Sometimes our rabbis or staff need to take out library books when I am not here. This is how we do it: 1) Buy barcodes with an extra strip, containing the barcode number. 2) Maintain cards/pockets in the books as in pre-automation days. Put this barcode strip on the book cards. 3) If a book is checked out when no staff or volunteer is present, the patron signs his name to the book card and leaves it in a specified container on the circulation counter. 4) When staff comes in, he/she can then enter into the software that the book (barcode # on card) is checked out to patron X. 5) File the card. Now the tricky part! How will you know, when the book is returned and scanned in, that its card is filed away in the box? Here's what one of my clever volunteers designed. Create a bogus patron in your patron database. You can name him Mr. Cardbox. Before you file the signed book card, put the book "on reserve" for Mr. Cardbox. Then when you scan in the returned book, your program will alert you that "Mr. Cardbox" is waiting for the book. That tells you to retrieve the card;then you remove the Reserve/Hold on that book.
(=== On the other hand, some automation programs now have touch-screen kiosks that allow patrons to check out books when no staff is present. ) Andrea Rapp Wise Temple, Cincinnati Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: Hasafran @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html History: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/history.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
