Modification of On Hold Shelf letter

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Status	IN PROGRESs
Description	Recommendation for modifying On Hold Shelf letter while we wait for Ex Libris to add automated blocks.
Decision summary
Owning group	Fulfillment OST
Approver	Fulfillment OST
Consulted	ILL CKG (CKG-ILL-L [@] listserv.ucop.edu); Local SILS Teams; CDL Resource Sharing Team (SILS-sysops [@] cdlib.org )
Informed	SILS All Chairs Groups; SILS-Cohort (SILS-Cohort-L@ucop.edu)
Decision-making process	Fist of five; Fulfillment OST authored decision page, gathered & incorporated feedback from larger OST & consulted groups. Result of F OST vote:
Priority	Medium
Target decision date	TBD
Date decided	[type // to add Date] You must add a date field for it to sort properly. It will not sort if you simply type the date. The date the Approver approves the decision.

1 Executive Summary
2 Problem Statement
3 Recommendations
4 Impact
5 Reasoning
6 Background
7 Dependencies
8 Questions to consider
9 Meeting History

Executive Summary

In an attempt to provide as clear and consistent of a message as possible to our patrons around the UC system, we’re proposing a minor addition of code and text to the On Hold Shelf letter. This letter is automatically sent to patrons when an AFN item is ready to be checked out after being received at the specified pick up location from the lending library. Until such time that Ex Libris institutes AFN Consortia Blocks at each campus, these modifications to the On Hold Shelf letter will serve as a short term stop gap in improving communication to patrons regarding possible loan blocks due to fines/fees.

Problem Statement

From the Fulfillment perspective, patrons should be notified that a block on their account may not prevent them from requesting a particular item, but it could prevent them from check out.

Patrons are given a false expectation that they have the ability to pick up material through a Resource Sharing request at time of requesting, only to discover they have a block at the point of checkout which is the final step of the resource sharing process therefore resulting in frustration and a suboptimal patron experience.

Recommendations

We recommend modifying the On Hold Shelf letter text to include the following text and code block. This insertion will be after “This material may be picked up at…” but before “The material will be held for….” in the existing letter.

Proposed code block:

<div style="border:1px solid black"><i><b><u>Please Note:</u></b> You may not be able to borrow the item if you have any active fines/fees at any UC Campus.

<p>You can verify the status of your account online by logging in to your institution's library account and reviewing the Fines + Fees tab for each campus listed.</p>

</i></div>
<br/>

This code snippet includes a block-level element that will add a visual box around the text in the email. The box was tested for accessibility and screen readers and does not interfere. Below is a screenshot example of the above code element as it would display in an email received by a patron. The proposed code has a 1px double black line border around it:

Impact

Stakeholder group	Impact

Stakeholder group	Impact
Resource Sharing OST	Consultation and review of proposed changes.
Fulfillment OST	Planning, investigation, adjustments to letter, testing, ongoing monitoring of letter.
All UC Library Resource Sharing Staff	Possible increase of questions regarding accessing library account; possible increase of questions regarding any fines/fees.
All UC Library Circulation Staff	Possible increase of questions regarding accessing library account; possible increase of questions regarding any fines/fees; hopefully less frustrated patrons who aren’t able to check out an item due to fines/fees.
Patrons	Must become aware that suspension of privileges due to fines/fees are applied across the UC System. Must work directly with each UC to resolve library account blocks. UC-wide blocks creates a consistent user experience.

Reasoning

As a consortium, patrons should have the same expectation of services (including suspension of privileges) across the UCs. Patrons should not be given inaccurate information that they have access to material through request when they are blocked at the point of loan. Additionally, library collections throughout the UC should be considered equally important. Thus, adding this unified text to the On Hold Shelf letter at each campus will help keep messaging between campuses consistent and deliver a uniform message to all UC patrons.

We’ve tested the AFN “notify user” cancellation feature, however this unfortunately doesn’t notify the patron as the request will continue to the next campus in the queue. Other options considered include leaving the situation as-is and relying on good communication at each campus circulation desk to inform the patron they have an active fine and can’t take the item with them. Lastly, we’ve considered the lending institution cancelling the request and allowing it to continue along the rota for another campus to fulfill but without any type of automation this is a non-starter.

Therefore, we believe modifying the On Hold Shelf letter to help patrons understand the limitations of the system as a temporary measure until a solution is developed by Ex Libris, is the best course of action at this time.

Background

Copied from the Consortia Blocks Decision Page.

Following implementation of SILS, it was discovered that patrons with cash limit or manual blocks on their library account could place AFN requests through UC Library Search, only to be blocked at the point of checkout.

Alma allows for patron account blocks through both cash limits and manual blocks. Manual block options available to all UCs are:

01 – loan
02 – loan, renew
03 – loan, renew, hold

Additionally, Ex Libris has created two consortial blocks for UC as follows:

04 - AFN request
05 - AFN request, loan, renew, hold

Currently, there is no consistency across UCs in cash limit amounts or how they are applied. Additionally, consortial blocks 04 & 05 are only available at two campuses (UCLA & UCB). There’s no UC-wide policy on the use of consortial blocks.

Cash blocks are the first type of block to be incurred by the patron for overdue material and are only impacted locally. Though cash blocks prevent loan of material, it does not prevent requesting through UC Library Search.

Existing Alma functionality allows for manual user blocks 04 and 05 to apply to the home campus and push out to other UCs. 04 & 05 blocks at other UCs do not push back to the home campus, as per Ex Libris documentation. This lack of communication between UCs prevents a comprehensive methodology for effectively blocking patrons between all UC campuses. For example, a borrowing patron has a manual or cash limit block on their Network stub record at another UC, they are not currently blocked from placing new AFN requests from that UC. The requested item would be sent from the lending UC to the pick up location without any indication of a problem. It is not until the actual checkout phase that library staff would be alerted of the delinquency account block, preventing the loan. Additionally, though the patron is blocked from checking out AFN or walk-in materials from the UC with the block, they can still make AFN and walk in requests from the other eight UCs with impunity. This also applies to patrons with manual or cash limit blocks on their local home accounts. Currently, local delinquencies do not block patrons from making AFN requests through UC Library Search, though the patron will still be blocked from checking out the UC material at their home campus.

A subgroup consisting of members from the Resource Sharing OST and Fulfillment OST identified current Alma configurations for Cash Limit and Manual Blocks (cohort only) across all UCs, as well as performed extensive testing to evaluate current behavior and impact of cash limit and manual 04 & 05 blocks. Results of testing are summarized in the chart below.

	Block Types - Record Location
	Cash Limit		Manual 04 Block		Manual 05 Block
Transaction Type	Home	Stub	Home	Stub	Home	Stub
Local Request	Allowed	Allowed	Allowed	Allowed	Blocked	Allowed
AFN Request	Allowed	Allowed	Blocked	Allowed	Blocked	Allowed
Local Loan	Blocked	Allowed	Allowed	Allowed	Blocked	Allowed
AFN Loan	Blocked	Allowed, except for blocked location	Blocked	Allowed, except for blocked location	Blocked	Allowed, except for blocked location

Dependencies

Modifying the On Hold Shelf letter is a temporary solution until a more permanent fix is implemented.

Questions to consider

Meeting History

Date	Notes

Date	Notes
10/6/2023	Originated as conversation about adding transit slips/notes on account for patrons who have fines or fees. haven’t talked about what we should do? could we have a conversation about what the best practices are? We’ll get a paging slip for a patron that owes money, so they likely won’t be able to loan it. At the same time we don’t want to not send the item because they might clear their account up. What’s the best route? UCSD: pull item out of stream, billing dept notifies patron about the fine. 7 days to clear, otherwise we send it back. → You could create a new cancelation reason to notify the patron. If your reason is clear (we can’t lend due to fines owed) that might be “good enough”? Having consistent language systemwide for canceling would be good. Want to catch this at the point of paging, not at the circulation desk. This is the direction we’ll go until the blocks are in place. Sahra: I found this page on modifying and/or adding new request cancellation reasons in Alma. I propose we add a new reason referencing fines/fees on the user's account and use the Cancellation Note open text field when cancelling the request to include more details, such as what the user needs to do (i.e. clear the fine and re-request). I'm totally open to the Cancellation Reason Code. Maybe something like "Blocked Due To Fines/Fees" or "Patron Owes Fines/Fees"?? Can we discuss at an upcoming meeting? Ingred: Question about cancelling requests due to fines: If UCSD cancels a request because the user owes us $100, would that request then move to the next UC with an available copy, or will it be cancelled entirely? Does either outcome figure into what information we might want to include in the request cancellation note? Actions Draft language for cancellation reason to notify the patron? ”Can’t lend due to fines owed…” Should be able to differentiate text because of the cancellation reason. Develop in tandem with Disco OST? Request can be canceled from the patron’s home institution and it will stop all forward movement. → Sahra will add a new cancelation reason on her end and do some testing with Ross.
10/9/2023	Sahra added cancelation reason on UCR sandbox and we tested for requests placed by me which were canceled on her end. Because no emails are send within the sandbox we don’t know if I would have been notified -OR- if the request was pushed to the next campus in line. next steps: add another member (Ingred) and continue to test, but this time in the live environment. We’ll be able to test emails that are (or aren’t sent) and test if canceling the request pushes it to another campus. Depending on those results, we’ll have to make a determination on if there’s a better process for cancelling a request so it wouldn’t be pushed to another campus (e.g. contacting patron’s home institution and asking for it to be cancelled at the source).
10/17/2023	Testing between UCM, UCI and UCR. UCM placed request, UCI cancelled, automatically went to UCR without notifying user and without forwarding any information about cancellation reason. If a campus receives a paging slip and the patron owes fines, the goal would be for the cancellation to stop the entire request and not push it to the next campus in the rota. decision/questions: do we want to implement the new cancellation reason and notify each borrower’s home institution whenever a fine/fee/bill is found on paging slip? (if editing a new cancellation reason isn’t possible, we can use a generic “cannot be fulfilled” reason with a note for the fine/fee/bill; however, that wouldn’t allow us to capture as accurate of statistics). “notify user” checkbox also did not work for AFN items. (should probably submit a ticket to ExL). -OR- leave as-is and patron finds out they have a fine/fee/bill after the item arrives (and can’t check it out)? -OR- lending institution cancels request because of fines/fees/fills and it continues along the rota for another campus to fulfill… This is a (hopefully) temporary solution for when ExL eventually adds automated 04/05 blocks - which they say is on the roadmap (with no ETA).
10/23/2023	Discussion on bulleted options listed above. Suggestion to submit ticket to ExL to fix notify patron problem, and still use status quo for allowing patrons to resolve any problems within the 7 day window. Further testing is needed (see action items). Do we know if any letters are being sent for each reason? action items: -test cancellation reasons to see if the notify user option works. maybe start with “cannot be fulfilled”. test w/ Mark. if we need a 3rd Sahra can assist. -(eventually?) submit ticket to ExL to investigate why the “notify user” box isn’t working with AFN patrons
10/25/2023	Testing with Merced, Berkeley and Riverside. Tested two existing cancelation reasons and selected option for “notify user”. User was not notified across AFN. User was only notified when home institution cancelled the request (which is what we saw in prior testing). Still left with these options: If we can’t get the notification settings configured properly, we may have to reach out to the home institution to cancel a request -OR- you can’t loan from a UC in which you have a bill from, and it would just go to another campus -OR- leave the status quo for a patron to walk in and learn they have a fine/fee/bill. Food for thought: → how to we get our users to pay attention to the letters/notices/emails that they receive, and how to we educate them to look at the “my library account”? -education is important because otherwise patrons won’t understand how it works. and who else are they going to learn from and/or how else would they figure it out? → is our responsibility to cancel the request ASAP to get the request to the next campus? or to get them to take care of the fines first. → patrons might not have the same experience at each campus, but maybe they can hear the same messaging. (i.e. maybe as an OST we develop language to share amongst each other and repeat to patrons).
2/12/2024	Discussed methods for notifying our patrons and developed the following boiler plate to the “On Hold Shelf” letter: You may not be able to pick up your item(s) if you have active fines/fees at any UC campus. Please verify the status of your account online by logging into your home institution Library Account and reviewing the Fine + Fees tab for each campus listed. To do: determine best placement for text in the letter. Perhaps after “The library material you recently requested has been delivered and is ready for pickup” but before “This material may be picked up at…”
2/26/2024	Finalized text above but modified the location. It will go after the first two sentences (“The library material you recently requested has been delivered and is ready for pickup. This material may be picked up at…”) Mark will look into best practices for screen readers/accessibility in how to display this text.
2/27/2024	Mark got some info for email based accessibility and shared with the group. Tony did more testing with the <pullquote> command and wasn’t able to get the border to appear in the email. It’s possible that element is intended for webpages vs. emails. He was able to find success using a block-level element to wrap the test and that shouldn’t cause a problem with accessibility.
3/11/2024	Generated decision page.