From Syma Zerkow, 6:07PM on June 21st
As you know from Dr. Lawson’s message, we are changing our circulation period to 3-weeks with one renewal for most items. DVDs cannot be renewed.
In addition, you need to know that items are renewed from the renewal date, not from the due date.
We have already had one customer complain about this change and we anticipate that you will be dealing with this concern from a number of other customers. Please review this response so that you will have a ready explanation to offer:
We share your concerns and we have requested that the vendor develop the capability of renewing material based on the due date. This is a major programming change since most library circulation software renews materials from the renewal date (our current system is the exception). We anticipate it will be at least a year before this could become a reality. In the meantime, we hope that the 3-week check-out period with e-mail reminders when it is time to renew will mitigate the inconvenience for most of our customers.
I hope you have seen the FAQ’s and timeline on the Staff Intranet page. In addition, the link from the banner on the Library Homepage goes to the Library Blog where you can see what has been posted about the change for our customers to read and their questions with our answers. You may wish to print the FAQ’s out so you have quick responses to other questions customers may pose.
When you or a customer logs in to your library account, a new message will be appearing in the next few days. This has also been posted to the Library Blog.
If you had previously opted in to the Reading History, that information will transfer to the new customer accounts system. However, some other information will not carry-over. We recommend that you print out or email to yourself anything you have saved in “My Lists” as well as any “Preferred Searches.” You can then re-create them in Enterprise, our new catalog. Also, our new catalog does not feature Customer Reviews, Ratings, or Tags. You may wish to save your reviews and add them to a social reading network such asGoodreads or LibraryThing. The current catalog will be available through July 2.
We are planning a one-hour training session to be held at multiple locations during the first two weeks of July to review the features of the online catalog. Look for an announcement from HPL Training.
This week starts our real transition to the new system. You should now be following the new procedure for items on the fly and for checking in new periodicals. Some new items are still coming to you in Delivery. Please check them in as usual. If you have questions or problems with either of these procedures, please contact me and I will have someone get back to you.
Lastly, it has been pointed out to me that I have not addressed one of your most serious questions: Why on earth are we doing this in the middle of the Summer Reading Club?
We are all very aware that the timing of this change is not good. Unfortunately, HALAN’s contract with III expires at the end of June. We have made arrangements to start paying them on a month-to-month basis but it is costing tens of thousands of dollars to do this. We had to bite the bullet and make the change as quickly as possible. We (Administration and HALAN staff) are deeply grateful for your willingness to do “one more thing” when you are already doing so much.
Pedro
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