Good patron profiles are key to good service. However, with so many aspects to consider, it can be easy to make entry mistake, and time-consuming to manually double-check everything. Fortunately, there are ways to find potential issues without having to comb through records by hand.
Here are some quick and easy ways to find and fix issues in patron profiles — before you get an angry call or lose a patron.
Quality Control Checks
For more detail and screenshots, check out the attached "FixIt" document.
Exclusion Subjects as Preferences
Any subject can be entered as a preference or made into an exclusion. However, some headings, such as Strong Language or Male Narrator are only intended for use as exclusions. Even if a patron does not object to that content, they almost certainly do not intend to receive books chosen solely by that criteria.
To catch exclusions that were accidentally entered as preferences, query for a list of common exclusions (such as strong language or violence) that do not have the "Exclusion" checkbox marked.
- Preference : Type : Equals : SUBJECT
- Preference : Exclusion : Equals : NO
- Preference : Code : In : (list of subject codes; for example st,se,vi)
On-Demand Service with Requests
Patrons with a service type beginning with O (such as OL – On Demand) will not be served by Nightly Processing for that medium. This means that KLAS will never check to see if it can send books in that medium from their request lists. However, requests can still be added through the OPAC or by staff.
To make sure the patron gets the books they've asked for, you can query for patrons who are set to On-Demand service, but who have Requests. You can then switch the patron to scheduled service (such as nightly, weekly, calendar, etc.) or change the requests to Reserves.
- Media : Pat Medium : Equals : DB (or as needed)
- Media : Serve Code : Begins : O (the letter)
- Media : # Requests : Does Not Equal : 0 (the number)
AutoSelect Patrons without Preferences
This last one is the easiest. Many libraries rely heavily on autoselect to get books out to their patrons, but if no preferences have been added, KLAS will not be able to send anything to them. Run the "AutoSelect w/ No Subjects" pre-defined query from the Queries menu to find these patrons, so that their profiles can be completed and subjects can be added.
More Query help: Need help saving queries? Watch the forums this Thursday for a QuickTip!
And, for more information about how the operator terms work, download the Query and Search Operators cheat sheet.
