Yesterday, July 5th, our system went down at about 5PM. After we found out that there was a Comcast problem, we went to offline circulation. Service was restored to the Waltham Public Library at about 7PM.
Bela called Minuteman and got the information uploaded beginning with the AV desk, moving to Rear circ, the children's room desk and finishing with the Main Circ desk.
Why is that important? If information is not uploaded before we begin full service circulation, there is a good chance that our records will not be accurate. For example, a check in could be processed in the wrong order and it might appear that someone has something checked out that was already returned or vice versa.
Do you know that the instructions for what to do are at the circulation desks? There is a copy at the Children's room desk too.....
See below for more important reminders.
Questions? Comments? Contact me (Louise)
Click on the link above for clear, step by step instructions on using offline circulation.
Remember to log in to the staff home page!
The following are important things for all public service desk staff to know to make our next Offline Circulation session even better than the last:
- Do you know where the laminated instructions are for Millennium Offline Circulation? There should be copies at each public service desk. If you can’t locate them, find out where they are.
- Please read the one-page instructions through again each time you use Offline Circulation. We don’t need to use it very often, and it’s easy to forget a detail that may be very important, even if you’ve used it before. For example, you’ll be reminded to:
- Checkout only: NO checkins, renewals, or new cards
- Use only one PC at each desk when reasonable (if there are two staff members and lots of business, use both).
- Click on the Checkout button instead of Clear Patron after each patron.
- When to use the Offline program: There’s no absolute rule about how long a down-time is enough to require booting up the Offline program. Check with Kate, your Department Head, or the Senior Staff Person In Charge, who will help coordinate. If it seems likely we’ll be down for more than 15 minutes, it’s a good idea to use Offline. If it’s unclear, and it’s relatively quiet, one option is to do checkouts at only two or three designated PCs (both Circ Desks + children’s) using Offline, so there are fewer uploads to contend with if it comes back up soon.
- Uploading: This has to be done for each Offline PC as soon as possible after we’re online again. It’s best not to start checking in until the upload from Offline has been completed. Instructions on how to do this are on the reverse of the laminated sheet referred to above. We will follow a preset order when calling Central Site with uploads: Rear Circ will call first. When they have reached Central Site and successfully uploaded their data, they will transfer the call to Main Circ. Main Circ will transfer to AV after uploading, and AV will transfer to Children’s.
