Koha-US KohaCon22, 27 Sep 2022

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From YouTube: A Fine-Free Koha Build

Description

Presenter:
- Michael Spagnuolo (North Richland Hills Library)

Slides:
- https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/19T80E_c0o8Qsn6l0DNxjhwlvmZbG-1vv/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=106844837026229096502&rtpof=true&sd=true

A

Okay awesome good morning: everybody um I am here to talk about going fine free, uh let's start with the little audience. Participation uh raise your hand if you work at a library that lends out items to patrons okay, now, keep your hand raised. Why'd everyone drop their hand. Audience participate, come on, keep your hand raised uh lower your hand if you charge fines for items for your patrons. So if you have fines lower your hand, oh good, so we still have a lot of fine free people in the room.

A

Okay, uh so my find free build will be probably different than how you guys went fine free the best thing about koha. Is it's very customizable and there's a lot of things you can do with it. Some probably wrong and you're going to point at me and laugh, um but that's what I'm here for is to show you what not to do.

A

um Let's go with these slides there we go so April 4th 2022 is when we went fine free uh pretty recent. um We wanted to go the first of the month, but there was a lot of talk that that might not work out for us with a lot of our um announcements. uh April 1st in the US is April Fool's Day and that's when you play jokes on each other, so we decided not to send out a bunch of stuff that said, April 1st was fine free day, so it was April 4th.

A

um We sent out all the Ravens all the messenger pigeons, all the uh proper Birds you're supposed to send out when you're doing announcements and we're now living in the fine free, Glory Days of not having fights. um How did we get there, though? It's a long and arduous Road. uh We have to talk to the city. We had to talk to the finance department. We had to talk to a lot of people. It was a lot of work. I could talk for hours about that, um but that's not why we're here.

A

That would be a whole different presentation, uh we're going to talk just about koha. So how do we go find free? So there is. This is in circulation, fine rules, there's in a fine amount, and you just put zeros in all of them, and you are fine free. We did it.

A

um I could in the presentation here- and we just you know George would be very angry at me for only going like a couple minutes um and as you notice in your uh koha little um book, that's not all we're gonna talk about we're. Gonna talk about some other things.

A

um On the back end of koha, here's some other things you can change that deal with fines, I didn't and you'll notice, like one of them. This is from our system and one is charge. Fines and I still have calculate and charge fines listed, so it doesn't really matter as long as you have all those goose eggs in the baskets. It's not going to charge fines, but here's some more things you can mess with.

A

If you wanted your system to be correct, uh one other thing we wanted to do was now that we're not charging fines. We also want to forgive the fines that are already in the system, um so it came up with a little report to look at the account lines in our database.

A

uh The very important thing is: where amount outstanding is greater than zero, because you don't want to list all of the paid fines and then once we had that we kind of had to filter out some stuff for our library, um our max volume was twenty dollars, so anything below that is probably a fine um that little less than greater than is not so we took we charge a processing fee of 13.50 for all the Lost items, so we want to keep the processing fee in um anything that was lost, anything that was billed.

A

We also used to charge a 535 billing fee and some of this has to deal with migration. We just migrated to koha in 2019, so it still has a lot of pre-coha fines in there anything that says less material fees. Anything that looks like it has replacement in the notes or lost. That n stands for new cards.

A

We used to charge a dollar for a new card, and so we kind of kept that in there anything that was charging for book sale we also kept in uh then once you have all that information, you need to find a way to get rid of the fines. I, don't know how to do that so I sent by water that report and they did a thing and now we don't have fines in it. You're a system administrator. You might know how to actually do that yourself.

A

uh Then you have to update everything in koha. That mentions fines uh at least that's what I had to do so I had to update our notices, the Quahog catalog um any of our receipts, and then a bunch of other people at our library had to update a bunch of other things, and um we just found something. A month ago that mentioned finds, and although we should have changed it, we just decided to look the other way and said we're done with this. This there's way too much things to reprint.

A

uh So how are we holding patrons accountable, um we're using the overdue notice and Status triggers? uh There is a restrict column right there and if you have that checked what it does is once it sends the notice it adds a restriction to that patrons account and they cannot, depending on your preferences, set up. They can't check out items and they can't put holds on items and that's what we're doing. uh We have it set to seven days for a first notice. It's very customizable you can use.

A

You can put that restriction on your second notice or your third notice. Just how generous you want to be. We put seven days and that's kind of it's pretty generous, but it's a holdover from a lot of other things.

A

We have a three-day grace period on all our overdue items, and that was mostly due to a while ago, where koha had did not have digest notices for advanced do items, and so we did a workaround and we gave everyone a three-day grace period, and then we also don't have um automatic check-in, and so we wanted to give staff a couple of extra days before we started restricting patrons and we, since it was a new system, we just wanted to give them a couple more days, just in case they get used to it.

A

So we landed on seven days once an item is seven days overdue. It blocks your account, you can't do anything with the library um and to make sure that works through. You also have to talk to people that Library Services. You use to make sure that that restriction will block them. uh Previously we had restricted patrons at 25, and we now that we're doing this new restriction. We wanted to make sure it was going to block those services for patrons.

A

So the one thing I was excited about about doing this presentation is, it gave me excuse to sit down and go through our stats and try to find stats that prove that going fine free is helping our library um as you're, going to see those graphs. Don't really work out for me um and I'll show you why. So these all seemed reasonable things for me to try to find out ways that are making the library better. The first one is number of items marked less lost by month.

A

I have these giant spikes that help out nobody. um Most of them are migrations. When we migrate, we just Mark a bunch of things lost and then between April, the 14th and 16th or the 2014 through 2016 we didn't actually Mark items lost. We just left them on the patrons account and put like and then charged them, and when that big spike is we decided?

A

Oh, maybe we should Mark things lost, we're going to try to remove them from the system eventually, so we actually set like a lost like I, think it was 90 days lost and then um 19 hit, and so we stopped marking things lost and then on April 2022 we were like. Maybe we should Mark things lost again, and so that's why that huge spike? Is there and then way at the end? Is now us marking things lost on a regular basis, so maybe later I'll have good stats. Using this.

A

uh This is kind of looking at the same thing: number of lost charges on patrons accounts, migration, covid-19, not really good information there and then now we're actually have regular data, oops, just Skip One. Now all right number of checkouts, maybe the number of checkouts due to our change, is going to increase. Well, not really, um if I kind of kept like used just a few months, I can be like.

A

Yes, it is going up, but looking at Broad data, not really we had better circulation numbers before covid, which is that huge drop and then even last summer we had better numbers. There's other factors going into this: um just we did not just get rid of fines. We also made a few other changes to kind of as um kind of bargaining with the city to go with and to hold patrons accountable, first-time patrons can only check out five items. Now that's their Max. It used to not.

A

We used to not have a limit, so if it was your first time in the library from another city, you can check out 200 items and not come back to us and we decided. Maybe this is time to change that and so summer being a time of new patrons coming in, but now we're restricting them from checking out what they wanted, and so that that could also lead to this. We also oops.

A

We also lowered the number of renewals from five to three, so that might also be something that could affect these numbers.

A

Okay, so this graph I finally actually got something number of items returned more than 30 days overdue, I'm looking at the koha check-in date and although I still have spikes, if you notice at the far end it does look like more items, are being returned that were long overdue. Now we're considering 30 days. So that's good news um and then this last graph I made because I kind of wanted definite proof that removing fines is helping. So, as you can see, this is on the left. Side is no with overdue.

A

Fines on the right side is fine. Free and those lines represent happiness and they're. Going up. Look guys, they're going up patrons are happy. Staff are happy everyone's happier now. So here's a good graph that you want to show people um I was talking to someone and I wished I thought about this beforehand, but I wish I had some something on the slide to represent things that were thrown at staff before fines or when we had fines um or quotes from staff about how mad patrons get.

A

um If you notice papers are still not as happy as staff, but just patrons, you can never make them happy so problems we've run into I'm going to go over a few things. Some of them are ho-ha related. Some of them are what are on me because kohad did not do what I wanted it to do, or what I thought it did, and so maybe that'll help you because you'll think the same thing. uh The overdue notices that send out and restrict have different timings than this lost marketing.

A

Things lost um it's a well-known bug out there um I listed the bug down there. Long overdue Cron job does not follow the library's calendar and skips closed days, and you can have the overdue notice.

A

The thing that restricts use that Library calendar and then trying to line them up seems very hard and so to kind of um remember either that we just Mark things 10 days later than what we actually say, we're going to Mark things, I think on paper, it's 30 days, um but because notices and holidays and Sundays we just don't want to Mark something lost before they get a notice. That says: hey we're, marking this lost. It would be great if they could line up.

A

um Bywater has a cool blog post about using the email or Plugin, so you can, when you Market loss that seem like to just added a couple days to the long. uh The process removal is not so about using that restriction. Is it's great on the overdue trigger? There is a system that, when the island it'll, we can pick off the restrictions, also OHA properties, a refund lost item refund the Lost item.

A

So if they've been after 30 days and they return that I that okay, so the item gets refined and their account can be used, remove that processing fee that our library is forced, it would be, was automatic uh bug down. There is really the mark processes. Fault refund. When item is found, I understand that that would lead to problems say we don't want to refund the product if it was paid for and we're telling koha to it's like the workflow problem, but to fix the have a report that looks at all lines and sees.

A

That bill that only have a processing fee and then I have to go through and manually, delete them or waive them.

A

Okay, so this one's on me um I, didn't realize when kohut told me all overdue's, it meant all over dues.

A

So, like I said, we restrict something that seven days overdue and the assistant preference says allow overdue restrictions triggered by sent notices to be cleared automatically when all overdue items are returned by a patron, and that means all overdues, not the ones that trigger the restriction. And so we wanted a three-day grace period.

A

So, if someone's in that three-day grace period and still has that item kept out, it's considered overdue by koha and if they return that really really late item, it doesn't remove the Restriction automatically because they still have that three day overdue item and the bug there is allow patrons to have overdue items. That would not result in debarment when removing overdue departments and that's kind of what we want to see. What I would like to see so I don't have to remove that restriction uh and then another thing return means returned should have known this.

A

I just assumed koha didn't do it this way.

A

um So when I want to Mark a lost item as return by this is I want the item to fall off the patrons check-in when um that lost, when it is marked lost, that's just how our workflow was in the past, and it makes it easier for um our collection manager to remove items that have been lost a long long time, because we want those out of the system uh back in that old graph, you saw we used to not Mark things lost, and so we had like three years of lost items just floating in our system, that uh staff would have to kind of just filter through when looking for items.

A

So we want to Mark those out of the system and if it's checked out to someone KOA won't let you do it through that the batch modifications, so we want it off the person's account and so I found this cool, persistent preference that I can Market as return and clear it off this person's account at once. We Market lost, so we don't have to go in and Market lost by ourselves.

A

um The problem is, that is when it returns it off their check-in and charges the account it returns it and that allow overdue restrictions triggered by notice is too clear automatically when items are returned also counts out as a return. So after the 40 days it marks the Lost returns. It removes the Restriction of the overdue notices, because all the items are returned.

A

uh No, that was happening. Oh so, there's a bug for it ability to remove lost items from Pages accounts without checking it in it's kind of what we would like to do. um Our workaround of this is, we just went back since it charges them. We are now using the do not allow patrons access if they have a certain fine amount. So that's how we worked around it, but um I go back staff like that huge restriction. We use CSS to make it bigger, so they don't have to figure out.

A

You know they don't have to try to look for the fine amount. Somehow that is harder to see than that huge restriction, so they like that there instead of that little fine. So that would be nice if we could keep that restriction there and then going back to my graph of how I proved that more items were coming back. Well, they weren't, because return means returned and I was using that return date, so technically I re-ran that report taking out the 41 days.

A

So that would be things that this koha marked lost and it's now kind of following the normal data. um So that's really um something like I don't have. We don't have proof that libraries that removing fines is making our books come back. It kind of just doesn't change things and that's also a good thing like it's not like removing fines.

A

All your books are going to go away, but right now we just don't have data that shows it's making it better about books coming back all right, I'm done talking any questions, or is anyone else going fine free and they want to share what they're doing or what I'm doing wrong. I am here as well. Michael.

B

I have a question for you, a couple of them. Actually, yes, um first one, you talked about uh triggering restrictions. We tried that.

C

B

We had a lot of complaints from uh patrons. We had. We had trouble with that and we ended up. Turning that off. Have you had uh a lot of complaints or any complaints from patrons when you triggered restrictions for those uh on those notices, we've.

A

Had some and it's it's mostly patrons that have a lot of items out and only if maybe one item is being blocked because of a hold now really they're angry, because they expect nothing to change like they're. They just want their. They just want to come in and check out, they're like. Why is it being blocked? It's like!

A

Oh, you have a hold that's a week, two weeks overdue, you need to bring that back and they're like well, whatever I should be able to check out, and that's really what we're running into it's, not um someone! That's angry!

A

Because they're following the rules, it's more a patron expects to just be able to check out and then pay the fine they're used to the old way of just having to pay a fine or talking their way out of a fine when it comes up, um and so we we haven't run into a scenario that has caused us to rethink that um and I think it is just the buffer we're giving everyone is that seven days instead of it being um you know the three days, I think it's enough that we can say.

A

Oh but you're a week overdue, and they you know it's on them, they're kind of feeling like. Oh, that is kind of a ridiculous amount of time. For me to just keep a book, maybe I should bring it back and I think that's helping us. It's just the amount of buffer. We give there. Okay.

B

The second one going back to you had a slide that said item or returned items, are uh equal, returned, yeah or returned means returned yes, okay, so this one we've had uh particular problems with, uh especially uh because we have some libraries that go to collections, and so we've had a a difficult time with a a balancing act with that, because you know in some respects. Yes, we we want uh items that are checked in to have those fines removed.

B

But if they've gone to collections we have we have no way of blocking that, and so we've run into issues where uh items are returned and uh we have no way of knowing before checking it in. Oh, this has gone to collections. We shouldn't check it in kind of thing, so it removes the fines.

B

um We've also run into the issue with this particular setting. In that you know, we want people to be able to.

B

We want staff to be able to delete items that have been lost for a long time, but uh finding the balance of where to do that, because we've had also items checked in we've, had items checked in they've been removed and there's this mysterious fine on the uh the account if we turn certain settings on or off and then on the flip side of that we've had people turn things in and the charges have been removed and there's no accounting of of that item ever being lost at that point.

B

So this this one has been particularly challenging, especially with today's workflows, with going to collections. There's just no mechanism in in cohoff or for collections. Have you uh do you have any collections experience.

A

So thankfully we don't use collections, it's just all the library us ourselves, so we don't have to worry about that. uh The other thing! Yes, you were talking about that. um We don't Mark things out of the system six months until they've marked last six months, and since we did that in April we have it run into that, because that would be this.

C

A

Know next month, so yes, we'll probably run into that problem soon of um people returning items that were marked removed.

A

um That has happened even when we didn't do this um of removing items um it usually ends up to me like this book is in the system and then I have to look through all our fines and see if that book is mentioned in any of the finds and then wave it if it is a a loss, fine or yeah a lost or damage. So yes, that has happened, and it does leave more work for me uh as, like the library system, admin, a lot of the stuff.

A

Automating just causes more work for me, which isn't great but like removing processing fees. That's now my job to do at the end. You know at the beginning or end of the month is to go through and run that report and see what processing fee is and remove it. It does save time overall, but it does fall back on the co-op system administrator to do a lot of that that upkeep and work it seems yeah.

D

um When you decide to do.

D

When you decide to go find free, did you make a distinction between actual late fees and replacement fees for items that just weren't returned period after the.

A

Yes and um uh the Personnel library that does all our announcements. That was one paragraph. The announcement was for patrons to like there's a difference between fines and lost items. I forget what she called it, but yeah. So that was one of the points of almost every fine free announcement was we're still charging for lost and damaged items that is different than fines. Yeah.

C

Hey Michael, hey um so I have a question: okay about um your first time, check out limitation because for us we have that as well. We have threats, but it's really a big lie because they could actually check out more.

C

um Do you have? Is there a system? Preference that oh.

A

uh So what we do is we made a new Patron category that was like whatever the old, whatever the category we wanted. It was so adult or child, and then we just put new in front of it adult new and we set the checkout limit to five and then I talked to the Wizards by water and said hey when the next day, I want to Crown the realm run, to set the new category to what it's supposed to be so from adult new.

A

It would be changed to adult overnight, and so we don't have a Max limit for 24 hours. It's just that Max limit is that day and then the crown runs overnight and then changes it all to the patron category. It should be so.

C

Like the next day, they could come.

A

In and the next day they could come in yeah, but when we were looking at data, it really was just users coming in first time getting looking at their creation date. That was the checkout date of all the Lost items and they just didn't come back. I forget how many, but it was a big portion of our lost items, were just first-time users that didn't come back, and so we decided so if they do come back the second day and check out 200 at least they came back.

A

um There is a notorious Patron in our system that came in from a city near Dallas, which is about an hour away from us and checked out like 200 items and never returned it. So it was one of those decisions. Well, I, guess if they want to drive an hour back to do it well.

C

A

They might do that, but we're neighbors yeah, but at least they may you know they came back and then it was the the idea that you know, even if we we would have to set it to a really long limit or a really long time for that limit to stop that from happening. So it would have- and they still probably would have done it. um So, the one thing with our our library set up is we don't have a limit on most items and so that you can check out as many books as you want.

A

uh We only limit, we have on DVDs is 10, and so we run into the thing of people driving and checking out like 200 items and not returning them, and so that's really what we try and- and we've only been on it for like I, said six months so we'll see. I I didn't pull data for that yet, but we'll see, if that actually is helping. Okay.

C

I have one more question: yeah um did you say you have automatic renew we do okay, so um one of the things that frustrates me with that is they have an overdue item and I send out a notice and then all the other items that they have checked out that aren't due yet will also renew.

C

Is that how you work it or what.

A

Do you do yeah, that's kind of how we work it um and we're? Okay with that yeah.

C

You're nicer than I am yeah.

A

Yes, um we we, yes, we just let it renew, and so they could just bring back that one item and I think that's why if they there was a hold on an item, we don't necessarily want everything to come back from them. We just want that one one item to come back um and I think it would really I do see some problems in the system where something becomes lost and they were checking out new things or they were checking out things well. I think it was previously.

A

So we've stopped it a lot with the seven days and um we're probably too lenient on people just telling us that an item was to return and taking uh their um their word for it. So I do see. Yes, people can come in and then sit and have more items than they should because of just that one item and not just blocking it all, um but we we're going to live with it, we're going to let them check out. Unfortunately,.

E

uh There are several comments. This is quite a thread on YouTube A lot of people are discussing the mechanisms of fine free and the advantages and disadvantages. Several people seem to have questions about what Christopher said. He said. Christopher said um that there are no collections in koha and I. Think I've clarified that for everybody in YouTube, because I think what you really meant to say was there is no built-in automatic mechanism in koha for collection agencies and I.

E

Think that's what you meant, because I think that confused a lot of people uh and then somebody asked a question about Auto renew and you just answered that so perfect.

A

Yeah and so I guess questions see Christopher uh do you have a bug that would some about the fine that would just you would want to Mark a fine as a collection and not have it be removed by I.

B

Can't remember if I filed a bug, I know I've been talking with our vendor about that buy water about that. So we have this active conversation, but I can't remember if I have a bug specifically yet because this one was this one is kind of uh I, don't know a little nebulous. That's trying trying to pin down exactly what we need because I mean you know, there's no easy way for me to describe the situation that we're that we're that we're dealing with to uh and finding that balance between.

B

You know who can do you know when when uh those fees get removed uh and then we had the added a complication of uh the collection agencies and when those things can be uh removed, and so it's I I kind of compromised at the moment, I'm kind of settling right now with how where, uh when you check those items in uh when you click on the barcode and and change the the loss status of it, so that we can delete those things, that's where we can, we can remove it and it doesn't remove the fee.

B

So we we've we've kind of settled in that area, but I'm not happy with it, because there's still the possibility of a staff member clicking on that barcode and changing the changing it or they're just checking the item in somewhere and that b disappears. So you know, there's it's still. uh It's still a conversation that we're having and trying to Wrangle in okay. What exactly needs to happen and how do we want to phrase this in a bug so.

C

A

Any other questions any questions or can I leave the stage.

B

All right, you're free thank.

A