We have seen a couple of Victoria University students recently who have presented barcodeless student cards for ULANZ registration. Our programme requires a barcode to be scanned in, so this is a practical problem. The response from VUW is:
“Victoria University ID cards should all have a pre-printed Library barcode. It appears that this year a number of ID cards were produced without pre-printed barcodes. VUW does not issue student ID cards for the equivalent of “culturally enrolled” students so you can safely assume that if a VUW student has a current ID card (or current expiration sticker) they are officially enrolled at VUW.”
Lending and Reader Services advise they are able to assist any VUW students by ‘sending a barcode via mail’. I am hoping this barcode can be stuck on their card. Please ask any other VUW students in this situation to contact VUW Lending and Reader Services if they wish to register as reciprocal borrowers.
Helen
Lyn de Groot of Biological Sciences has sent the following message:
An obituary appeared in the Press on Saturday and the UC one will appear in the next issue of the Chronicle. I am attempting to invite as many of his early colleagues as possible, but would be grateful for help with contacts.
Because there was no public funeral, the School is holding an informal farewell for Bob Pilgrim. Attached is an invitation for the event to be held next month in the Staff Club.
Invitation to attend an informal farewell following the recent death of Emeritus Professor Bob Pilgrim, to be held in the North Lounge, University Staff Club from 4:00 pm onwards on Monday 3 May 2010.
Nibbles and juice will be provided with the bar being open from 4.15 pm.
RSVP Lyn de Groot, School of Biological Sciences by Tuesday 27th April
Lyn is aware that a number of Library staff had a long and friendly association with Prof Pilgrim and welcomes your attendance.
Does anyone have any information on the whereabouts (between Thursday 15th a.m. and Monday 19th a.m.) of a Central Library 3 day loan ‘Orientalism’ AU08839220B ?
It left Ashburton in an NZPost Courier bag on Wednesday and was signed for by Collections in the Library Packing Room at 7.55 am on Thursday 15th. It subsequently and mysteriously re-appeared in the Packing Room (via hamper?) still in its courier bag but opened around 11 am this morning. The bag is clearly labelled ‘Central Library’.
If this book made a weekend visit to your branch, please let me know (and thanks for sending it back).
Helen
Self check machines rely on front barcodes being positioned correctly so that the scanner can read them. Too many rebarcoded items are not readable because the barcode has been placed too high for the depth of the Self Check cradle. This forces borrowers to have these books issued at the desk. If you do not have a cardboard template for positioning the barcode, Helen can provide one.
Good news from Library IT on the problem of some people not receiving texts for recalled items:
“We figured out why some people haven’t been receiving txts for their recalls. Do you remember that the program wasn’t clearing everything off the list (it was timing out after about 10 recalls)? Well, Margaret adjusted the program so that it ran hourly, but an unintended consequence was that anything recalled after 4pm would not send a txt (since 4pm was the latest we were sending our notifications).
We don’t want to send txts just before midnight (!), so we’re going to go back to running the recall program at set intervals throughout the day (early in the morning and just before 1:45pm). Margaret has fixed the problem that was causing the program to time-out, so we shouldn’t see this happening again. However, let us know if the change causes any problems. Anyone who has an item recalled after 4pm today should now get a txt notification as well.”
Helen
Education Library report that over the last couple of days they have found a high number of items destined for EPS in their hamper. While returns at Central Library were huge on Wednesday and may have contributed to the high error rate – please take care to put transit items in the correct hamper (as per the transit slip).
Helen
Any library staff running the manual recall report ‘Requests on long term loan’ from now until the Easter Break next Thursday, should be aware that the report is counting days that the library is closed (6 days from 2nd to 6th April) to assess whether an item is elgible for recall.
In several cases, it has listed items issued from the Hold shelf (7 open days) as eligible for recall as they are out for 12 calendar days e.g. items issued from the Hold shelf 26/3/10 are due 7/4/10, the first day open after Easter.
Donna says: “The auto-recall report is clever enough to run from the Horizon calendar, and wouldn’t try to recall anything where the due date is already equal to or less than the recall date. The “Requests on long-term loan report”, however, can only identify potential recalls based on whether the due date is greater than 7 days. Basically, staff have to use their discretion with any item that pops up on this list – all the easy ones should be auto-recalled. If you tried to recall one of these items in Horizon, then you would realise that it doesn’t need to be recalled, because the recall due date would be the same as the original due date.”
Next week Library IT will look at how to exclude these off the list when we have public holidays if possible.
Helen
A research student recently complained that she got overdue fines because the Library had failed to send her ‘pre-ovedue’ texts and wanted her fines waived. The Library sends texts to our cell phone users in 4 different scenarios, but pre-ovedue is not one of them.
To remind us all in these changing times, the Library web page ‘How we contact you’ has been updated. It covers all forms of library communication.
For more technical information on text notification in particular see E-text notification in Camelot Team Portal for Lending.
Helen
All staff at library lending desks should now be checking the expiry dates of student cards. All undergraduates with a new enrolment should also have a matching Canterbury card with an expiry date of 02/11.
If they have not bothered to get a new card, please remind them that this is mandatory University policy and the card is already paid for by their fees. After checking out their items, please show them that you are adding an Alert block to say ‘Please sight 02/11 card b4 next CKO’. The Card Co-ordinator is back in Room 109, Science Lecture Block. Remove this block once the new card is sighted.
Because of anytime enrolments and the 180 day grace period it is not quite so straightforward with postgraduates. However any postgrad with a Horizon expiry date in 2011, will be eligible for a new card.
Thanks Helen
