Summary of the issue

Once a year patron accounts are updated so students move on one year and new first years are added to the site. At this time any students that were in their final year of study will be sent to GONE, indicating they are no longer part of the school. This means their patron category, ROLLCLASS and YEARGROUP will be changed to GONE. At that point, any account that has no loans or fines on it should be deleted from the system using the Delete Old Borrowers function. However, any record that has current checkouts or fines will not be deleted and will need to be removed from the system manually. 

On some Scooter sites there are large amounts of borrowers that have been moved to GONE but have not been deleted from the system as they have items checked out on their accounts. The usual solution is to manually check in the items and then delete the GONE accounts; however on some sites the number of accounts with this issue is so high it would be too time consuming to complete manually. Furthermore, many of these items have been on loan for an extended period of time and may be lost or unaccounted for, which means checking them back into general circulation would not be appropriate. 

The aim of this document is to provide a potential solution to this issue and also to outline the process for addressing GONE records with items checked out on them on a year by year basis in order to avoid this issue recurring. 

Summary of proposed solution

Scooter does not currently have a batch check in facility so instead the solution proposed here is to apply a specific LOST status to the items on GONE patron accounts which will remove the items from the account.

Scooter has a set of predefined values for various fields in the item record, including LOST statuses, details of which can be found on the Koha wiki. In addition to these predefined values it is possible to create custom values for the specific needs of a site. This document will outline how to create a custom LOST status, how to identify items checked out to GONE patrons and how to update these items to have a status of LOST.

The steps below will outline in detail how this can be done, please be aware this can be completed by the library staff or Interleaf Technology can complete the work at the request of library staff. If you wish Interleaf Technology to complete the change, please contact us and staff will schedule a time for the work to be done.

Step 1 – Clear all possible GONE borrowers

This will bring you to a new page where you will be warned that this action is non-reversible. When you are happy to continue with the deletion click Proceed and the GONE records with no checkouts or fines will be permanently deleted from the site.

Please note it is a good idea to ask Interleaf Technology to take a backup of your site before the deletion, so if there are any issues the change can be reversed. Please be aware that no other work can be going on in Scooter when this backup is taken and wait until Interleaf Technology confirms that the backup is complete before continuing.

Step 2 - Identify the GONE borrowers on your site requiring manual deletion

2.1 - How to run the Borrowers requiring Manual Deletion report

At the top of this table there will be a grey search bar where you can search for a number or keyword of the report. Search for Borrowers requiring Manual Deletion and this will narrow down the table to that specific report.

To the right hand side of the row there will be a button called Run. Click this button and the report will bring back a list of remaining borrowers in the GONE area, which are the accounts that items need to be removed from. 

Take a look at the number of results and the names of the students to get an idea of the scope of the issue and which accounts specifically will be impacted.

Step 3 – Create GONE LOST value

Go to KOHA administration > Basic parameters > Authorised Values. 

Select LOST from the dropdown menu. This will take you to a page with LOST statuses already defined on your site. Click on +New authorised value for LOST. This will bring you to a new page with a form to fill out.

3.1 - Fill out the + New authorised value for LOST form

Authorized value: 

Description:

Description (OPAC):

Libraries limitation: 

Once the LOST status has been created it will appear in the LOST status table.

This will now need to be assigned to items on GONE patron accounts.

Step 4 – Identify items to apply GONE LOST status

To identify the items that this status will need to be applied with go to Reports > Guided Reports > Use Saved again, but this time complete a search for Issues to GONE rollclass on the report table. 

If this report does not exist on your site, please contact Interleaf Technology to have it created.

Run this report and it will return the items that are checked out on GONE patron accounts and the name of the patron the items are checked out to. 

Take a look at the names of patrons and the titles of the items to get a scope of the change that will be applied. 

Return to the Saved reports table by clicking Saved reports to the left-hand side of the screen.

On the report table, search for Itemnumbers of items checked out to GONE accounts. This report will bring back only the itemnumbers of the items that are checked out to GONE patrons, which is all that is needed to complete the update. Item numbers are the best option to use as they are automatically assigned by the system when a new item is created and cannot be edited. Barcodes must be manually entered and it is possible they may be edited or changed while being checked out. 

Download the report results as a comma separated text file. 

Step 5 - Apply GONE LOST status to identified items

Go to Tools > Patrons > Batch item modification tool.

Under Use a file, click the item number option and then click the Choose File option. Upload the file of item numbers that were downloaded to your computer from the Itemnumbers of items checked out to GONE accounts report and hit Continue. 

If there is a high number of items to be modified it will be necessary to split the item number file into multiple batches so as to not slow the system.

After uploading the item number file you will be brought to a new page with item information for the records you uploaded.

Scroll to the bottom of the page and there will be an Edit Items form available. Find the 1 – Lost status and click the dropdown beside it. 

Select GONE LOST (or the Lost status you created for this purpose) from the dropdown and hit Save.

The page will load while it the records are updated and then reload at the top of the page with a confirmation message of how many records were modified and a table where you can check the change. The Lost status column should contain the GONE LOST status, or the status you changed it to. 

The item will be removed from the patron account and the item record will have a status of LOST. 

Before the GONE LOST status was applied:

After the GONE LOST status was applied:

What happens to items marked as GONE LOST?

It is important to note that this solution is intended to be used for sites with this legacy issue. Going forward, the most effective way to address items on GONE patron accounts is year by year, as they arise. 

Advice for dealing with items on GONE patron accounts in the future

Once a year, patron accounts will be updated so students are moved on one year and new first years are added to the site. At this time any students that were in their final year of study, will be moved to GONE. This means their patron category, ROLLCLASS and YEARGROUP will be changed to GONE. At that point, any account that has no loans or fines on it should be deleted from the system using the Delete Old Borrowers function. However, any record that has a checkout or a fine will not be deleted. 

After you have completed the Delete Old Borrowers process, run the report Borrowers requiring Manual Deletion and this will give you a list of GONE borrowers on your site that need to be manually deleted. At that time, staff can review the list to determine if there is any course of action to have the items returned, this may help reduce the number of borrower accounts that cannot be deleted using the Delete Old Borrowers process.