New! Important/Retaining Last Patron Information

Dear Everyone ,

We have a great new feature!  We will be able to see the last patron who had an item.

This can be useful if an item was damaged or incomplete and we did not "catch" the name of who had the material last.  It can also be useful if someone left something in the book and we noticed it after the item got checked in.

We can use this information discreetly but, of course, can not tell the "current" person who the last person was.

The F5 for withdrawing function key will be compromised until we get the macro reset.

Please read below and stay tuned for updates!

Louise

Retaining Last Patron Information

Submitted by ssaul on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 8:32am

At the January 18, 2012 Membership meeting directors voted to implement the retention of the Last Patron field in the item record. We will begin saving this data as of March 1, 2012. Central Site will purge the saved data on an Annual basis.

Reason for implementation
It is anticipated that access to the last patron information will be helpful to library staff when an item is checked in without all of its parts. This will also be helpful to libraries implementing an automated sort and checkin solution.

How it works
Innovative adds a fixed field to the Item record called LPATRON (Last Patron). When an item is checked in, the system updates the LPATRON fixed field with the patron’s Pnumber. The next time this item is checked in, the most recent patron’s Pnumber will replace the previous one.

Effect on Millennium Client macros (Function Keys)
Some macros in use will need to be edited due to the rearrangement of the item fixed fields. For example, if a library used a macro to withdraw an item by updating both the ICODE2 and the Item Status filed, the navigation between the ICODE2 field and the Item Status field will need to change due to the insertion of an extra fixed field.

Until a library’s macros have been changed, staff can directly edit the 2 fields in the example cited above.

If a macro simply enters a string of characters it will not be affected by this implementation. Only macros which navigate from field to field of the item record will be affected.

Information about constructing macros in Millennium Clients can be found at:
http://staff.minlib.net/content/writing-macros-and-setting-function-keys

Also see:
Acquisition and Cataloging Function Keys: http://staff.minlib.net/node/1805
Circulation Function Keys: http://staff.minlib.net/node/1806
Writing Macros: http://staff.minlib.net/content/writing-macros

An example of a populated Lpatron field  can be found on the Test server for item: 33016002869623



For more details see; http://staff.minlib.net/membership-committee/2012-01-18/retaining-last-p... (using Method 1 only)
Q. Is the data accessible from a patron record?
A. No, only from a given item record.

Q. Do I need to use supervisory initials to see this data in Millennium