Step-by- step: Borrower Overdue CSU+ Items
- Meghann Weldon (Unlicensed)
- Chris Lee
1. Loan is marked as lost – this is done automatically at 14 days overdue by the overdue/lost loan profile.
Patron receives a notice that the item is marked lost
Patron is billed for replacement charges (usually a $90 fee)
This fee may be transferred to the campus bursar’s office. Policies on the time frame for this transfer and actions based on incurring this fee (blocking class registration, library privileges, etc.) vary by campus.
The fee is removed when the item is returned. Policies outlining the time frame of the return also varies by campus.
If the replacement fee is paid the loan is removed from the patron account.
The replacement fee can be refunded upon return of the item up to a certain date (refund window determined locally) or if the patron supplies a replacement copy approved by the lending institution.
2. Identify long overdue items
You can go about this two ways:
Using analytics
Open the analytics report "CSU+ borrowed items due back 90 days ago". Either search for the title or navigate to Shared Folders/Community/Reports/Institutions/CalState/Resource Sharing.
This report shows active CSU+ loans with a loan due date of 90 days ago or more. If opened from your own institution’s Alma instance it will include patron information and title of the item so you can follow up appropriately as outlined below. If opened from the NZ the columns with patron information will be blank or contain “-1”.
Schedule this report on a regular interval and it can be emailed to you or whoever handles following up on these items. More information on scheduling analytics reports can be found in the Alma Online Help.
Filtering your Borrowing Requests queue
Use the facets to filter the queue down to items with
Due date = “older”
Status = Loaned item to patron OR Overdue request
Manually select the requests with due dates of 90 days ago. Although the due date in the borrowing request is different than the loan due date issued to the patron, since either date has long passed at the point you’re doing the search we can use either one.
3. Do a search/shelf check for the items identified
4. Check that the patron actually has the item checked out, it's marked lost and that Alma sent notices to the patron
Look at the loans for the user who requested the item – is the item currently checked out? Is it marked lost and replacement fee charged? If the answer to either of these questions is "no" put the item aside for follow up.
If the item is not checked out search your shelves and contact the lending institution to check their shelves too. If not found look through the request audit history and item history to see if you can track down the last place the item was scanned. Update the resource sharing request accordingly.
If the item is not marked lost talk to someone at your institution who does Fulfillment configuration to ensure the overdue/lost loan profile and TOUs are functioning correctly.
Open the user account and look at the Attachments tab to ensure a letter notifying the patron that the item is marked lost was generated.
Attachments are usually sorted by date so find the date the item was marked lost and scan through the attachment list to find the appropriate one. If no attachment is there, it is likely the user has not been contacted about the lost item. Work with a local fulfillment or systems person to identify why a letter was not sent and follow up with the patron.
If you encountered anything unusual during these checks send a general message to the lending institution, inform them of the situation and how the issue is being handled.
5. Mark the borrowing request lost
Marking requests lost is done manually. This indicates that the item has been billed and whatever measures the library takes to get items back from a patron have been taken (library blocks, registration holds, etc.) and the item has not been returned.
Click on Edit and change the Request Status to “Report Lost Item to Partner”. You can also use the check boxes in the queue and use the “Change Status” function. For screenshots showing how to do this refer to Step 3 of the Lost and Paid CSU+ Items above.
Send a General Message to the lending institution indicating that the item has been marked lost and a search/shelf check came back empty.