I remember your presentation in Vancouver, Bill. Jealous. Doubly for that RFID 
setup you have! I was furiously taking notes until you mentioned the price tag. 
☺

If it’s handy, do you have a link to a product page for the signature pad you 
use?

-Holly

From: Open-ils-general 
[mailto:open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Bill 
Ott
Sent: Friday, May 29, 2015 11:34 AM
To: open-ils-general@list.georgialibraries.org
Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] patron registration

Years ago, we started storing a signature electronically, in the unused 
actor.photo_url field.  A hex string is generated by an outside application and 
encoded with a key that's required to decode the data back into a graphical 
representation of the signature.  There was some overhead in writing the 
application to dump the data into the EG database, and of course the signature 
pads themselves, but it beats storing a mountain of cards.

And yes, we have pulled the signature in a few cases where there was a dispute 
over whether or not someone was who they said they were, or if they had ever 
had a card.

On 05/29/2015 03:25 PM, Holly Brennan wrote:
Agreed. It seems to be more of liability than anything else. I’m beginning to 
think we’ve been keeping them because it’s what we’ve always done, and we’re 
library workers! Save everything! ☺

I received a direct reply from King County who said they don’t keep any either.

-Holly

From: Open-ils-general 
[mailto:open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of 
Elisabeth Keppler
Sent: Friday, May 29, 2015 11:18 AM
To: Evergreen Discussion Group
Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] patron registration

Forsyth quit holding onto paper registrations several years ago.  We require 
presentation of photo id and proof of mailing address but we don't require a 
signature.  Keeping paper is a security concern, anyway, since the forms 
contain personal data.

Best wishes,
Lise



On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 2:57 PM, Holly Brennan 
<haderh...@ci.homer.ak.us<mailto:haderh...@ci.homer.ak.us>> wrote:
I’ve set up everything needed for online patron registration, but haven’t 
implemented yet. The stumper is how we deal with hard copies of registrations.  
We’ve always had a paper app with signature and we file these in an old card 
catalog.

Do any of you NOT print registrations or keep any hard copies of patron info? 
Or do you have something simple with just an agreement and signature that 
doesn’t have to include much about the patron besides name?

I feel we might be holding onto paper for nothing. Reasons given to keep it:

1)      What if something tragic happens to our ILS? We’ll have paper to backup 
patron info. (My thoughts: If it’s THAT tragic, the whole building has likely 
been destroyed…. And also, we’re going to manually reenter patron info for each 
and every person?!)

2)      The patron’s signature is the true agreement. We can use it to hold 
them responsible for lost items, fines, etc. (I can’t think of a time, ever, 
that I’ve retrieved a paper app and pointed to a signature in order to convince 
a patron to do something they agreed to.)

My goal with this is to find a number of you who keep absolutely nothing on 
paper. (And who don’t even have a super cool digital signature contraption.)

Thanks!

-Holly

Holly Brennan
Library Technology Specialist
Homer Public Library, Alaska

hbren...@cityofhomer-ak.gov<mailto:hbren...@cityofhomer-ak.gov>
907-235-3180<tel:907-235-3180> (main)
907-435-3154<tel:907-435-3154> (direct)




--
Lise Keppler, Technical Services
Forsyth County Public Library
2851 Fairlawn Dr
Winston Salem NC  27106
336-703-3048

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