Koha-US SIG - Circulation Special Interest Group, 10 Aug 2023

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From YouTube: Circulation Special Interest Group - 8/10/23

Description

00:08:24 Rebecca Coert (APL-VA): Reacted to "At least you're no..." with 😂
00:14:48 Mike Barrette: The attributes were a killer for us. We had "Guardian Name" as an attribute and it was searchable. This made patron searching extremely slow. We moved that to the Non-Patron Guarantor field and searching has been much faster!
00:16:04 Michelle - CLAMS: That's what Mike is saying
00:17:56 Jason - SEKLS: Bug for patron search slowness due to extended attributes: https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=33554
00:23:49 Mike Barrette: That's what our understanding of the Parent/Child ITypes… number of checkouts...
00:25:49 Jason - SEKLS: Hold digest bug: https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=8838
00:27:36 Michael Adamyk (CKLS): Koha manual on authorised values:https://koha-community.org/manual/22.11/en/html/administration.html#existing-values-label

You can search for “ITEMTYPECAT” to get more information about grouping item types for searching
00:28:04 Michelle - CLAMS: Replying to "Koha manual on autho..."

thanks Michael!
00:31:00 Jason - SEKLS: Mobile self check bugs:https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=30979https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=23641
00:31:14 Rebecca Coert (APL-VA): Reacted to "Mobile self check ..." with 👍
00:35:31 Jason - SEKLS: https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=34356
00:36:50 Eileen Chandler CLAMS Library Network: This will be discussed further at consortia SIG later in August. "Koha uses the system setting LocalHoldsPriority to ensure that requests from a patron will be filled at their home branch, as long as there is an available copy. Adding an secondary option that would then allow Koha to fill with in a local holds group, set in Library groups would allow for a patron to then get their hold filled next by an available copy from another branch in the hold group, if the home branch has no available copies. When the home branch, and then the hold group have no available copies, the request would be filled by other available copies in the remainder of the consortia."
00:39:48 Rebecca Coert (APL-VA): We need a batch Check-in! BUG:
https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=19814
00:47:34 Mike Barrette: This was our documentation for Offline Circ. We process the offline files centrally, so libraries would upload the .koc files through one of our webforms.
00:48:04 Michael Adamyk (CKLS): Thanks Mike!
00:48:41 Michelle - CLAMS: Thanks for sharing Mike!
00:49:27 Rebecca Coert (APL-VA): Reacted to "Koha Offline Circ...." with 👍
00:49:33 Eileen Chandler CLAMS Library Network: Thanks Mike!
00:57:43 Jason - SEKLS: Pronoun pulldown bug: https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=30981
00:57:55 Rebecca Coert (APL-VA): Reacted to "Pronoun pulldown b..." with 👍
00:58:09 Michelle - CLAMS: Reacted to "Pronoun pulldown bug..." with 👍
00:59:08 Barbara Johnson - Bedford: thanks, good discussion
00:59:33 NEKLS Zoom 3 / George Williams: I've added https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=30981 to the koha-US bug tracker website at http://koha-us.org/bugs/
00:59:45 Jason - SEKLS: https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=34248
01:00:17 NEKLS Zoom 3 / George Williams: Also added to koha-us.org/bugs
01:00:35 Rebecca Coert (APL-VA): Reacted to "Also added to koha..." with 👍
01:00:44 Michelle - CLAMS: Reacted to "Also added to koha-u..." with 👍
01:01:30 Michelle - CLAMS: I've been keeping a list https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=33554https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=30979https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=23641https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=34356https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=19814https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=30981https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=34248
01:02:04 Rebecca Coert (APL-VA): Reacted to "I've been keeping ..." with 👏
01:02:26 Michelle - CLAMS: Reacted to "Koha Offline Circ.pdf" with 👍
01:02:47 Michelle - CLAMS: Reacted to "Koha Offline Circ.docx" with 👍
01:03:05 Rebecca Coert (APL-VA): Reacted to "Koha Offline Circ...." with 👍

Shared Offline Circ Docs: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yYJtvM9YmwerMZlI3ZwaQMjLrZ4qpfis?usp=drive_link

A

The Clown all right welcome to the August circulation Sig meeting, glad to see so many faces today hope you brought great conversations to have in relation to circulation. um Who would like to get us started.

A

Anybody have anything exciting to share or problems you're having yes, silly.

B

I know I was brought this up at.

C

D

C

Of you already know this.

E

D

F

D

G

It's getting hard to hear you Eileen.

G

F

Can you hear.

C

Me, okay, um so at the last meeting I mentioned many of you know this already, because Cam's staff go to including me go to every every koha or Aspen meeting. There is to learn as much as we can, but at the last meeting I believe I shared. We were having a terrible latency, slow response time in circulation and Nick from Bywater. Our support company found the issue um and we're now Speedy fast at the circulation desks. So we're very happy.

C

um Are you interested in hearing what the issue was?

C

Yes, I am okay.

C

um So when we went to 22 11 points, whatever I think we're on 0.07 now um the circulation, the checkout check-in and self checkout slowed to awfully, um and you know we we were asking libraries at their busiest time of the year because we're a tourist destination to make recordings.

C

um My staff went out and observed and or made video recordings and added them to the um to the open ticket anyway, to make a long story short. This went down for two and a half months, far too long in my opinion um and then Nick at Bywater finally found that it was and I'm going to kill the pronunciation on this I apologize in advance. We had turned on pseudonymization.

C

um For all transactions and everything to do with the patron record, including attributes when he turned that off that solves the problem. So we would like to and he's supposed to report it as a bug in bugzilla.

C

um So you know we appreciated his detective work and we did a lot of detective work as well uh with help from some people who were here, um but anyway, we would like to turn back on parts of that, at least um because we're big into Patron privacy.

C

um However, we're not going to do it over the summer, because our libraries as I said you know two and a half months of this, uh so we're very happy to report that that was our particular issue with 2211..

C

But we're we're not happy to report that we had an issue, we're happy to report that it has been resolved.

A

I'm glad you discovered what was going on well Nick discovered.

C

It I mean yeah, we tried everything. We went through our system preferences with with Bob from click. uh He was kind enough to do that and you know nobody thought it would be that issue, but it actually was so.

A

I wonder what was special about your setup, that I don't know to slow it down for you and not anything with their other company. Is anyone else have that studentization system preference turned on in this group out of curiosity, okay, just.

C

Beware yeah, hopefully they will fix it because we do. We do want our reports to be pseudonymized.

C

Who can spell that word? Who can pronounce it, but um yeah I mean we do I mean possibly it was the attributes or something but um because I heard from another site that they have a turned on, maybe not to the extent that we have and they don't have any speed issues. So um at the same time, if it's available, they need to fix so um look out for the bug. I I haven't seen it up yet, but I haven't checked today.

B

I would think it would be a huge overhead if you were taking in all your transactions and your attributes, and they might say that, if you're going to implement it for everything, you need to beef up your server.

C

Well, they host us, they host Us by water, we're hosted um and they did in fact beef up our you know, parameters or whatever on the server they they did all of that. Okay, um it's just unfortunate. It took that long to discover it.

C

So uh so it's sometimes it's one of those little things um but yeah I think the fact that it has to look through all of this stuff for some reason we're a Consortium, um Daphne I'm Irish too, but I I'm, a I, guess I work on Cape Cod 30 years ago, but I still have the accent um so yeah we're a Consortium of 38 locations.

C

um So you know maybe it's the volume I I have no idea.

A

Yeah well, thanks for letting us know about that, and letting us know the fix so that we can be on the lookout and um I know. That's we're getting we're looking into churning on studentization and so you're like okay. We need to investigate instead of just turning it on.

A

Let's maybe um need some more things. I see someone put something in the chat: ah the attributes um where the killer I'm wondering if it's the attributes that are slowing it down.

C

um It may have been yeah because the other side, Christopher I'm, not sure I, can't pronounce where he works, but he's involved in koal us. um He said at their site, um they don't have the attributes turned on and they have no issue but I'm just reluctant to to go near it again over the summer. Yeah um does anyone else know there were on about issues.

C

This is not good news, but um we're finding it I mean I. Think this is a known issue or bug. Excuse me searching the patron record by anything other in circulation. Searching the patron record by anything other than borrow code is like slow as molasses. For us we're on 2211.. Does anyone else I see Mike has remarked on something, but.

H

Yeah, do you have any of your Patron attributes as searchable.

C

Oh gosh Michelle will know that or Avery they're here, yes,.

G

C

A bunch of them.

G

Okay, yeah because yeah all of our stuff, that was in Sierra, we just put them into the attributes and.

H

Yeah yeah so I I. What I would do just as like a test just to ensure I, don't know how many you have, but any of them that are searchable turn it off. Do some searching and you're going to notice an extreme difference.

C

H

Sharing so is there? Is there anything in your attributes that you do you need it to be searchable? What what kind of things did you store in there.

G

No really we don't. um One of them is the sort one field which is just we're just we're using SSO. So it's just putting in the email address of all of the staff members so that that's just sitting there so yeah they're. um There are a bunch of attributes.

H

Yeah sort one and sort two, those are kind of like standard Patron fields and those shouldn't affect anything, but anything.

H

That's those extra fields that you add either like a drop down a a free text field, if you have those searchable um turn it off and then you'll you'll notice, a big difference.

H

G

A

Thank you, I am learning so much today.

A

I haven't started looking into attributes, yet, ah thanks for the bug, Jason.

A

um Jason put a bug in the chat.

I

It looks like it's in discussion and there was a discussion about it as um soon as yesterday. So it's fresh on people's minds.

C

Okay, sorry um Cheryl is our our loan rule circulation, rule person and I know. Jason has helped her, but it's a nightmare to like somebody just asked yesterday or today for a new um loan rule and that used to fill us with Dread when we were on Sierra, but that continues in Chicago um I mean we'd like to say no, but we're not going to do that. So I, don't know.

C

Michelle can speak to this more, but adding loan rules is still a nightmare even on this system because of all like this is for a finding Library one of our seven remaining finding libraries, but if anyone has any tips or tricks for making loan rules easier or if they've done a help sheet or something please please share. Maybe I don't want to take up the whole meeting with that, but um maybe post meeting, but we are finding it just as hard in koho to add loan rules.

J

Is the issue the like the fines kicking in like the the fine itself or.

C

I'm not sure what the issue is. Michelle can speak to this.

G

uh The issue is that now they wanted this specific item to circulate for 21 days. So now it's a whole new loan period that we're that.

B

G

Have to make up because um most of our stuff is seven days or 14 days or the occasional 21 days, but it um so it kind of seems like I I'm going to have to do like a a thing. Three days, a thing. Seven days a thing, 14 days a thing 21 days and keep going like that, because that's kind of what it seems like is they want the same thing, but they want it to circulate differently.

J

Is it different item types that are circulating or are they like all the same.

G

Well, this is a book club um item so.

F

G

Want this specific book club item to go out for 21 days so.

J

We don't have anything like uh yeah, a book club like item type and then just have that set for 20 minutes.

C

Yeah, you know, you know: Michelle I think we're gonna have to go. We're gonna have to get to get across the the Consortium for this, because we've always kind of slams has a history of doing the same loan periods for all libraries and we're pretty good about that.

C

um But with library of things you know, with these kind of we used to call them ephemeral things, um although I think that's kind of an insulting term. At this point, but library of things and miscellaneous things like that, we've allowed them. Okay, you know you can do what you want you can you can circulate. However, you want to do it, but it's becoming an issue now so I think we're going to have to say. Okay, these are your options. Choose one.

G

The um it's just the thing I'm noticing in koha is um in Sierra. We could group like things together, so it was easier to say that this group of things for this, for just this specific category, can go out for this time. But this category can go out for this time and um yeah it. We have to do like a one. Every line like I can't group things together, like I, could in Sierra, which is uh so so hard.

K

G

Get used to it, there's.

K

Actually supposed to be a way to do that, that's item type groups and um so, for example, I recently tried implementing. We've got lots of different item types for videos.

K

We've got Blu-ray, we've got Blu-ray 3D, we've got um Blu-ray, DVD combo stuff like that, and if you go into item types when you edit each one, you can set a parent item type and so I created a parent item, type that I called videos and then I put all of those other videos under that parent item type and what's the way it's supposed to work, is you can set a circle rule for videos and it applies to all of those item types.

K

But I tried that just this week and I it hasn't been working right for me. So I'm not.

G

K

Going on with that.

G

I tried that it when we first set up and it didn't work but I thought it was supposed to work so yeah. Maybe.

I

I think that the parent-child relationships only affect the number of checkouts right now, uh I, don't think it applies any other part of the rule. To that.

K

Although even on mine, it wasn't even working for that, it was, it was limiting. um All I tried to limit it to five video types and it was limiting it to five of all item types, um including books. So I'm not sure what was.

F

I

K

But I've got a ticket with my water.

I

Yeah I've got it set up for some things. Generally, it has videos where it's like they allow five Total videos at one time, but I have two different item types because I have to have one for new and then I have one for regular, um but I haven't tested it since we upgraded so there's a good chance. It's not working for us either.

G

Yeah, the parent child item types um I, actually thought it was just to do a searching. Well, no I wanted it to work for search where I could just say, like this group like group, everything for videos, and then people can just search videos and all of them would pop up. So that was my hope for that. But that's not what it does.

K

I think there is for an item. You can create a search category for item types so that I think that is what you're looking for. Oh.

G

That would be great yeah awesome.

K

It's if you go to edit item type, it's directly below the description. Then it has search category you'd have to create a search category first and I. Think that's under item type cat. The authorized value.

G

All right, yeah I, was afraid to go into there be um started grouping things, so I will look into that again.

G

C

Tom says co-sponsoring a development um for oh. What is that again holes digest notification? That's our other little bit of news and the development is going to be done by buy water, but we have no timeline yet.

J

What will that do like send you the holds list every day or something.

C

um um Yeah, instead of you know a patron who has six holes if they all come in together, you know on the same day or whatever it won't send them. Six notifications to pick up their stuff it'll be a Digest.

J

Yeah, you don't need six, just one.

A

C

So, oh thanks, Jason, there's a whole load of us. I mean we're co-sponsoring for a small amount, there's others that are in for bigger amounts, but um we're excited it's our first development that we're we're helping with.

J

Things sorry go ahead.

D

No I was gonna, say saying with the topic of uh notifications in um teacher notifications. Does anyone use itiva.

F

H

That was gonna, be my question too yeah. What.

D

Does that do? Does anyone use twilio.

I

I know that Christopher, Brandon and Coeur d'alene does and he's got like a whole like crazy telephone calling tree thing that he set up because they're a Consortium. um So he might be a point of contact for that. We tested out twilio just for text messaging, but um we found that we would lose the ability for patients to reply to text which I'm okay with but but um I. Don't think my libraries would be okay with because they can do that right now with text to email.

I

um So that's why we didn't move forward with it. So we're still just using text email which is semi-reliable, but we we've never done phone notices. So we didn't test that part of it out, but Christopher has it set up. So if you need to contact on that, I would reach out to him. Okay,.

D

C

Is anyone using kapira as their mobile app.

D

Is anyone trying unsuccessfully too yeah.

C

I mean we, we have our our contract expires in November and I. Can't wait for. Is it leader to be up and running um I? Guess it's up and running, but people people love to do the self-checkout on their phones and they can do that with with capira, but very little else is working and we're getting oclc purchased capira. So we're we're not getting the responses we need so, and it's not working correctly. So I just wondered.

C

Is anyone using leader.

J

C

Their mobile app.

J

We have it in our pipeline, but we haven't uh like rolled it out. Yet there's talks, but probably early next year, we'll start letting people use it.

K

We introduced it to our Librarians um a couple months ago and uh they don't seem too excited to be using it. At this point,.

C

They are excited or not too, excited.

K

They they haven't, really started using it. So.

K

Not much use at this point.

H

You have a different mobile app at the moment, and or is this like your first mobile app.

K

It would be the first time we've tried it so I think a lot of them are slow to adopt that that technology.

C

Once they get used to self-checkout I mean I was surprised. uh Well, of course we had it during the height of covid, um but they people really use that self-checkout.

H

C

Actually got it.

H

To work with kapira and.

C

H

C

We did now having said that, there was one library that we only have one library that uses RFID, um so it never worked for them for self-checkout, but all of the.

F

C

I mean I think the Librarians embraced it and then by default they were they loved. It so showed their patrons. How to use it yeah we, it worked fine as far as.

H

I know we just had an issue with getting the correct stats, so it just wouldn't wasn't working right for us. Yeah.

C

Now it's giving us checkout stats, All, For, One location, no matter where the person checks out the stuff and but there's a lot of other issues um with capira and uh and Coho. So I think it's time to say goodbye to it soon.

H

So does Lita offer mobile silk check out.

K

I, don't think so. They're.

C

Working on it, I think because we went to something recently where yeah I'm not sure it's live yet I, don't think it's yeah I think they're stupid, but it's coming.

G

Because that was part of the reason why we said we would stick it out with capiros, because of that uh checking.

J

You guys have like security at your library. Does that, like work with, you know the the metal detector things at the front with books.

J

Yeah yeah like it could still set it up.

G

uh They can't use it at all.

J

G

At the library that has the RFID, they can't even use it so and they're our biggest library, but everyone else seems to love it.

D

Most of our libraries aren't even using the security anymore. They'll just have the gates and they're unplugged or yeah.

J

Exactly yeah, it's a show more of just a visual deterrent.

D

I

So it does look like this. Functionality may be coming in 2311 to base goha I've been trying to read through this book, but it doesn't seem clear on exactly how it works um it's, but it sounds like maybe it'll be a thing.

I

um The first bug was that the one 30979 is the one that's been pushed um and there's a test plan on it talking about logging into the OPAC entering the barcode and checking out themselves. The other bug is check out via the camera on the device. So since that's the second bug, I'm guessing that that part isn't top pieces and in the first book but I, don't know exactly.

J

Anyone else have any developments in the works on your co-ha got.

F

J

C

There will be one coming soon. We hope that people will be interested in Michelle. Do you want to explain it or sorry for putting you on the spot? It's about.

C

Oh, what is it about it's about.

C

C

No holes and sort of different groups for selecting the holes the tiered holds tiered holds um I can put in chat, Ben or Bob I'm. Sorry, Bob benhoff. um We have been after this development for years when we were on Sierra and we're not sure it exists on any ILS, but um Michelle shared the wording we had. You know for the past eight years with with innovation of, um and he has Consolidated. We think the underpinnings are there.

C

I'll put it into the chat, because I can't articulate exactly what it is, but we hope that people will am I allowed to do this. We hope that people will chip in with the development, meaning co-fund.

C

S when I find it.

A

Yeah, that's one of the benefits of these groups. I feel like is finding out what enhancements people are working on and sharing it with the group to see who else is interested in helping if everybody gives a little bit, you can um chip away at the big price.

A

Is there anything else anything to be looking for on 2211 to keep our eyes open, that with problems you've had or exciting new things on 2211.

I

I ran into a bug with um checkout history, sorting I'll put that in the channel um it has to do with. If you turn it turn on record stuff use around checkout, which is the system preference that lists which staff account checked that thing out to the person in the checkout history.

I

um It displaces the Sorting. Basically, when you turn that on so it's sorting by that column, instead of by due date, which gives you a completely terrible sort and I've had a lot of confused people. um I wrote some jQuery and it works. It works in three places. It works in Chrome, um my production server. It works in Chrome on my test server. It works in Firefox on my test server and it does not work in Firefox on my production server. So I don't know it's like one of those things.

I

I, don't know why it's not working, but it's really frustrating um but I posted the bug as well, because it it does seem like an actual bug. So.

J

Yeah, it's working everywhere else. What the heck.

I

Well, yeah and my test server is on a different version than production. So that may be. Why not working.

J

I

Firefox and production I don't know, I was gonna talk to Lucas.

F

About it at our web dub meeting.

I

Next week to see if he had any ideas.

A

Yeah I've learned the hard way if your Chrome or your Firefox is on a different version. It doesn't operate the same.

A

um uh You either need to go back a step or go or move everything up a step.

A

What's your question unrelated.

I

To the upgrade, so um is anybody using batch checkout on the staff? Client? Yes, do you have any loves or hates with that? It's the feature that came like after, like it didn't exist when we started and then when it came, we never turned it on, because I think there were some problems with it, um but we turned on the check previous checkout with the current upgrade and people are getting, people love it and hate it and I'm thinking. That's checkout might help with some of the hate of it.

I

um So I'm just wondering if there's any any like outstanding issues with batch checkout that you've run into well.

L

We set up batch checkout for just our um materials processing staff, so not every Patron type can do it because we didn't want everyone to be able to have access to it. They use it for big projects when they have just text files of books that they've scanned from the stacks or something on a cart. They just you know, drop that straight into the box, and Google is all checked out to their card.

L

um I haven't heard any negatives about it, um not not that that has been reported to us. We've had it turned on since we went live uh so it it's worked really well for us, but, like I, said we're limiting it just to the people. Who would need something quite that big, so I'm, not sure if that would work for like a regular paycheckout or not.

I

So the main complaint I'm getting so like when you turn on the check previous checkout functionality. Every time um somebody checks something out that they've had before you have to click yes, to confirm that checkout so um and that's the functionality we kind of wanted and we discovered that it also works with holds so like you're, not putting the hold on for the person. That's already had it in the past, um which is a whole other thing because of our clubhold set up.

I

um It's a big sticky mess, but um I think that the batch checkout from in testing it seems to do everything that I want so I'm trying to decide. I guess I can turn it on for like one location and make sure things don't explode and then let the rest of the Consortium use it, um but I think it from what I can tell so far. It should work and should like get around that issue of having to collect yes every time, because it's like scan everything and at once, hit.

F

I

Confirm all of the different things that pop up for the second button and it's two clicks instead of like 25 or whatever.

I

Okay, thank you.

L

I also put a bug in the chat for that. We don't have a batch check-in option which always drove me crazy.

J

Yeah I've never seen that in koha before I.

I

Know a tricky tricky thing that you can do, but I'm I've been discouraged from sharing it, but I think there's actually a presentation on this on um at the conference.

I

um But yeah you can technically make it happen with another tool in koha, um but it's dangerous because it doesn't catch all of the circulation. Things like holes and whatnot.

L

Yeah, that's actually what I've been using back to check out for is to check them all out to like a dummy card and then just check them in off their record.

I

um Which that's probably safer than my method.

L

That, when you're doing it for 100 items, you know you know pedatively I'd go back to check and release so much faster.

A

A

Well, I have a question: is anyone using offline circulation? We have some libraries that just have super slow internet during certain times of the day and I've been thought I'm like I, wonder if offline circulation or even the BET checkout.

A

If that might help get us around our problem, does anyone have that offline circulation? Are you using that we used.

L

C

Sorry go ahead. Oh.

L

Sorry I mean we have it. Yes, we use the Firefox plug-in, not the one. That's installed on the actual desktop.

C

I can't remember much about it, but when we were migrating in February the library's used it Avery or Michelle. Do you know anything about us right? It's been so long seems so long ago. I can't remember specifics, but.

C

I

C

We've upped the internet speed since then. We.

I

Used it for our last migration and it didn't work out well for us. um I had a large Library, like our biggest library migrate so far, um so they needed to keep doing circulation and we don't often use it. So my training wasn't thorough enough I guess, um but they didn't not. All their saves got saved. Basically because you and we use the desktop client, not the Firefox client.

I

So, um like you have to at some point, you have to click a button to tell it where to save the file, and that didn't happen on three of their four checkout computers or whatever. So we only had like one record of checkouts, um so there it was not as intuitive as I thought. It was I guess um so you you'll want to be thorough about your documentation if you're using that that um find it.

C

Well we had trash of a tornado. The other day actually did hit one of the towns near us, but um um it did hit one town on the cape, but it's something we need to document and get back up there for the winter for because they fairly frequently used to use the offline Circ when we were on Innovative. So it's it's something we need to. uh They need to have at hand and print out the instructions, but I think it worked.

C

Okay, when we were migrating, it didn't hear from anyone that it didn't work but I'm, not sure if it's the Firefox one or the desktop client or what we used. I can't remember to be honest,.

I

Also I've I've heard you should never use it for check and just check out because things.

C

I

Messy, if you start checking things in with it well,.

C

That was a limitation on our old system too, so they were used to that.

B

It should work but like that, the check-in don't use the check-ins because it won't trap, holds.

F

B

Anything exactly yeah.

C

And I think for registering new patrons. That's the other thing. I mean. Obviously, that's not an emergency thing. It really is just for checkouts I believe as far as I recall,.

E

Well, I have a question: is anyone using the POS system in Kokomo.

E

What is that? What point of sale.

J

E

Well, you can set it up so that you can sell like flash drives and you know we use. We take a lot of money across the desk for our friends group, so like friends, memberships and book sale and that kind of thing and um but what we're trying to kind of figure out is um we do refunds, um and maybe we do a same-day refund and that's like money into the drawer and money out of the drawer.

E

So no problem, but sometimes somebody will have like a lost book they've paid for two months ago and then they find it and they come in and we have like a six month, window, I think, and so we do a refund, but that money doesn't come out of our drawer. Our finance department cuts a check for that.

E

So as we're learning how this works, uh the reports kind of they include that, as you know, money that's coming out of your drawer, but it really isn't and so we're just trying to figure out reporting and find out if anyone has any uh procedures for that um we're bit by bit we're getting it working. So.

I

It's on one of these little slipping paper around my my desk, but not one of my libraries wanted to test point of sale, but I haven't gotten there yet so I'm interested to see what you wind up with, but forever yeah.

E

I mean I I think we're gonna get there and right now I've got some of the built-in reports. We just don't feel make a lot of sense to us. So I've got a report that tracks our um payments and purchases, so payments being like for Lost Books and purchases like for flash drives and.

F

E

A separate report for refunds I would love to have those in one report eventually, so that staff can just run this one thing um and there's a little bit of a feeling of not being able to balance your checkbook. Sometimes when you get those finance department, refunds that happen, we're not actually the ones refunding the money it's coming from somewhere else, and so we're trying to create reports that will help with that and I've learned how to bold. Some things in reports.

E

Andrew helped me out with that the other day, so I can get a total and it's in bold, and it looks all nice in presentation so we're eating away at it.

F

M

Everybody sorry I'm late.

H

M

H

F

Miss anything good.

A

I

You missed everything, good George, it's the.

M

Action Story of My Life.

E

Well, I'll bring up another topic um so with this release um they brought in the field for pronouns, and so our staff was discussing you know, do we need to be keeping them? Do we need to implement that? You know how do we want to do it because there's been a lot of talk also about?

E

Are we collecting information from patrons that we don't really need um so then that led to well, you know, should we do that instead of gender? Do we need gender? Do we need either and do we have any other information we're collecting that we really, you know, isn't reasonable for us to be collecting for patrons. So I just wondered if other libraries have had discussions about that. Have opinions about that.

M

um Beginning in a couple of weeks, I have a meeting coming up on August 29th with our members and at that time I'm going to. Let them know that we that Nichols as an organization, has decided that we are going to stop collecting uh the sex markers on people's we're.

D

Going to disable.

M

The feature in koha we're just going to make that a an unavailable field I've already done it for several libraries, and the reason here in Kansas is because uh state law changed, and it said you know if you for state agencies, if you collect that data, you have to collect the data. That's that is the patrons uh sex at the time of birth, and our thinking is, we don't want to make. Our member libraries have to.

M

You know verify that information um there are currently. There are no consequences to this law. If you don't do it or if you do it, if you do it wrong, there's no legal consequence, but we figured that this is a way to just shut the whole conversation down, because when we talked about it here at the office, the consensus was is what why do you need to know a person's sex when they're checking out materials? What is the value of having that in the catalog at all and So?

M

Currently, that's our plan is that there are a couple of libraries that are probably going to say, but we need that. um But when I looked at the information, as it's currently being kept, um what I found is that there's only one library that seems to be gathering data consistently from all of their patrons most of the libraries about 50 of the patrons um there was no data collected at all. It was just marked, it was either not marked at all, or it was marked as n a um and so for most of our libraries.

M

It just didn't matter in a couple of libraries. As soon as the law went into effect, they contacted me and they said we want to disable it. We we don't want to collect it anymore and any information we currently have. We want it gone.

M

So that's our plan and because of that I, don't even plan I plan on making the pronoun field uh unavailable just keep it an unwanted field in our system. So.

I

We haven't addressed this issue, but um I will say the advantage of the pronoun field is going to be from a customer service standpoint. Probably um your Frontline staff may need may want that information, but it does seem like a sort of tricky line to um walk a weave, just left it sort of open and um open to local control.

I

At this point well, in general, like George, said they're not using either field, but it's available there if they feel like they need it at one library that I requested the pronoun Fields way back when um so we decided we'd just leave it on for now.

M

Yeah I guess our thinking is currently there's. There are no enforcement mechanisms in this law, but that's the way these laws seem to work is first they'll put it on the books and then next they'll add some enforcement, and- um and so at what point do we do? We? It just seems like it's easier to cut it off right now, so to speak, I guess when you're talking about gender, maybe cut it off as a great expression.

K

Thanks for bringing that up, George I hadn't realized that implication on from Kansas said. So that's something we'll have to look at too yeah.

M

Pretty much what the law here says that if you're gonna, if you're a state agency or if you're, if your taxpayer-funded agency in Kansas and you collect that data, it has to be based on the person's sex at Birth.

M

um So so it's and it's going to vary from state to state. Some states aren't going to do anything with it.

M

um You know and the one argument I've heard in favor of keeping this is you know it's for demographic data, um but at what you know, because actually, when you look at the numbers, the number of adult males using the libraries a lot lower than the number of adult females using the library, but um you know there's plenty of other way. I I figured you know as somebody who was a circular who was in charge of circulation for such a long time, I feel like I.

M

Don't need to know anything about this person other than how to contact them. If they don't return the item and if that doesn't, if, if I'm collecting information, it doesn't help me do that, then, what's the point.

G

G

Pronouns um we have it turned on in our system, and we had it in our old system as well, and our our staff were really excited to get it and they and they use it, um and it's just like personal stories that you hear when someone has been um when when they have the pronoun they in in their record and someone refers to them as they and then they actually post on uh Reddit. That they're, like someone actually said my my uh you know uh my correct pronouns today and I was so happy.

G

The librarian did it and it's all based on yeah the connections you're making at the library and even like being at the Circ desk, like even if, like the the you're you're, bringing the person over to reference for an interaction even having that is like. Could you help them or could you help her or could you help him like? That is something that could help you in in the record, when you do see it, so we have had that turned on and have really good positive feedback with it.

G

So I would um just say that the the gender- absolutely no that's not happening in Massachusetts at all, um like I I, haven't collected I've, never worked in a library that collects that, but the the pronouns is more of a yeah from uh I agree with Jason from a customer's standpoint or a patron standpoint. That interaction is better than yeah the um than gender.

L

um Michelle I have a question for you: are you using a blank text field, or do you have preset author, like preset pronouns that they can choose.

G

um In Sierra it had to be preset, so we put like all the variation like um just two like she, her they them type of thing and just went all through that.

G

um But in koha we've kept it as free text, so um anyone could put whatever they need to in there um and when we migrated from Sierra. We just put all of what we had in Sierra into the koha fields.

L

Thanks yeah, we are we're not uh we don't definitely do not connect anything with gender uh and we're talking about pronouns and whether or not it should be a drop down box just for ease of stuff or um uh like our self-registration page. You know to keep the data cleaner to have it just be a drop down or versus a free text option so we're currently in that discussion.

I

So there's a bug out there talking about like making it a pull down, but that also has a free text option so like there's choices, but if the right choice isn't in there, then the patron or the staff member could also enter um something free text at that.

C

Point awesome my mouth for pulled down menus to avoid spelling errors and so on um and we're looking at a new self-reg product. Well, we're not looking we're actually going to do it in the fall. um It's a Statewide thing in Massachusetts, where they gave us money.

C

um It's kipu, I I, always pronounce this wrong. Q-U-I-P-U um is the the company, but um we'll have to keep that in mind about the pronouns I'm, not sure. If we've we will have that set up, but it's something we should do with the Selfridge.

A

Anyone have anything else.

A

We still have five.

G

Minutes just um point out: we have Aspen and then the registration page in Aspen and um we have it under identity and it's just a free text field. Right now.

C

Oh, can we change no.

B

I

Well, I have I'm looking through the bugs that I've I've, like added since the upgrade. This is a very American bug. Maybe um I found that uh in the curbside module winners picking times it's 24 hours, no matter what um so I wrote a bug to like you know, make that follow time format so that um for us in America and other places that use 12-hour format, the patrons don't get fully confused.

I

Oh there's that one.

M

There is um I'm mentioning it in the chat box. There is a page on the koha Us website called uh it's co-au-us.org bugs and whenever I'm in a meeting- and we talk about bugs I, try to add the bugs that are discussed uh to that list at that page. So um it doesn't cover everything, but it covers a lot of stuff talked about in a lot of meetings. uh Just for everybody's information.

A

Thanks for the info and for collecting all of that, we've discussed a lot of bugs today.

M

I'll have to watch later and go back and fill in the ones I missed. So.

A

We even mentioned one that hasn't been created yet.

M

uh You're on your own, with that one I can't track that one until it's created.

M

What bug was that.

A

um On pseudonym pseudonymization.

A

There you go slowing down systems when.

M

F

M

Part of that that was a discussion of yesterday's meeting.

F

A

And Mike, thanks for the koha offline, Circ PDF, with instructions on how to um set that up and use it I'm, looking forward to digging into that.

H

um Yep you're welcome if.

A

You'd, like a.

H

um Like a word, doc, editable, um actually maybe like I, can share that one too so it'll be easier to.

H

Where did I find it.

H

Is an editable one for you.

A

A

Okay, is there anything else anyone would like to discuss.

A

All right and I will stop the recording.