i am testing the check in of the book return, and set the system to loan out for 1 day only, when i test one book that is 1 day late and i do not get any error message to ask for fine on this return book, but i can see the message when i use the search by that person only, is this the way it was setup, can we fix this?
i am now using resourcemate pro and want to move all the items into this system, did anyone know marc import is ok for this or not.
and under resourcemate we can know the fine on the return and also show the total fine for all the outstanding books too.
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Sorry I've been so long to respond to this. I've been working for pay ;-).
I believe the reason that obiblio doesn't tell you a fine is due on check in is that the program is assuming you are checking in books from a book drop, and the member probably isn't there to pay the fine in the first place. The fine shows up on their member page, so they must pay it before they make more checkouts.
This could be changed pretty easily by making the check in circ/shelving_cart.php generate a message that gets passed back to checkin_form.php. It wouldn't be a perfect solution, but it would work without much effort.
I don't know what kind of MARC records, if any, resourcemate pro will export. So I couldn't say whether they would work directly. However, if you can get some kind of MARC records, you can use MarcEdit to prepare the records for OpenBiblio. If you can't get MARC records, Chris Dagleish has pointed out a way to use MarcEdit to convert delimited text:
For showing the total fine for all outstanding account balances, you should be able to write a report. However, the query necessary to get the information is beyond what MySQL (prior to 4.1) can do in a single statement, and the report mechanism doesn't support multi-statement reports.
I think the best I can do is a report that shows the current fees each member owes for items they currently have out in each collection. It doesn't include any outstanding balances they have for items already returned, and it doesn't give per user fine totals or an overall fine total for all users. But without subqueries or temporary tables or something, I can't do better. I'll post the report definition on Joe's 'Reports ... Reports ... Reports' thread in the 'Feature Requests' forum.
Micah
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I believe automatic late fee calculation has the potential to cause more problems than benefits, depending on how library staff deals with current OpenBiblio limitations.
Back in 2003 when introducing OpenBiblio 0.4.0 to a high school library I used a modified circ/shelving_cart.php to have immediate notification to staff when late fee is calculated by the system. At that time I felt it was important to have strict sanctions. Later I abondoned this idea.
Many times members discovered weeks or months later that checkout was blocked by automatic late fee calculation and many times they did not agree. Probably this was caused by staff forgetting to delete automatically calculated late fees when the member payed the fine on return. I conluded:
- Workflow was not efficient enough, even though the notification linked to member account to manage immediate payments.
- The automatic calculation is currently too rigid, does not know about holidays and other days when the students are not able to return books.
After disabling automatic late fee calculation (and putting lots of new books on the shelves) circulation increased dramatically. Only when the member can't pay immediately on late return staff enters late fee manually.
What do you think is more important: late fee penny or knowledge flowing freely?
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I understand that holidays cannot be execulded automatically but I think it can be solved manually once holidays come.
But my system really needs to show the fine at once when users return their books. In order to prevent the staffs forgetting delete the record, is it possible to add a button "Paid" in the shelving cart page so the staffs can click it immediately?
Because I am not used to PHP srcipt so I hope you can tell me the exact code changes have to be done. Thank you.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Sorry, I only have some abandoned / experimental / PHP starter code for OpenBiblio 0.4.0
It did notify staff in case of automatically calculated late fee but it didn't prove to be very useful, even with very low circulation.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
i am testing the check in of the book return, and set the system to loan out for 1 day only, when i test one book that is 1 day late and i do not get any error message to ask for fine on this return book, but i can see the message when i use the search by that person only, is this the way it was setup, can we fix this?
i am now using resourcemate pro and want to move all the items into this system, did anyone know marc import is ok for this or not.
and under resourcemate we can know the fine on the return and also show the total fine for all the outstanding books too.
Sorry I've been so long to respond to this. I've been working for pay ;-).
I believe the reason that obiblio doesn't tell you a fine is due on check in is that the program is assuming you are checking in books from a book drop, and the member probably isn't there to pay the fine in the first place. The fine shows up on their member page, so they must pay it before they make more checkouts.
This could be changed pretty easily by making the check in circ/shelving_cart.php generate a message that gets passed back to checkin_form.php. It wouldn't be a perfect solution, but it would work without much effort.
I don't know what kind of MARC records, if any, resourcemate pro will export. So I couldn't say whether they would work directly. However, if you can get some kind of MARC records, you can use MarcEdit to prepare the records for OpenBiblio. If you can't get MARC records, Chris Dagleish has pointed out a way to use MarcEdit to convert delimited text:
https://sf.net/forum/message.php?msg_id=2842672
For showing the total fine for all outstanding account balances, you should be able to write a report. However, the query necessary to get the information is beyond what MySQL (prior to 4.1) can do in a single statement, and the report mechanism doesn't support multi-statement reports.
I think the best I can do is a report that shows the current fees each member owes for items they currently have out in each collection. It doesn't include any outstanding balances they have for items already returned, and it doesn't give per user fine totals or an overall fine total for all users. But without subqueries or temporary tables or something, I can't do better. I'll post the report definition on Joe's 'Reports ... Reports ... Reports' thread in the 'Feature Requests' forum.
Micah
I encounted this problem too. Can anyone teach me the concrete codes that have to be modified?
I believe automatic late fee calculation has the potential to cause more problems than benefits, depending on how library staff deals with current OpenBiblio limitations.
Back in 2003 when introducing OpenBiblio 0.4.0 to a high school library I used a modified circ/shelving_cart.php to have immediate notification to staff when late fee is calculated by the system. At that time I felt it was important to have strict sanctions. Later I abondoned this idea.
Many times members discovered weeks or months later that checkout was blocked by automatic late fee calculation and many times they did not agree. Probably this was caused by staff forgetting to delete automatically calculated late fees when the member payed the fine on return. I conluded:
- Workflow was not efficient enough, even though the notification linked to member account to manage immediate payments.
- The automatic calculation is currently too rigid, does not know about holidays and other days when the students are not able to return books.
After disabling automatic late fee calculation (and putting lots of new books on the shelves) circulation increased dramatically. Only when the member can't pay immediately on late return staff enters late fee manually.
What do you think is more important: late fee penny or knowledge flowing freely?
I understand that holidays cannot be execulded automatically but I think it can be solved manually once holidays come.
But my system really needs to show the fine at once when users return their books. In order to prevent the staffs forgetting delete the record, is it possible to add a button "Paid" in the shelving cart page so the staffs can click it immediately?
Because I am not used to PHP srcipt so I hope you can tell me the exact code changes have to be done. Thank you.
Sorry, I only have some abandoned / experimental / PHP starter code for OpenBiblio 0.4.0
It did notify staff in case of automatically calculated late fee but it didn't prove to be very useful, even with very low circulation.
Can anyone give a helping hand? My school really needs that function