(Go-Live) Handling UC Patron Account Issues

Legend: NOT STARTED IN PROGRESS STALLED DECIDED

Status	IN PROGRESS
Scope	Go-Live
Description	Since UC patrons will be able to travel to other UC Library locations and borrow materials using their home campus ID, we need to establish the best practices for staff to resolve any account issues that may come up.
Decision	We recommended the following resolutions for possible issues patrons could encounter when attempting to borrow items in-person while visiting another UC Library. These issues/resolutions should be shared with staff during their local trainings.
Owning group	Fulfillment & ILL FG (SILS-FG-FULFILL-L@LISTSERV.UCOP.EDU)
Approver
Stakeholders	R = Fulfillment & ILL FG A = Fulfillment & ILL FG C = I = Fulfillment & ILL FG, Local Teams
Decision-making process	Fist of Five
Priority	Medium
Due date	23 Jul 2021

Recommendation

The following are recommended resolutions for possible issues patrons could encounter when attempting to borrow items in-person while visiting another UC Library. These issues/resolutions should be shared with staff during their local trainings.

Patron Issue	Resolution	Notes
Patrons who don’t show up in the Fulfillment Network when attempting to pull in their stub record	Staff attempts to contact patron’s home institution to try and resolve.	There will be a non-patron facing local contacts sheet shared with staff at all UCs. A reason this could be happening is because the patron may be in, or have changed to a user group that is not allowed to borrow within the AFN. Ex. a UC student changes to an Alumni account locally.
Expired patrons	Patron will be directed to contact their local institution to clear up.	There will be a patron-facing UC Libraries contact sheet or card to hand to the patron.
Patron’s account is blocked because of issues with their home institution account (Billing, manual blocks, etc.)	Patron will be directed to contact their local institution to clear up.	There will be a patron-facing UC Libraries contact sheet or card to hand to the patron.
Patron is given a short expiration date for items	Patron will be directed to contact their local institution to clear up.	There will be a patron-facing UC Libraries contact sheet or card to hand to the patron. A reason for this issue could be because the patron’s expiration date from their home campus has been shortened. If that’s the case, the patron should be directed to renew their checked out item after clearing up their expiry date issue with their home campus.
Error message appears indicating missing patron information fields when attempting to pull in stub record Ex. phone number, email address, etc.	Update local fields on the stub record for the patron, and save changes.

Dependencies

Our testing showed that patrons cannot be automatically blocked from using the AFN to request ILLs if they exceed fine limits at other UCs. They can only be blocked from using the AFN to request ILLs if they exceed fine limits at their home institution. This is OK to us because it’s likely that if someone is willing to be delinquent with their materials borrowed from other UCs, they are likely delinquent to the point of blocking at their own institution, and would be blocked. Technically, the patron would still be able to travel to the other UC, and continue checking out materials in-person unless they had managed to get themselves blocked at the other UC by reaching their local fines limits with their in-person loans there or being manually blocked, but we feel that the possibility of this happening will be very low, since most patrons will prefer to have items delivered to their home campus.

Questions to consider

If a patron account is expired and they call their home library and get the issue resolved, how quickly does that update in the network for us to pull up at our desk? Has this been tested yet?
- This was tested, and it’s an immediate change.
How long does it take for a patron’s block to be removed from their Network account, once their account issue is resolved at their home institution?
- This was tested, and it’s an immediate change.

Action Log

Action/Point Person	Expected Completion Date	Notes	Status