Checking reserves in/out

Circulating reserves is much like circulating other materials, with the notable exception of the length of the loan period. Many items may circulate for only an hour or two, and those items may or may not be allowed to circulate overnight. This will be discussed later in this section.

Begin in the Circulation Desk Mode, and either scan in the patron barcode or search for the patron's name.

Next, scan in the barcode of the reserve item to be circulated. If the item circulates for a period of days, you will see a due date like this:

If the item is on hourly reserve status, you will see a time in the due date field as well:

Checking out hourly reserves has two factors that must be taken into account. First, they can be set to round to the nearest hour or the nearest minute, and second, they can be set to circulate overnight or not.

If the loan rule is set to allow overnight circulation, the item will be due one hour after opening the following morning. For example: The library has set their hours in the HOURS OPEN table hours to 8:00am to Midnight, and the item has a two hour circulation period. From 8:00am until 10:00pm, the item will circulate for two hours. Beginning at 10:01pm, however, two hours from the checkout time now falls during a period when the library is closed. This will invoke the overnight part of the loan rule, and the item will be due at 9:00am the next day.

For additional information, refer to the Innovative Guide and Reference, Page # 100043: .

If hourly reserves are set to round to the nearest minute, then an item with a two hour circulation period that is checked out at 2:23pm will be due at 4:23pm. This allows all patrons to get the correct checkout period, no more, no less.

Hourly reserves can also be set to circulate overnight or not. If an item's loan rule does not allow overnight circulation, the item will be due when the library closes. A patron checking out an item with a two hour loan period 45 minutes before closing will only get 45 minutes with that item. However, with this setting, all reserve items will be available in the library at opening the next day.

In order for hourly reserves to properly circulate, the Hours Open table must be filled in. In the Circulation Module, go to Admin | Parameters | Circulation | Hours Open to fill in the table. You can create entries for each location, or you can use wildcards to specify all locations. If the library has different opening hours for different days, you need to create entries for each day. If the library is open the same hours on a number of days (e.g. MON-THU), you can use wildcards to specify any day and then add specific entries for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The hours are entered in the 24 hour format.

For additional information, refer to the Innovative Guide and Reference, Page # 105406: .

NOTE: that the Hours Open table only needs to be filled in if you are using hourly loans. Otherwise, it is not used.