[Koha-devel] Question about behavior of SIP AF Screen Message information

[Mike Monk]

Our Company provides self service software and related products for libraries.   We are working with a customer where an unusual situation has occurred and need to understand whether the environment is representative of Koha typical behavior, a problem with a particular release or unique to this customer because it is not something we have seen with other systems nor have any of our Koha users reported problems.  We are attempting to help this Koha customer solve a problem.

The protocol document describes the use of the screen message (AF) field as text for display to a borrower, typically informative information related to blocks or other reasons why a patron cannot circulate an item.   We use AF information to set rules for access to computers and of course for self check out and we display the contents of the AF field to the borrower.  Often the text in AF is consistent for given conditions so that the contents are predictable.   

In this customer's environment there are unique, manually created one-off messages that are obviously intended to be seen only by staff (circulation type information that is not appropriate for a patron to see)  embedded in some very lengthy AF fields in the SIP response.  It appears that the field is continuously appended with patron-facing and staff-facing text, making the strings quite long and unpredictable.  

Any insight into this will be appreciated.

Thanks

Mike Monk
EnvisionWare, Inc.