Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books?
Jennifer, I also work in a small academic library, and I was initially surprised that bib records were just being flagged as deleted. Like you, I soon understood how important that feature is for consortiums, as well as others. I think with time, academic libraries using EG can come up with ideas for new features or workflows that might work better for small/academic library needs, yet not getting in the way of the requirements of large libraries. I also agree with you that with deleting bibs, this is something that might best work as a batch process run that can only be run by a trusted employee, since if done incorrectly the effects would be huge. To those reading along, here is the wiki page for the Evergreen for Academics for those that have not seen it. http://wiki.evergreen-ils.org/doku.php?id=evergreen_for_academics Jennifer's library has contributed to this group already, and we are planning our next meeting in late September. This group can use more volunteers to come up with, when applicable, customized workflows, code, or configurations for the use in academics libraries. Then again, I expect we might come up with ideas that might be useful for any EG library or consortium. Thanks, Yamil On Fri, Aug 7, 2015 at 10:34 AM, Walz, Jennifer jlw...@asbury.edu wrote: Martha, Thank you for an example. I should try to give more myself. :-) But there is a bit of a flaw of logic in what you are stating - at least from our perspective. For almost ALL items we delete, we do check the circ history first. MOST items we do delete are items that have NOT circulated. Ergo, they will not have any data in the circ table. Or should not. Also, we do not care about historical data really longer than about 1 year ago. Maybe 2 years at best. And certainly not for items we have deleted. Because we have deleted them with purpose, we don't need them to still be hanging around in the background cluttering up the data for actual, real, current, on-the-shelf books. It now really bugs me that deleted items are messing up my stats about circulation as well. In the case of lost, damaged or really old books, if they are deleted, I don't care how they circulated prior to deletion. They were well used obviously, but it is of no concern after it is removed. However, I DO see these concerns are real for other situations. We don't want to impose our concerns over those of others. That is why I think it would be good to have an OPTION to fully and completely delete records with impunity. It could even be something that is done in batches AFTER all stats and data have been retrieved that is needed.That way, you can be sure to have full knowledge of what you are doing, but in the end, your system is cleaned of all the drek. Here is an example that just presented itself where I would be very concerned if all the data hung around our system for all eternity. We have just now completed entering in items to a collection of materials that might be considered on any other campus to be a department library. We are doing this as an experiment and don't know how long it will last. We did it out of courtesy to another academic department on campus. They house the materials in another building that only their students use. Most of their materials are pamphlets or flyers or other things of that kind.But when they decide that they don't want to use our catalog any more, or want to get rid of all or most of their items, then what? They will still all be hanging around in the background forever?They will count in our circulation stats?I'd rather not.If they get removed, I'd like them to be removed completely and permanently. Never to be seen or heard from again. Thanks! Jennifer -- Jennifer Walz, MLS - Head of ILS Confundity Kinlaw Library - Asbury University One Macklem Drive, Wilmore, KY 40390 859-858-3511 ext. 2269 jlw...@asbury.edu -Original Message- From: Open-ils-general [mailto:open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Martha Driscoll Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2015 11:15 AM To: open-ils-general@list.georgialibraries.org Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books? Hi Jennifer, The way the system is currently designed, the expectation is that the copy data will be available even if the people want to delete a record. The circulation tables records each circulation transaction. That table is used in reports that need to count circulation statistics. The table does not record specific information about the copy that was circulated, but it does point back to the specific copy. Let's say a professor wants to know how the eastern religion books circulated over the last 5 years. Maybe the college put some money into that program and bought a lot of material
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books?
Jennifer, Just to address the “weird and random empty records” you see. Do you have your settings set to automatically delete a bib record if the last copy/volume is deleted? A record that is imported into the database but never had copies attached (or set up for electronic resources without copies) won’t automatically delete. We run a nightly script that deletes any empty bib record that has been in the database for six months. Since the workflow for some PINES libraries results in titles being imported days or months before vols/copies are added, the Cataloging subcommittee determined 6 months would give libraries ample time to add items to any record they still want. People make mistakes and bring over the wrong record. They don’t always know how to correct it so they just leave it. The script ensures that we don’t have to worry about them. Records without vols/items shouldn’t show up in a public-facing OPAC search (unless that is a setting?). They do show up in a staff client OPAC search. Elaine J. Elaine Hardy PINES Collaborative Projects Manager Georgia Public Library Service 1800 Century Place, Ste 150 Atlanta, Ga. 30345-4304 404.235.7128 404.235.7201, fax eha...@georgialibraries.org www.georgialibraries.org www.georgialibraries.org/pines From: Open-ils-general [mailto:open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Walz, Jennifer Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2015 9:40 AM To: Evergreen Discussion Group Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books? Mike, Yup. That is precisely it. I don’t want to have to remember to filter for “deleted”. That seems really a weird expectation, when it should have been deleted. (meaning it is not there)J And it clutters up the server. I like clean systems and only the stuff we have is there and nothing else. And we get weird and random empty records that we can’t figure out how they got there. Did someone make a mistake? Did the system get confused? Did we do something wrong? Then fixing that is just a pain. Would be nice to blast everything and just start over. With the phantom records hanging around the system, you can’t really do that. Maybe we could have a report run that “clears” the system only when you run it. It could be an admin only function and run when it is deemed appropriate. Our previous system had reports like that. It was lovely. Thanks! Jennifer -- Jennifer Walz, MLS - Head of ILS Random Weirdness Kinlaw Library - Asbury University One Macklem Drive, Wilmore, KY 40390 859-858-3511 ext. 2269 jlw...@asbury.edu From: Open-ils-general [mailto:open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Mike Rylander Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2015 10:43 AM To: Evergreen Discussion Group Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books? Jennifer, Where, other than reports that lack a filter on Is deleted, are these items showing up? Thanks, -- Mike Rylander | President | Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts | phone: 1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457) | email: mi...@esilibrary.com | web: http://www.esilibrary.com On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 10:35 AM, Walz, Jennifer jlw...@asbury.edu wrote: All – I completely understand! This is a valuable option for those folks who need this. But there should ALSO be an option for completely and utterly obliterating the record – if you need to.We just REMOVED about 600 books from our collection (remember that we are an academic library) and we never want to see them again. We expect that they are weeded and gone. But no. They are still hanging around the system to clutter things up. And confuse things too. That is why we are experiencing so much problem with our items we are moving around into a new Children’s collection. We weeded, we merged, and now we are changing call numbers. But the “deleted” stuff keeps showing up when we THOUGHT we deleted it and never want to see it again. I’m NOT saying to remove the option to “hide” items in case you want to use them again or in the case where there are items attached or fines or such. BUT, it would be really great to also have the option to really and finally REMOVE items from the system. There are times when that is needed as well. Thanks! Jennifer -- Jennifer Walz, MLS - Head of ILS Ministrations Kinlaw Library - Asbury University One Macklem Drive, Wilmore, KY 40390 859-858-3511 ext. 2269 tel:859-858-3511%20ext.%202269 jlw...@asbury.edu From: Open-ils-general [mailto:open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Rogan Hamby Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2015 10:10 AM To: Evergreen Discussion Group Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books? Oh yeah, they reappear like
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books?
Mike, Yup. That is precisely it. I don’t want to have to remember to filter for “deleted”. That seems really a weird expectation, when it should have been deleted. (meaning it is not there)☺ And it clutters up the server. I like clean systems and only the stuff we have is there and nothing else. And we get weird and random empty records that we can’t figure out how they got there. Did someone make a mistake? Did the system get confused? Did we do something wrong? Then fixing that is just a pain. Would be nice to blast everything and just start over. With the phantom records hanging around the system, you can’t really do that. Maybe we could have a report run that “clears” the system only when you run it. It could be an admin only function and run when it is deemed appropriate. Our previous system had reports like that. It was lovely. Thanks! Jennifer -- Jennifer Walz, MLS - Head of ILS Random Weirdness Kinlaw Library - Asbury University One Macklem Drive, Wilmore, KY 40390 859-858-3511 ext. 2269 jlw...@asbury.edu From: Open-ils-general [mailto:open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Mike Rylander Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2015 10:43 AM To: Evergreen Discussion Group Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books? Jennifer, Where, other than reports that lack a filter on Is deleted, are these items showing up? Thanks, -- Mike Rylander | President | Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts | phone: 1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457) | email: mi...@esilibrary.commailto:mi...@esilibrary.com | web: http://www.esilibrary.com On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 10:35 AM, Walz, Jennifer jlw...@asbury.edumailto:jlw...@asbury.edu wrote: All – I completely understand! This is a valuable option for those folks who need this. But there should ALSO be an option for completely and utterly obliterating the record – if you need to.We just REMOVED about 600 books from our collection (remember that we are an academic library) and we never want to see them again. We expect that they are weeded and gone. But no. They are still hanging around the system to clutter things up. And confuse things too. That is why we are experiencing so much problem with our items we are moving around into a new Children’s collection. We weeded, we merged, and now we are changing call numbers. But the “deleted” stuff keeps showing up when we THOUGHT we deleted it and never want to see it again. I’m NOT saying to remove the option to “hide” items in case you want to use them again or in the case where there are items attached or fines or such. BUT, it would be really great to also have the option to really and finally REMOVE items from the system. There are times when that is needed as well. Thanks! Jennifer -- Jennifer Walz, MLS - Head of ILS Ministrations Kinlaw Library - Asbury University One Macklem Drive, Wilmore, KY 40390 859-858-3511 ext. 2269tel:859-858-3511%20ext.%202269 jlw...@asbury.edumailto:jlw...@asbury.edu From: Open-ils-general [mailto:open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.orgmailto:open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Rogan Hamby Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2015 10:10 AM To: Evergreen Discussion Group Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books? Oh yeah, they reappear like fleas. It's one reason I don't like obliterating, things that folks are sure they never want to see again one day suddenly are desirable the next. On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 10:00 AM, Jason Stephenson jstephen...@mvlc.orgmailto:jstephen...@mvlc.org wrote: Funny thing about deleted copies is they come back! Just last week I was asked to undelete about 1 dozen copies that showed up in the returns. If you really delete them from the database, you can't do that. Just some food for thought. Jason -- Jason Stephenson Assistant Director for Technology Services Merrimack Valley Library Consortium 4 High ST, Suite 175 North Andover, MA 01845 Phone: 978-557-5891tel:978-557-5891 Email: jstephen...@mvlc.orgmailto:jstephen...@mvlc.org -- Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services, York County Library System “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewishttp://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books?
Hi Jennifer, The way the system is currently designed, the expectation is that the copy data will be available even if the people want to delete a record. The circulation tables records each circulation transaction. That table is used in reports that need to count circulation statistics. The table does not record specific information about the copy that was circulated, but it does point back to the specific copy. Let's say a professor wants to know how the eastern religion books circulated over the last 5 years. Maybe the college put some money into that program and bought a lot of material. Maybe some of the copies were damaged or lost and removed from the collection over the span of that 5 years. If the copies are gone when you run a circulation report, you won't be able to count by things like copy call number or copy statistical category. That data would have been removed with the copy. The same is true for bibliographic data. If the circulation transaction can't find the original bib, then categorizing your statistics by bib data won't be possible. The circulations will still be present in that table, but drilling down to specific details will be lost. Martha Driscoll Systems Manager North of Boston Library Exchange Danvers, Massachusetts www.noblenet.org On 8/6/2015 9:39 AM, Walz, Jennifer wrote: Mike, Yup. That is precisely it. I don’t want to have to remember to filter for “deleted”. That seems really a weird expectation, when it should have been deleted. (meaning it is not there) J And it clutters up the server. I like clean systems and only the stuff we have is there and nothing else. And we get weird and random empty records that we can’t figure out how they got there. Did someone make a mistake? Did the system get confused? Did we do something wrong? Then fixing that is just a pain. Would be nice to blast everything and just start over. With the phantom records hanging around the system, you can’t really do that. Maybe we could have a report run that “clears” the system only when you run it. It could be an admin only function and run when it is deemed appropriate. Our previous system had reports like that. It was lovely. Thanks! Jennifer -- Jennifer Walz, MLS - Head of ILS Random Weirdness Kinlaw Library - *Asbury University* One Macklem Drive, Wilmore, KY 40390 859-858-3511 ext. 2269 jlw...@asbury.edu *From:*Open-ils-general [mailto:open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] *On Behalf Of *Mike Rylander *Sent:* Wednesday, August 05, 2015 10:43 AM *To:* Evergreen Discussion Group *Subject:* Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books? Jennifer, Where, other than reports that lack a filter on Is deleted, are these items showing up? Thanks, -- Mike Rylander | President | Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts | phone: 1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457) | email: mi...@esilibrary.com mailto:mi...@esilibrary.com | web: http://www.esilibrary.com On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 10:35 AM, Walz, Jennifer jlw...@asbury.edu mailto:jlw...@asbury.edu wrote: All – I completely understand! This is a valuable option for those folks who need this. But there should ALSO be an option for completely and utterly obliterating the record – if you need to.We just REMOVED about 600 books from our collection (remember that we are an academic library) and we never want to see them again. We expect that they are weeded and gone. But no. They are still hanging around the system to clutter things up. And confuse things too. That is why we are experiencing so much problem with our items we are moving around into a new Children’s collection. We weeded, we merged, and now we are changing call numbers. But the “deleted” stuff keeps showing up when we THOUGHT we deleted it and never want to see it again. I’m NOT saying to remove the option to “hide” items in case you want to use them again or in the case where there are items attached or fines or such. BUT, it would be really great to also have the option to really and finally REMOVE items from the system. There are times when that is needed as well. Thanks! Jennifer -- Jennifer Walz, MLS - Head of ILS Ministrations Kinlaw Library - *Asbury University* One Macklem Drive, Wilmore, KY 40390 859-858-3511 ext. 2269 tel:859-858-3511%20ext.%202269 jlw...@asbury.edu mailto:jlw...@asbury.edu *From:*Open-ils-general [mailto:open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org mailto:open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] *On Behalf Of *Rogan Hamby *Sent:* Wednesday, August 05, 2015 10:10 AM *To:* Evergreen Discussion Group *Subject:* Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books? Oh yeah, they reappear like fleas. It's one reason I don't like obliterating, things that folks are sure they never want to see again one day
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books?
Hi Jennifer, - Original Message - From: Jennifer Walz jlw...@asbury.edu Yup. That is precisely it. I don’t want to have to remember to filter for “deleted”. That seems really a weird expectation, when it should have been deleted. (meaning it is not there)☺ Just in case it makes a difference, and you may already know this, but you can (and probably should) start hard coding deleted = false into all relevant reports templates. This can be done when selecting Deleted? (or Is Deleted? or whatever the actual column is named in the reporter) as a Base Filter, highlighting it, and clicking Change Value. You will be prompted with an alert box that allows you to click OK for True and Cancel for False. Then you won't have to think about it again each time the template is run. Just a suggestion to address that particular point. Hope that's helpful! Chris -- Chris Sharp PINES System Administrator Georgia Public Library Service 1800 Century Place, Suite 150 Atlanta, Georgia 30345 (404) 235-7147 csh...@georgialibraries.org http://pines.georgialibraries.org/
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts
I hope this question isn’t too obvious, but I can’t seem to find it: how does one “turn on the deleted flag on the account?” Thank you, Scott From: Open-ils-general [mailto:open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Rogan Hamby Sent: Tuesday, August 04, 2015 4:44 PM To: Evergreen Discussion Group open-ils-general@list.georgialibraries.org Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts There are other issues that can come up with reporting and aged circulations but those are more workflow issues than technical ones. All of this being a very long way of saying there are pros and cons with every choice. :) On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 3:54 PM, Jason Etheridge ja...@esilibrary.commailto:ja...@esilibrary.com wrote: Thank you for replying. One thing you mentioned has piqued my interest. It might be easier if I gave a scenario instead of trying to describe what I mean. Say, on January 2, 2016, I run a report on circulation for 2015 and then, a month later, delete many patrons some of whom had checked out materials in 2015. If I ran the same 2015 report again after the deletions, would the numbers be different because the patrons were purged? In other words, when a patron is deleted, do their countable circ transactions go with them? There is a trigger on the circulation table that will convert circulations being deleted into aged (essentially anonymous) circulations. Depending on how you write your report, you can get some statistics that way. -- Jason Etheridge | Community and Migration Manager | Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts | phone: 1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457) | email: ja...@esilibrary.commailto:ja...@esilibrary.com | web: http://www.esilibrary.com -- Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services, York County Library System “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewishttp://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts
It's typically done on the database level not in the staff client. For example a library might say we don't have a reciprocal borrowing agreement with county X anymore can you delete all the addresses with Zip Codes Y, Z and Q? and we do it. On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 7:57 AM, Scott Thomas sc...@albright.org wrote: I hope this question isn’t too obvious, but I can’t seem to find it: how does one “turn on the deleted flag on the account?” Thank you, Scott *From:* Open-ils-general [mailto: open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] *On Behalf Of *Rogan Hamby *Sent:* Tuesday, August 04, 2015 4:44 PM *To:* Evergreen Discussion Group open-ils-general@list.georgialibraries.org *Subject:* Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts There are other issues that can come up with reporting and aged circulations but those are more workflow issues than technical ones. All of this being a very long way of saying there are pros and cons with every choice. :) On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 3:54 PM, Jason Etheridge ja...@esilibrary.com wrote: Thank you for replying. One thing you mentioned has piqued my interest. It might be easier if I gave a scenario instead of trying to describe what I mean. Say, on January 2, 2016, I run a report on circulation for 2015 and then, a month later, delete many patrons some of whom had checked out materials in 2015. If I ran the same 2015 report again after the deletions, would the numbers be different because the patrons were purged? In other words, when a patron is deleted, do their countable circ transactions go with them? There is a trigger on the circulation table that will convert circulations being deleted into aged (essentially anonymous) circulations. Depending on how you write your report, you can get some statistics that way. -- Jason Etheridge | Community and Migration Manager | Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts | phone: 1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457) | email: ja...@esilibrary.com | web: http://www.esilibrary.com -- Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services, York County Library System “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewis http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis -- Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services, York County Library System “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewis http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books?
Funny thing about deleted copies is they come back! Just last week I was asked to undelete about 1 dozen copies that showed up in the returns. If you really delete them from the database, you can't do that. Just some food for thought. Jason -- Jason Stephenson Assistant Director for Technology Services Merrimack Valley Library Consortium 4 High ST, Suite 175 North Andover, MA 01845 Phone: 978-557-5891 Email: jstephen...@mvlc.org
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books?
Oh yeah, they reappear like fleas. It's one reason I don't like obliterating, things that folks are sure they never want to see again one day suddenly are desirable the next. On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 10:00 AM, Jason Stephenson jstephen...@mvlc.org wrote: Funny thing about deleted copies is they come back! Just last week I was asked to undelete about 1 dozen copies that showed up in the returns. If you really delete them from the database, you can't do that. Just some food for thought. Jason -- Jason Stephenson Assistant Director for Technology Services Merrimack Valley Library Consortium 4 High ST, Suite 175 North Andover, MA 01845 Phone: 978-557-5891 Email: jstephen...@mvlc.org -- Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services, York County Library System “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewis http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books?
All – I completely understand! This is a valuable option for those folks who need this. But there should ALSO be an option for completely and utterly obliterating the record – if you need to.We just REMOVED about 600 books from our collection (remember that we are an academic library) and we never want to see them again. We expect that they are weeded and gone. But no. They are still hanging around the system to clutter things up. And confuse things too. That is why we are experiencing so much problem with our items we are moving around into a new Children’s collection. We weeded, we merged, and now we are changing call numbers. But the “deleted” stuff keeps showing up when we THOUGHT we deleted it and never want to see it again. I’m NOT saying to remove the option to “hide” items in case you want to use them again or in the case where there are items attached or fines or such. BUT, it would be really great to also have the option to really and finally REMOVE items from the system. There are times when that is needed as well. Thanks! Jennifer -- Jennifer Walz, MLS - Head of ILS Ministrations Kinlaw Library - Asbury University One Macklem Drive, Wilmore, KY 40390 859-858-3511 ext. 2269 jlw...@asbury.edu From: Open-ils-general [mailto:open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Rogan Hamby Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2015 10:10 AM To: Evergreen Discussion Group Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books? Oh yeah, they reappear like fleas. It's one reason I don't like obliterating, things that folks are sure they never want to see again one day suddenly are desirable the next. On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 10:00 AM, Jason Stephenson jstephen...@mvlc.orgmailto:jstephen...@mvlc.org wrote: Funny thing about deleted copies is they come back! Just last week I was asked to undelete about 1 dozen copies that showed up in the returns. If you really delete them from the database, you can't do that. Just some food for thought. Jason -- Jason Stephenson Assistant Director for Technology Services Merrimack Valley Library Consortium 4 High ST, Suite 175 North Andover, MA 01845 Phone: 978-557-5891tel:978-557-5891 Email: jstephen...@mvlc.orgmailto:jstephen...@mvlc.org -- Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services, York County Library System “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewishttp://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books?
Jennifer, Where, other than reports that lack a filter on Is deleted, are these items showing up? Thanks, -- Mike Rylander | President | Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts | phone: 1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457) | email: mi...@esilibrary.com | web: http://www.esilibrary.com On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 10:35 AM, Walz, Jennifer jlw...@asbury.edu wrote: All – I completely understand! This is a valuable option for those folks who need this. But there should ALSO be an option for completely and utterly obliterating the record – if you need to.We just REMOVED about 600 books from our collection (remember that we are an academic library) and we never want to see them again. We expect that they are weeded and gone. But no. They are still hanging around the system to clutter things up. And confuse things too. That is why we are experiencing so much problem with our items we are moving around into a new Children’s collection. We weeded, we merged, and now we are changing call numbers. But the “deleted” stuff keeps showing up when we THOUGHT we deleted it and never want to see it again. I’m NOT saying to remove the option to “hide” items in case you want to use them again or in the case where there are items attached or fines or such. BUT, it would be really great to also have the option to really and finally REMOVE items from the system. There are times when that is needed as well. Thanks! Jennifer -- Jennifer Walz, MLS - Head of ILS Ministrations Kinlaw Library - *Asbury University* One Macklem Drive, Wilmore, KY 40390 859-858-3511 ext. 2269 jlw...@asbury.edu *From:* Open-ils-general [mailto: open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] *On Behalf Of *Rogan Hamby *Sent:* Wednesday, August 05, 2015 10:10 AM *To:* Evergreen Discussion Group *Subject:* Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books? Oh yeah, they reappear like fleas. It's one reason I don't like obliterating, things that folks are sure they never want to see again one day suddenly are desirable the next. On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 10:00 AM, Jason Stephenson jstephen...@mvlc.org wrote: Funny thing about deleted copies is they come back! Just last week I was asked to undelete about 1 dozen copies that showed up in the returns. If you really delete them from the database, you can't do that. Just some food for thought. Jason -- Jason Stephenson Assistant Director for Technology Services Merrimack Valley Library Consortium 4 High ST, Suite 175 North Andover, MA 01845 Phone: 978-557-5891 Email: jstephen...@mvlc.org -- Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services, York County Library System “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewis http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books?
I didn't think that's what you meant, it's just what popped in my head. Reference work has taught me to never assume I do know what folks mean. :) On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 4:49 PM, Walz, Jennifer jlw...@asbury.edu wrote: All – Well, I am sorry that I was not obvious enough.But CERTAINLY I would not want to delete anything with items / volumes / copies attached. That is just silly. But I seriously don’t care about the bib / item / copy etc when it CAN be deleted. I don’t want “ historical” data. The whole point of deletion is to delete it! So, make it go away. Otherwise, call it something else and “park” it in a hidden status or something. Don’t call it deleting, if you are actually NOT deleting it in actual fact. When I delete something it goes away – off the server, out of the data record, gone. And now that I know that patron records are not actually deleted either??!! UGH!! You are killing me.I like clean data files. And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming… Jennifer -- Jennifer Walz, MLS - Head of Research Distance Services Kinlaw Library - *Asbury University* One Macklem Drive, Wilmore, KY 40390 859-858-3511 ext. 2269 jlw...@asbury.edu *From:* Open-ils-general [mailto: open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] *On Behalf Of *Rogan Hamby *Sent:* Tuesday, August 04, 2015 4:42 PM *To:* Evergreen Discussion Group *Subject:* Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books? Based on another reply I think she meant more of permanently deleting than cascading a delete. I wasn't clear on that initially. I think there would be real dangers in the same scenarios Elaine brought up. As for permanently obliterating other kinds of records I don't think there's one answer that is right for everyone. I can appreciate the view point of it's gone I don't need it anymore, it's a waste of bits in storage and another pass through the tables but I like looking at historical data so I'm very hesitant to toss any of it. Evergreen's default don't throw anything away behavior appeals to me. On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 4:31 PM, Hardy, Elaine eha...@georgialibraries.org wrote: No. Just No. Unless it was totally configurable and could never, ever show up if we didn’t want it. Ever. The thought of having to correct the resultant mess if someone could delete at the bib record level while vols and copies are attached in a consortium database will give me nightmares. I know that it would be tied to permissions but still. No. The few number of times a cataloger could use it on a record with just their library’s holdings attached would not be worth the possibility of someone incorrectly deleting a record with 1000s of items attached. Perhaps what Jennifer meant was to truly delete a bibliographic record after one has deleted all copies and volumes attached? However, as Jason points out with patron info, totally deleting bib records, volumes, and copies would also negatively impact referential integrity in the database. It is also nice to be able to undelete a bib record if needed. *Elaine* J. Elaine Hardy PINES Collaborative Projects Manager Georgia Public Library Service 1800 Century Place, Ste 150 Atlanta, Ga. 30345-4304 404.235.7128 404.235.7201, fax eha...@georgialibraries.org www.georgialibraries.org www.georgialibraries.org/pines *From:* Open-ils-general [mailto: open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] *On Behalf Of *Rogan Hamby *Sent:* Tuesday, August 04, 2015 3:40 PM *To:* Evergreen Discussion Group *Subject:* Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books? Like delete the bib records and let it caascade down and delete all associated volumes and copies? On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 3:34 PM, Walz, Jennifer jlw...@asbury.edu wrote: All – Boy, it sure would be nice if we had the same options with books. (i.e. bib records, item records, copy records, and the like) J Please? Thanks! Jennifer -- Jennifer Walz, MLS - Head of Ebsco Irritations Kinlaw Library - *Asbury University* One Macklem Drive, Wilmore, KY 40390 859-858-3511 ext. 2269 jlw...@asbury.edu *From:* Open-ils-general [mailto: open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] *On Behalf Of *Rogan Hamby *Sent:* Tuesday, August 04, 2015 1:33 PM *To:* Evergreen Discussion Group *Subject:* Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts -- Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services, York County Library System “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewis http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis -- Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services, York County Library
[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts
Our old ILS would not allow you to remove a patron until all outstanding bills, holds, and checkouts were cleared. We were thrilled that Evergreen would simply allow you to remove the patron. However, I have heard from various sources that, while EG will allow you to remove a patron with impunity, it is not good practice to remove a patron with outstanding transactions and bills. Can anyone clarify this? Thank you, Scott Scott Thomas, MLS Head of Information Technologies and Technical Services Scranton Public Library Lackawanna County Library System 2006 N. Main Ave. Scranton, PA 18508 Ph: 570-207-2379 Fx: 570-348-3020 Email: sc...@albright.orgmailto:sc...@albright.org
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts
There are a few different kinds of deleting in Evergreen. One is to turn on the deleted flag on the account. That doesn't do much other than hide the account from the staff client pulling it up and is relatively harmless. The other kind of deleting is obliterating the account. This is the delete option that is on the other menu in the staff client and comes up with this warning: Completely OBLITERATE this patron account, including bills, payments, bookbags, etc? This is IRREVERSIBLE. And it has a checkbox. The good? It deletes it and it's gone forever. The bad? As the message warns, gone forever is also anything tied to it. My accountants would throw a fit at bills and payments and other records disappearing from the system and we're audited every other year. So, whether or not it's bad will depend on your circumstances, your accounting environment, etc... As a result it can also throw off counts of circulations, holds, etc... if you want to go back and run numbers on old data sets. If we want to truly remove a patron I run an anonymization script that strips out their address except for zip code, names, phone numbers, email, etc and leaves a generic patron in place but leaves all of their associated records. On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 1:21 PM, Scott Thomas sc...@albright.org wrote: Our old ILS would not allow you to remove a patron until all outstanding bills, holds, and checkouts were cleared. We were thrilled that Evergreen would simply allow you to remove the patron. However, I have heard from various sources that, while EG will allow you to remove a patron with impunity, it is not good practice to remove a patron with outstanding transactions and bills. Can anyone clarify this? Thank you, Scott Scott Thomas, MLS Head of Information Technologies and Technical Services Scranton Public Library Lackawanna County Library System 2006 N. Main Ave. Scranton, PA 18508 Ph: 570-207-2379 Fx: 570-348-3020 Email: sc...@albright.org -- Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services, York County Library System “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewis http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books?
Like delete the bib records and let it caascade down and delete all associated volumes and copies? On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 3:34 PM, Walz, Jennifer jlw...@asbury.edu wrote: All – Boy, it sure would be nice if we had the same options with books. (i.e. bib records, item records, copy records, and the like) J Please? Thanks! Jennifer -- Jennifer Walz, MLS - Head of Ebsco Irritations Kinlaw Library - *Asbury University* One Macklem Drive, Wilmore, KY 40390 859-858-3511 ext. 2269 jlw...@asbury.edu *From:* Open-ils-general [mailto: open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] *On Behalf Of *Rogan Hamby *Sent:* Tuesday, August 04, 2015 1:33 PM *To:* Evergreen Discussion Group *Subject:* Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts There are a few different kinds of deleting in Evergreen. One is to turn on the deleted flag on the account. That doesn't do much other than hide the account from the staff client pulling it up and is relatively harmless. The other kind of deleting is obliterating the account. This is the delete option that is on the other menu in the staff client and comes up with this warning: Completely OBLITERATE this patron account, including bills, payments, bookbags, etc? This is IRREVERSIBLE. And it has a checkbox. The good? It deletes it and it's gone forever. The bad? As the message warns, gone forever is also anything tied to it. My accountants would throw a fit at bills and payments and other records disappearing from the system and we're audited every other year. So, whether or not it's bad will depend on your circumstances, your accounting environment, etc... As a result it can also throw off counts of circulations, holds, etc... if you want to go back and run numbers on old data sets. If we want to truly remove a patron I run an anonymization script that strips out their address except for zip code, names, phone numbers, email, etc and leaves a generic patron in place but leaves all of their associated records. On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 1:21 PM, Scott Thomas sc...@albright.org wrote: Our old ILS would not allow you to remove a patron until all outstanding bills, holds, and checkouts were cleared. We were thrilled that Evergreen would simply allow you to remove the patron. However, I have heard from various sources that, while EG will allow you to remove a patron with impunity, it is not good practice to remove a patron with outstanding transactions and bills. Can anyone clarify this? Thank you, Scott Scott Thomas, MLS Head of Information Technologies and Technical Services Scranton Public Library Lackawanna County Library System 2006 N. Main Ave. Scranton, PA 18508 Ph: 570-207-2379 Fx: 570-348-3020 Email: sc...@albright.org -- Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services, York County Library System “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewis http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis -- Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services, York County Library System “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewis http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts
The short answer to both questions is, yes. Obliterating a patron wipes associated records. So for example circ records require a link back to a patron account, you can't not have it. So, to delete a patron account you have to delete those circ records and that will affect reports later. On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 3:26 PM, Scott Thomas sc...@albright.org wrote: Hi Rogan, Thank you for replying. One thing you mentioned has piqued my interest. It might be easier if I gave a scenario instead of trying to describe what I mean. Say, on January 2, 2016, I run a report on circulation for 2015 and then, a month later, delete many patrons some of whom had checked out materials in 2015. If I ran the same 2015 report again after the deletions, would the numbers be different because the patrons were purged? In other words, when a patron is deleted, do their countable circ transactions go with them? Scott *From:* Open-ils-general [mailto: open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] *On Behalf Of *Rogan Hamby *Sent:* Tuesday, August 04, 2015 1:33 PM *To:* Evergreen Discussion Group open-ils-general@list.georgialibraries.org *Subject:* Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts There are a few different kinds of deleting in Evergreen. One is to turn on the deleted flag on the account. That doesn't do much other than hide the account from the staff client pulling it up and is relatively harmless. The other kind of deleting is obliterating the account. This is the delete option that is on the other menu in the staff client and comes up with this warning: Completely OBLITERATE this patron account, including bills, payments, bookbags, etc? This is IRREVERSIBLE. And it has a checkbox. The good? It deletes it and it's gone forever. The bad? As the message warns, gone forever is also anything tied to it. My accountants would throw a fit at bills and payments and other records disappearing from the system and we're audited every other year. So, whether or not it's bad will depend on your circumstances, your accounting environment, etc... As a result it can also throw off counts of circulations, holds, etc... if you want to go back and run numbers on old data sets. If we want to truly remove a patron I run an anonymization script that strips out their address except for zip code, names, phone numbers, email, etc and leaves a generic patron in place but leaves all of their associated records. On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 1:21 PM, Scott Thomas sc...@albright.org wrote: Our old ILS would not allow you to remove a patron until all outstanding bills, holds, and checkouts were cleared. We were thrilled that Evergreen would simply allow you to remove the patron. However, I have heard from various sources that, while EG will allow you to remove a patron with impunity, it is not good practice to remove a patron with outstanding transactions and bills. Can anyone clarify this? Thank you, Scott Scott Thomas, MLS Head of Information Technologies and Technical Services Scranton Public Library Lackawanna County Library System 2006 N. Main Ave. Scranton, PA 18508 Ph: 570-207-2379 Fx: 570-348-3020 Email: sc...@albright.org -- Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services, York County Library System “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewis http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis -- Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services, York County Library System “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewis http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts
Quoting Rogan Hamby rogan.ha...@yclibrary.net: The short answer to both questions is, yes. Obliterating a patron wipes associated records. So for example circ records require a link back to a patron account, you can't not have it. So, to delete a patron account you have to delete those circ records and that will affect reports later. Technically they are not wiped. The transactions are moved to another user. In the case of deletion, they move to the user with id of 1, the default admin user. So any reports that depend on user-related data will still lose information. You can't actually delete this stuff because of referential integrity in the database. On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 3:26 PM, Scott Thomas sc...@albright.org wrote: Hi Rogan, Thank you for replying. One thing you mentioned has piqued my interest. It might be easier if I gave a scenario instead of trying to describe what I mean. Say, on January 2, 2016, I run a report on circulation for 2015 and then, a month later, delete many patrons some of whom had checked out materials in 2015. If I ran the same 2015 report again after the deletions, would the numbers be different because the patrons were purged? In other words, when a patron is deleted, do their countable circ transactions go with them? Scott *From:* Open-ils-general [mailto: open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] *On Behalf Of *Rogan Hamby *Sent:* Tuesday, August 04, 2015 1:33 PM *To:* Evergreen Discussion Group open-ils-general@list.georgialibraries.org *Subject:* Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts There are a few different kinds of deleting in Evergreen. One is to turn on the deleted flag on the account. That doesn't do much other than hide the account from the staff client pulling it up and is relatively harmless. The other kind of deleting is obliterating the account. This is the delete option that is on the other menu in the staff client and comes up with this warning: Completely OBLITERATE this patron account, including bills, payments, bookbags, etc? This is IRREVERSIBLE. And it has a checkbox. The good? It deletes it and it's gone forever. The bad? As the message warns, gone forever is also anything tied to it. My accountants would throw a fit at bills and payments and other records disappearing from the system and we're audited every other year. So, whether or not it's bad will depend on your circumstances, your accounting environment, etc... As a result it can also throw off counts of circulations, holds, etc... if you want to go back and run numbers on old data sets. If we want to truly remove a patron I run an anonymization script that strips out their address except for zip code, names, phone numbers, email, etc and leaves a generic patron in place but leaves all of their associated records. On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 1:21 PM, Scott Thomas sc...@albright.org wrote: Our old ILS would not allow you to remove a patron until all outstanding bills, holds, and checkouts were cleared. We were thrilled that Evergreen would simply allow you to remove the patron. However, I have heard from various sources that, while EG will allow you to remove a patron with impunity, it is not good practice to remove a patron with outstanding transactions and bills. Can anyone clarify this? Thank you, Scott Scott Thomas, MLS Head of Information Technologies and Technical Services Scranton Public Library Lackawanna County Library System 2006 N. Main Ave. Scranton, PA 18508 Ph: 570-207-2379 Fx: 570-348-3020 Email: sc...@albright.org -- Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services, York County Library System “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewis http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis -- Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services, York County Library System “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewis http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis -- Jason Stephenson Assistant Director for Technology Services Merrimack Valley Library Consortium 4 High ST, Suite 175 North Andover, MA 01845 Phone: 978-557-5891 Email: jstephen...@mvlc.org
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books?
All – Well, I am sorry that I was not obvious enough.But CERTAINLY I would not want to delete anything with items / volumes / copies attached. That is just silly. But I seriously don’t care about the bib / item / copy etc when it CAN be deleted. I don’t want “ historical” data. The whole point of deletion is to delete it! So, make it go away. Otherwise, call it something else and “park” it in a hidden status or something. Don’t call it deleting, if you are actually NOT deleting it in actual fact. When I delete something it goes away – off the server, out of the data record, gone. And now that I know that patron records are not actually deleted either??!! UGH!! You are killing me.I like clean data files. And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming… Jennifer -- Jennifer Walz, MLS - Head of Research Distance Services Kinlaw Library - Asbury University One Macklem Drive, Wilmore, KY 40390 859-858-3511 ext. 2269 jlw...@asbury.edu From: Open-ils-general [mailto:open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Rogan Hamby Sent: Tuesday, August 04, 2015 4:42 PM To: Evergreen Discussion Group Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books? Based on another reply I think she meant more of permanently deleting than cascading a delete. I wasn't clear on that initially. I think there would be real dangers in the same scenarios Elaine brought up. As for permanently obliterating other kinds of records I don't think there's one answer that is right for everyone. I can appreciate the view point of it's gone I don't need it anymore, it's a waste of bits in storage and another pass through the tables but I like looking at historical data so I'm very hesitant to toss any of it. Evergreen's default don't throw anything away behavior appeals to me. On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 4:31 PM, Hardy, Elaine eha...@georgialibraries.orgmailto:eha...@georgialibraries.org wrote: No. Just No. Unless it was totally configurable and could never, ever show up if we didn’t want it. Ever. The thought of having to correct the resultant mess if someone could delete at the bib record level while vols and copies are attached in a consortium database will give me nightmares. I know that it would be tied to permissions but still. No. The few number of times a cataloger could use it on a record with just their library’s holdings attached would not be worth the possibility of someone incorrectly deleting a record with 1000s of items attached. Perhaps what Jennifer meant was to truly delete a bibliographic record after one has deleted all copies and volumes attached? However, as Jason points out with patron info, totally deleting bib records, volumes, and copies would also negatively impact referential integrity in the database. It is also nice to be able to undelete a bib record if needed. Elaine J. Elaine Hardy PINES Collaborative Projects Manager Georgia Public Library Service 1800 Century Place, Ste 150 Atlanta, Ga. 30345-4304 404.235.7128tel:404.235.7128 404.235.7201tel:404.235.7201, fax eha...@georgialibraries.orgmailto:eha...@georgialibraries.org www.georgialibraries.orghttp://www.georgialibraries.org www.georgialibraries.org/pineshttp://www.georgialibraries.org/pines From: Open-ils-general [mailto:open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.orgmailto:open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Rogan Hamby Sent: Tuesday, August 04, 2015 3:40 PM To: Evergreen Discussion Group Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books? Like delete the bib records and let it caascade down and delete all associated volumes and copies? On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 3:34 PM, Walz, Jennifer jlw...@asbury.edumailto:jlw...@asbury.edu wrote: All – Boy, it sure would be nice if we had the same options with books. (i.e. bib records, item records, copy records, and the like) ☺ Please? Thanks! Jennifer -- Jennifer Walz, MLS - Head of Ebsco Irritations Kinlaw Library - Asbury University One Macklem Drive, Wilmore, KY 40390 859-858-3511 ext. 2269tel:859-858-3511%20ext.%202269 jlw...@asbury.edumailto:jlw...@asbury.edu From: Open-ils-general [mailto:open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.orgmailto:open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Rogan Hamby Sent: Tuesday, August 04, 2015 1:33 PM To: Evergreen Discussion Group Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts -- Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services, York County Library System “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewishttp://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books?
Based on another reply I think she meant more of permanently deleting than cascading a delete. I wasn't clear on that initially. I think there would be real dangers in the same scenarios Elaine brought up. As for permanently obliterating other kinds of records I don't think there's one answer that is right for everyone. I can appreciate the view point of it's gone I don't need it anymore, it's a waste of bits in storage and another pass through the tables but I like looking at historical data so I'm very hesitant to toss any of it. Evergreen's default don't throw anything away behavior appeals to me. On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 4:31 PM, Hardy, Elaine eha...@georgialibraries.org wrote: No. Just No. Unless it was totally configurable and could never, ever show up if we didn’t want it. Ever. The thought of having to correct the resultant mess if someone could delete at the bib record level while vols and copies are attached in a consortium database will give me nightmares. I know that it would be tied to permissions but still. No. The few number of times a cataloger could use it on a record with just their library’s holdings attached would not be worth the possibility of someone incorrectly deleting a record with 1000s of items attached. Perhaps what Jennifer meant was to truly delete a bibliographic record after one has deleted all copies and volumes attached? However, as Jason points out with patron info, totally deleting bib records, volumes, and copies would also negatively impact referential integrity in the database. It is also nice to be able to undelete a bib record if needed. *Elaine* J. Elaine Hardy PINES Collaborative Projects Manager Georgia Public Library Service 1800 Century Place, Ste 150 Atlanta, Ga. 30345-4304 404.235.7128 404.235.7201, fax eha...@georgialibraries.org www.georgialibraries.org www.georgialibraries.org/pines *From:* Open-ils-general [mailto: open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] *On Behalf Of *Rogan Hamby *Sent:* Tuesday, August 04, 2015 3:40 PM *To:* Evergreen Discussion Group *Subject:* Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books? Like delete the bib records and let it caascade down and delete all associated volumes and copies? On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 3:34 PM, Walz, Jennifer jlw...@asbury.edu wrote: All – Boy, it sure would be nice if we had the same options with books. (i.e. bib records, item records, copy records, and the like) J Please? Thanks! Jennifer -- Jennifer Walz, MLS - Head of Ebsco Irritations Kinlaw Library - *Asbury University* One Macklem Drive, Wilmore, KY 40390 859-858-3511 ext. 2269 jlw...@asbury.edu *From:* Open-ils-general [mailto: open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] *On Behalf Of *Rogan Hamby *Sent:* Tuesday, August 04, 2015 1:33 PM *To:* Evergreen Discussion Group *Subject:* Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts -- Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services, York County Library System “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewis http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts
There are other issues that can come up with reporting and aged circulations but those are more workflow issues than technical ones. All of this being a very long way of saying there are pros and cons with every choice. :) On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 3:54 PM, Jason Etheridge ja...@esilibrary.com wrote: Thank you for replying. One thing you mentioned has piqued my interest. It might be easier if I gave a scenario instead of trying to describe what I mean. Say, on January 2, 2016, I run a report on circulation for 2015 and then, a month later, delete many patrons some of whom had checked out materials in 2015. If I ran the same 2015 report again after the deletions, would the numbers be different because the patrons were purged? In other words, when a patron is deleted, do their countable circ transactions go with them? There is a trigger on the circulation table that will convert circulations being deleted into aged (essentially anonymous) circulations. Depending on how you write your report, you can get some statistics that way. -- Jason Etheridge | Community and Migration Manager | Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts | phone: 1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457) | email: ja...@esilibrary.com | web: http://www.esilibrary.com -- Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services, York County Library System “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewis http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts
Hi Rogan, Thank you for replying. One thing you mentioned has piqued my interest. It might be easier if I gave a scenario instead of trying to describe what I mean. Say, on January 2, 2016, I run a report on circulation for 2015 and then, a month later, delete many patrons some of whom had checked out materials in 2015. If I ran the same 2015 report again after the deletions, would the numbers be different because the patrons were purged? In other words, when a patron is deleted, do their countable circ transactions go with them? Scott From: Open-ils-general [mailto:open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Rogan Hamby Sent: Tuesday, August 04, 2015 1:33 PM To: Evergreen Discussion Group open-ils-general@list.georgialibraries.org Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts There are a few different kinds of deleting in Evergreen. One is to turn on the deleted flag on the account. That doesn't do much other than hide the account from the staff client pulling it up and is relatively harmless. The other kind of deleting is obliterating the account. This is the delete option that is on the other menu in the staff client and comes up with this warning: Completely OBLITERATE this patron account, including bills, payments, bookbags, etc? This is IRREVERSIBLE. And it has a checkbox. The good? It deletes it and it's gone forever. The bad? As the message warns, gone forever is also anything tied to it. My accountants would throw a fit at bills and payments and other records disappearing from the system and we're audited every other year. So, whether or not it's bad will depend on your circumstances, your accounting environment, etc... As a result it can also throw off counts of circulations, holds, etc... if you want to go back and run numbers on old data sets. If we want to truly remove a patron I run an anonymization script that strips out their address except for zip code, names, phone numbers, email, etc and leaves a generic patron in place but leaves all of their associated records. On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 1:21 PM, Scott Thomas sc...@albright.orgmailto:sc...@albright.org wrote: Our old ILS would not allow you to remove a patron until all outstanding bills, holds, and checkouts were cleared. We were thrilled that Evergreen would simply allow you to remove the patron. However, I have heard from various sources that, while EG will allow you to remove a patron with impunity, it is not good practice to remove a patron with outstanding transactions and bills. Can anyone clarify this? Thank you, Scott Scott Thomas, MLS Head of Information Technologies and Technical Services Scranton Public Library Lackawanna County Library System 2006 N. Main Ave. Scranton, PA 18508 Ph: 570-207-2379tel:570-207-2379 Fx: 570-348-3020tel:570-348-3020 Email: sc...@albright.orgmailto:sc...@albright.org -- Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services, York County Library System “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewishttp://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts
Thank you for replying. One thing you mentioned has piqued my interest. It might be easier if I gave a scenario instead of trying to describe what I mean. Say, on January 2, 2016, I run a report on circulation for 2015 and then, a month later, delete many patrons some of whom had checked out materials in 2015. If I ran the same 2015 report again after the deletions, would the numbers be different because the patrons were purged? In other words, when a patron is deleted, do their countable circ transactions go with them? There is a trigger on the circulation table that will convert circulations being deleted into aged (essentially anonymous) circulations. Depending on how you write your report, you can get some statistics that way. -- Jason Etheridge | Community and Migration Manager | Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts | phone: 1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457) | email: ja...@esilibrary.com | web: http://www.esilibrary.com
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts - AND books?
All – Boy, it sure would be nice if we had the same options with books. (i.e. bib records, item records, copy records, and the like) ☺ Please? Thanks! Jennifer -- Jennifer Walz, MLS - Head of Ebsco Irritations Kinlaw Library - Asbury University One Macklem Drive, Wilmore, KY 40390 859-858-3511 ext. 2269 jlw...@asbury.edu From: Open-ils-general [mailto:open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Rogan Hamby Sent: Tuesday, August 04, 2015 1:33 PM To: Evergreen Discussion Group Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts There are a few different kinds of deleting in Evergreen. One is to turn on the deleted flag on the account. That doesn't do much other than hide the account from the staff client pulling it up and is relatively harmless. The other kind of deleting is obliterating the account. This is the delete option that is on the other menu in the staff client and comes up with this warning: Completely OBLITERATE this patron account, including bills, payments, bookbags, etc? This is IRREVERSIBLE. And it has a checkbox. The good? It deletes it and it's gone forever. The bad? As the message warns, gone forever is also anything tied to it. My accountants would throw a fit at bills and payments and other records disappearing from the system and we're audited every other year. So, whether or not it's bad will depend on your circumstances, your accounting environment, etc... As a result it can also throw off counts of circulations, holds, etc... if you want to go back and run numbers on old data sets. If we want to truly remove a patron I run an anonymization script that strips out their address except for zip code, names, phone numbers, email, etc and leaves a generic patron in place but leaves all of their associated records. On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 1:21 PM, Scott Thomas sc...@albright.orgmailto:sc...@albright.org wrote: Our old ILS would not allow you to remove a patron until all outstanding bills, holds, and checkouts were cleared. We were thrilled that Evergreen would simply allow you to remove the patron. However, I have heard from various sources that, while EG will allow you to remove a patron with impunity, it is not good practice to remove a patron with outstanding transactions and bills. Can anyone clarify this? Thank you, Scott Scott Thomas, MLS Head of Information Technologies and Technical Services Scranton Public Library Lackawanna County Library System 2006 N. Main Ave. Scranton, PA 18508 Ph: 570-207-2379tel:570-207-2379 Fx: 570-348-3020tel:570-348-3020 Email: sc...@albright.orgmailto:sc...@albright.org -- Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services, York County Library System “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewishttp://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts
That's good to know, I thought they were all deleted. For me it's still an issue as it means we would lose statistical data associated with the user as it relates to transactions. For my needs anonymizing identifiable information is better. ---Sent from Boxer | http://getboxer.com Quoting Rogan Hamby rogan.ha...@yclibrary.net: The short answer to both questions is, yes. Obliterating a patron wipes associated records. So for example circ records require a link back to a patron account, you can't not have it. So, to delete a patron account you have to delete those circ records and that will affect reports later. Technically they are not wiped. The transactions are moved to another user. In the case of deletion, they move to the user with id of 1, the default admin user. So any reports that depend on user-related data will still lose information. You can't actually delete this stuff because of referential integrity in the database. On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 3:26 PM, Scott Thomas sc...@albright.org wrote: Hi Rogan, Thank you for replying. One thing you mentioned has piqued my interest. It might be easier if I gave a scenario instead of trying to describe what I mean. Say, on January 2, 2016, I run a report on circulation for 2015 and then, a month later, delete many patrons some of whom had checked out materials in 2015. If I ran the same 2015 report again after the deletions, would the numbers be different because the patrons were purged? In other words, when a patron is deleted, do their countable circ transactions go with them? Scott *From:* Open-ils-general [mailto: open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] *On Behalf Of *Rogan Hamby *Sent:* Tuesday, August 04, 2015 1:33 PM *To:* Evergreen Discussion Group open-ils-general@list.georgialibraries.org *Subject:* Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Deleting Patron Accounts There are a few different kinds of deleting in Evergreen. One is to turn on the deleted flag on the account. That doesn't do much other than hide the account from the staff client pulling it up and is relatively harmless. The other kind of deleting is obliterating the account. This is the delete option that is on the other menu in the staff client and comes up with this warning: Completely OBLITERATE this patron account, including bills, payments, bookbags, etc? This is IRREVERSIBLE. And it has a checkbox. The good? It deletes it and it's gone forever. The bad? As the message warns, gone forever is also anything tied to it. My accountants would throw a fit at bills and payments and other records disappearing from the system and we're audited every other year. So, whether or not it's bad will depend on your circumstances, your accounting environment, etc... As a result it can also throw off counts of circulations, holds, etc... if you want to go back and run numbers on old data sets. If we want to truly remove a patron I run an anonymization script that strips out their address except for zip code, names, phone numbers, email, etc and leaves a generic patron in place but leaves all of their associated records. On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 1:21 PM, Scott Thomas sc...@albright.org wrote: Our old ILS would not allow you to remove a patron until all outstanding bills, holds, and checkouts were cleared. We were thrilled that Evergreen would simply allow you to remove the patron. However, I have heard from various sources that, while EG will allow you to remove a patron with impunity, it is not good practice to remove a patron with outstanding transactions and bills. Can anyone clarify this? Thank you, Scott Scott Thomas, MLS Head of Information Technologies and Technical Services Scranton Public Library Lackawanna County Library System 2006 N. Main Ave. Scranton, PA 18508 Ph: 570-207-2379 Fx: 570-348-3020 Email: sc...@albright.org -- Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services, York County Library System “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewis http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis -- Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services, York County Library System “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewis http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis -- Jason Stephenson Assistant Director for Technology Services Merrimack Valley Library Consortium 4 High ST, Suite 175 North Andover, MA 01845 Phone: 978-557-5891 Email: jstephen...@mvlc.org
