It has just come to our attention that there is a loophole with respect
to overdue books, fines and self-service. If user A has books overdue,
then providing none of them have been recalled or have hold requests,
the user can ask a friend, user B, to borrow the books on the
self-service machine. The loan will come off A's record and a new loan
will be created for user B. The fines that would have been sue are not
accrued on A's record: they just vanish without trace.
I was in the process of reporting this to Innovative when I stumbled
across this page:
http://csdirect.iii.com/documentation/sip2.shtml
which includes the following section under "Common problems and
frequently asked questions":
--------------------
Blocking checkout of items that are already checked out
If a patron brings an item to a SIP2 selfcheck station and tries to
check that item out, Innovative's SIP2 software will permit this
checkout. If the item is overdue but not yet billed, the system waives
any overdue fines that would be assessed for the patron to whom the item
is currently checked out. This behavior is not configurable at this
time. Please open a service request if you have additional questions.
--------------------
I opened a service request to ask when they were going to fix it. The
response was that they did not know in which release it was going to be
addressed (sounds like it's not on the roadmap) but we could put in an
enhancement request. Alternatively, they could turn off the ability to
issue books via self-service that were already checked out, but this
would also prevent people renewing via the self-service machines.
The reason we became aware of the problem was that a student mentioned
"the loophole" to a member of staff, and when asked what he meant
revealed the whole thing! Of course we have no idea how widespread this
knowledge is among the student body, and because Millennium's
transaction logging is woefully inadequate we have no way of measuring
the financial impact of the loophole. But more importantly, it's the
issue of unfairness, that those "in the know" can routinely get away
without paying fines. This is tempered, admittedly, by the fact that
you cannot use this trick if a book is recalled or has hold requests.
I'd be interested to know from other Millennium sites whether you were
already aware of this problem, and what decisions you've taken about it:
whether to deny renewal via self-service or to allow the loophole and
hope no-one finds out.
Matthew
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Matthew Phillips
Electronic Systems Librarian, Durham University
Durham University Library, Stockton Road, Durham, DH1 3LY
+44 (0)191 334 2941
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