed; she comes to the library to read something "in-library", it just so happens that what she wants is in the stacks: we can't have Koha refuse to do this hourly loan because she has already reached the maximum number of documents on loan for her account. So yes, I think your make an important point here: hourly circulation should not be a "regular loan", just shorter; it should be a different type of loan.
What I was thinking was having something like : * circ rules are doubled. We have the "standard circ rule" and the "alternate circ rule". each of them being completly independant (one can be daily, one hourly, or both daily...) * on issuing screen (issue.pl), a checkbox let the librarian choose between "default" and "alternate" circ rules. The checkbox being preserved from one issue to the other.
Thus, the library can issue quickly on a rule or another one.
-- Paul POULAIN http://www.biblibre.com Expert en Logiciels Libres pour l'info-doc NOUVEAU TELEPHONE : 04 91 81 35 08 _______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel@lists.koha.org http://lists.koha.org/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel
On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 4:19 PM, Daniel Sweeney <daniel.sweeney@liblime.com> wrote:
That aspect of it is an interesting user interface design challenge--people usually want the circulation work areas to be optimized for fast processing, but there are a lot of options available in there. The actual user interface might get cluttered and staff might start to loan things with the wrong policies, or get annoyed that they have to switch the menu back and forth from one loan type to another. Those two things start to conflict.
I might be worrying too much about it--just adding a sticky drop-down menu for the checkout type might work there.
That's what I argued with Paul: I entirely share your worries here.
I think this is something that someone could add as a separate project after the initial hourly loans work is done--the actual hourly loans are independent of having more than one loan type.
++ Nicolas
Best,
Dan
--------------------------------------------------- Daniel Sweeney Senior Business Analyst - LibLime
phone +1 (888) 564-2457 x718 skype daniel_f_sweeney email daniel.sweeney@liblime.com ---------------------------------------------------
On Oct 16, 2008, at 7:41 AM, Paul POULAIN wrote:
Nicolas Morin a écrit :
On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 6:30 PM, Daniel Sweeney <daniel.sweeney@liblime.com> wrote:
From a system perspective, I think you would probably need more than one type of loan, so that you could give the patron an "in-library" loan for a few hours, using an hourly circulation policy, then let them upgrade some charges to an 'out-of- library' loan for a longer period of time.
One thing that worries me about hourly circulation is that it should not conflict with a "regular" loan. Case: patron A has 10 books on her account, which is the maximum allowed; she comes to the library to read something "in-library", it just so happens that what she wants is in the stacks: we can't have Koha refuse to do this hourly loan because she has already reached the maximum number of documents on loan for her account. So yes, I think your make an important point here: hourly circulation should not be a "regular loan", just shorter; it should be a different type of loan.
What I was thinking was having something like : * circ rules are doubled. We have the "standard circ rule" and the "alternate circ rule". each of them being completly independant (one can be daily, one hourly, or both daily...) * on issuing screen (issue.pl), a checkbox let the librarian choose between "default" and "alternate" circ rules. The checkbox being preserved from one issue to the other.
Thus, the library can issue quickly on a rule or another one.
-- Paul POULAIN http://www.biblibre.com Expert en Logiciels Libres pour l'info-doc NOUVEAU TELEPHONE : 04 91 81 35 08 _______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel@lists.koha.org http://lists.koha.org/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel
participants (3)
-
Daniel Sweeney -
Nicolas Morin -
Paul POULAIN