Wednesday Hint 3/25/09

How much does it cost?

If a patron has lost an item or knows it is damaged, they may ask you how much it costs.

If the item has not yet billed, please do not disclose a cost. Inform the patron that our billing clerk will determine the current replacement cost; all prices need to be verified.

If the item has been billed, it will be listed under Fines as REPLACEMENT or LOST. You can give them that billed amount. (If they didn’t receive a bill, you may want to check their address and email address.)

If the item has been billed, another option, if the item is owned by APL, is for the patron to purchase an exact, new replacement. Provide the patron with a standard book or music number to facilitate this. (It is important, in this case as well, to wait until the item has billed to provide the patron with an idea of how much a new replacement will cost. A standard book number may not tell you if a book was hardcover or paperback or trade paperback, but the cost will be very revealing.)

If the item is owned by another library, offer to call the owning library to see if replacing the item is an option. We will get back to the patron with the owning library’s reply.

Wednesday Hint 3/18/09

Claim Returned Again

You should know that we no longer search the shelves for items before we bill them.

If a patron gets an overdue notice, by mail or email, that is their chance to let us know that they believe they returned an item. We’ll look for that item that has been claim returned, and we’ll look for it again before it bills.

And remember you can make any APL item claim returned. It doesn’t matter if it is not due yet, if it is overdue, if it is billed, if the patron claims to never have checked it out, if it was checked out at another library, or if it is already set to claim returned. Making it claim returned puts it on a list for us to check the shelves for it. And we’ll check them again and again, each time you make it claim returned.

Please do not make items owned by other libraries claim returned.

Use it whenever there is a question about something being returned or when the patron claims to never have initially checked it out. We don’t even care if it was checked out at another library.

It is important to remember to select the item, choose Claim Returned, and then choose the THIRD OPTION. That keeps the item in the overdue and billing notice cycle, and it doesn’t affect anything to do it or do it over again. But it does force us to look for it, and that is what we want.

You can renew it, before setting it to claim returned. But don’t override the maximum number of renewals.

(If you realize that you chose the wrong option, please tell a supervisor so that we can correct it.)