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Pre-Overdue Email Notices Leave the Nest
December 10, 2008 03:13 PM | Automation, ILS, NewsDonovan Lambright, Automation Librarian
Our first batch of Pre-Overdue Notices went out today! 684 patrons in the SELCO region have been informed that they have items that are due in two days. It'll be interesting to see what impact this has on overdue statistics for the Online Libraries involved. Three notices were not sent because the email address in the patron record was invalid. Corrine Welle, Data Entry Technician, is contacting the libraries of those three patrons to let them know of the error. We simply print out other types of notices for patrons with invalid email addresses; the short turnaround time for Pre-Overdues makes that process a non-starter.
Why did the first batch go out today and not yesterday, the day after the upgrade? Good question! Monday, the day we did the upgrade, was a very long day for Mick Reese, Systems Manager, and he ended up running the scripts that turned on Pre-Overdues after Day End had already started (11:59 PM, Monday). Since all notices are created by the previous night's Day End process, that meant that no Pre-Overdues were created for Tuesday.
While we're talking about numbers, you may be interested to know that Pre-Overdue Email Notices have been turned on for a total of 31,939 patrons registered at thirteen Online Libraries. In addition to the twelve Online Libraries listed in my previous post, Who is Planning to Use Pre-Overdue Email Notices? , Owatonna PL has been added. Two more Online Libraries, Chatfield PL and Red Wing PL, have also expressed interest and we'll add them later this week.
In our initial reading of the SirsiDynix release notes, we got the impression that the Day Setting for Pre-Overdues (i.e. how many days before the due date a notice is generated) could be set by Location. That was incorrect. I can't blame the documentation; we just got it wrong. The Day Setting can be customized by BTYPE but is global for all Locations. Right now, it is set for the default: two days. At next week's ILS Operations and Technology Policy joint meeting, we are asking for a recommendation on whether to change the setting and, if so, to what. I would like to encourage the Online Libraries using Pre-Overdues to provide input to their committee representatives on this question.
