Dear Daniel,
I was at the circulation desk yesterday when a guy came in and dropped off his books for return. As I scanned them in, one showed as no record found. When I went to the account to check if it was on there to see if it was just a fluke, the account was clear. How is it possible for someone to have returned a no record found book?
No Record Big Problem
Well to be honest with you, I can think of only a couple of ways(and Fred/Sylvia, y’all can correct me or add to the list), the first is if someone waltzed out the door with it, perhaps by accident and perhaps not. If someone leaves with an item and later on down the line the item is requested through a hold and then is placed in missing which is deleted after 8 weeks of being on the OnSearch list. The other way is if someone bought one of our discards from the book sale and no one stamped it, so the person was going through their things at home, saw the book and hurried to return it (I would prefer to believe this one). But remember, its important to remember to always err on the side of the customer. Never blame them for trying to steal a book, just thank them for returning the item and report that the account is clear of that item.
Daniel
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Dear Daniel,
A while back I had an on the fly item that I couldn’t find a record to attach to. I was about to tell the customer I would need to keep the item to have it processed in the system, which I know may take some time, but a coworker overheard me and popped over and fixed it. I didn’t watch as closely as I should have, but how was this done? Are we able to create records for items?
On the Fly(ing away)
I’m glad you asked! A lot of people are unaware of the “Item on the Fly” record we can use to get the item out to the customer. While we would prefer to have the item attached to the appropriate record if at all possible, this is a last resort when you cannot locate the item by author, title, barcode, call # and ISBN. If you have come to this point, go to the “Title” choice in the dropdown box on the On-the-fly menu and type in “Item on the Fly”. This will attach it to that record and you’ll just complete the record as you would if you have found the correct record, adding in the call number and location of the item. Make the customer aware the title of the item will be different and point out the matching barcodes. Once you do this, note the account that the customer is aware so there is no confusion later on down the line.
Daniel
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Daniel,
How come we get calls in TR for books that have been placed on hold days before, and one of 2 scenarios happens - either they have not been pulled and are still on the shelf, or in some cases, they do not appear on the paging list?
Hold Your Horses (and Books!)
When I first started doing title pages I encountered the same thing, especially with customers coming in and asking why their holds are taking so long. The key factor I see is when the hold is placed using Item Level Holds (the HOLD SELECTED ITEM button). When an item is placed on hold using this, it means the customer has selected for that specific copy. If that specific copy is not on the shelf the hold will not catch on any copy but the one requested, which is why it would appear the item hadn't been pulled.. If we use the HOLD COPY RETURNED SOONEST button, it will catch any copy available.
Daniel
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