Circulation Services Committee

Minutes of the meeting on Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Present: Neil Allen, Chair (Engineering/Computer Science), Chris Crebolder (Emmanuel), Bev Branton (E.J. Pratt), Lari Langford (Access & Information), Carmen Cachia (SMC), Noel McFerran (SMC), Margot Froud (Dentistry), Dorota Swieton (UTM), Catherine Devion (UTSC), Monique Flaccavento (OISE), Lisa Doherty (Architecture), Anna Oh (FIS-Inforum), Renata Holder (Gerstein), Bonnie Horne (Gerstein), Elizabeth Johnston (Toronto Rehab/Consortium), Thomas Chan (ITS), Liz Glover (Physics), Susan Bond (Trinity), Stephanie Abba (Regis), Maryam Atrie (St. Augustine), Jan MacLean (Music), Anna Szot-Sacawa (Law)

Regrets: Mike Hamilton (Media Commons), Terry Correia (Access & Information - Robarts)

  1. Minutes of the previous meeting: Renata motioned to accept the minutes of the previous meeting as is; the motion was passed unanimously.
  2. Business Arising: Neil says the Circ Minutes are now on the Intranet.
  3. External Borrowing Fees
  4. Research Reader fees will increase October 1st. The new fees will be $200, $130 and $80 for 12, 6, and 3 months respectively. Senior and Alumni Research Reader fees will stay the same. The last time these fees were raised was in 2003.
  5. Direct Borrowers will now be charged a fee for borrowing privileges as external users. This is considered a fairer distribution of the costs of access and acquisitions, which up to now has been shouldered entirely by students and alumni. It is also noted that within the reciprocal agreement, U of T does far more lending to other universities' students than its own students borrow from other institutions.

Their checkout limit will be raised to 100 from 30, renewal limit to 2 from 1, and they will be blocked at $25 instead of $10.

The fees they pay will correspond to the Research Reader fees, but since all Direct Borrower cards expire on September 30th each year, they will only pay the full $200 if they register between September and December. If they register between January and March they will pay $175; between April and June, $130; and between July and August, $80.

If a Direct Borrower chooses not to renew their card, their logins will expire for Info Commons-style workstations, but they will still have access using LIRA workstations. (Currently Direct Borrowers are the only external patrons with usernames and passwords for regular workstations.) They will still be able to access the stacks of all libraries (a 'stacks pass' is required at Robarts): the fees are for borrowing only.

There may be an increase in ILL activity due to this policy as a way for Direct Borrowers to avoid the cost of a card. It is also noted that many Direct Borrowers are actually alumni, so the Alumni Research Reader card will be a cheaper option for them. Staff at Reader Registration will be explaining the options to individual patrons when they go to register.

  1. It was asked what kind of deterrent we have against external borrowers who are seriously delinquent, similar to withholding the transcripts of students. Currently nothing is in place for Research Readers, but their numbers are so low compared to other profiles that it was not deemed necessary. Resource Sharing has their own system in place for ILLs not returned. For Direct Borrowers, their home institution can be contacted and eventually charged for replacement if they are unable to secure the books' return. However, all cases require manual identification and contact by library staff – there is currently no backend maintenance run on long overdue books.
  1. Pandemic Planning Procedures: As per the Provost's Memorandum of September 9th, 2009 ( students will not need a doctor's note for absences due to suspected H1N1 flu, since visiting a doctor's office may be discouraged when showing flu-like symptoms. Instead, students will be recording their absences on ROSI, and are supposed to print out a confirmation page. This confirmation page should be accepted by libraries for the purpose of forgiving fines as well. Some stated that their own fine forgiveness policy tends to be less formal than this anyway.
  2. Update on Password Overrides Change: Override passwords for Workflows did not change in August as previously expected, but will be changed soon.
  3. Procedure problems that arose over the summer: Neil reviewed some emails from the mailing list sent over the summer:
  4. Susan says her problem with the Modify User Wizard has been fixed.
  5. The problem with call number sorting has not been fixed.
  6. Books on order still do not show up in the Endeca catalogue, but rather it says “no holdings available”. Lari reminded everyone to use the locations that end in _UTL for missing, lost, etc., instead of the Sirsi default policies, or else the record becomes shadowed and this message can appear.
  7. Other Business
  8. Catherine asked whether other libraries require doctor's notes for fine forgiveness. There was some concern over privacy issues for the patron. All libraries replied that they accept doctor's notes, and many confirmed that the note does not contain any private information concerning the nature of the illness, only the duration.
  9. Stephanie reported that Regis hopes to reopen at the end of September. More updates will follow on the mailing list if necessary. Currently, Regis short term loans are available at St. Michael's Library, and staff are still available by email or phone.
  10. Tom says it's technically possible to do a Sirsi version update as early as the end of this year, but no word yet on whether this will happen.

The next meeting will be held October 21st, at 2:15pm.