Catherine,
We have been doing this properly for about 2 years, but only for people
who receive email notices (about a third of our active membership). If
people sign up to receive their notices via email, they automatically
get a courtesy notice 4 days before due date, (2 days for shorter
loans). We have not been able to do any analysis of whether the number
of overdue notices has dropped - but our users definitely appreciate
them, and many rely on them. They are not 100% effective as we also are
still sending out email overdues.
To some extent we use the courtesy notice as an incentive to sign up for
email notices, whidh is something that we want to promote because of the
postage savings. These are all generated by our LMS. When a customer
(new or existing) signs up for email notices, we send out an email
welcome notice, which acts as a check that the customers email is valid,
outlines the benefits of getting email notices and gives them the option
to 'opt-out' of our email newsletter (which they will get if the do not
opt-out). The welcome notice and our email newsletter are not LMS
generated. A user can sign up for email notices either in a branch or
online http://library.bury.gov.uk/screens/help_email.html.
We did attempt to introduce it about 5 years ago but our email set up
was not correct and a lot of our emails got bounced. At that time we
realised that people were relying on this service as they would come in
and complain that they had not received their courtesy notice.
HTH
Alan
--
Alan Brown
Library Systems Liaison Officer
Resource Services
Bury Libraries
Textile Hall
Manchester Rd
Bury
BL9 0DG
Tel 0161 253 5877
http://www.bury.gov.uk/libraries
http://library.bury.gov.uk
________________________________
From: Hancox Catherine [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 10 August 2010 15:32
Subject: Pre-Overdue SMS and emails
I am currently on a working party looking at our overdue recovery
procedure and was wondering about the effectiveness of pre-overdue
messages by text or email.
Does your area use this as a means of cutting down on overdue recovery?
If so how successful has it been and has there been a noticeable drop in
the number of people with overdue books?
How does your system work and do customers have to ask to sign up for
the service?
If anyone has any information about this I would be grateful for the
input.
Thanks
Cath Hancox
Community Librarian
West Area
Libraries, Heritage and Arts
Darlaston Library
1 King Street
Darlaston
WS10 8DD
[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
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Fax. 0121 526 2298
www.walsall.gov.uk <http://www.walsall.gov.uk>
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