For more information on enabling suggestions on the OPAC, please check our Help Centre or contact Interleaf Technology directly.

Creating an Anonymous patron

It is possible to allow a patron that already exists on your system to be set as the Anonymous Patron, however, it can be clearer to create a brand new patron, the sole purpose of which is to act as the Anonymous Patron.  

For more general information on how to add a patron account to the Koha system, please check our Help Centre or contact Interleaf Technology directly. 

Go to Patrons > Quick Add New Patron and choose a patron category from the dropdown list.

For creating an anonymous patron it is important to choose a patron category that is designated as either an adult or staff type. The benefits of making a patron category staff is that it cannot be deleted. 

Fill out the Quick Add form. As this form can be edited to suit individual organisation’s needs, the exact content may vary.

When creating this patron, it is important to use an intuitive name, like Anonymous Patron, in order to make it clear in any context that this is a patron account with a specific purpose that won’t reflect the usage patterns of the average patron. 

Confirm the patron category is in the Staff type

Define the AnonymousPatron system preference

Once the Anonymous Patron has been determined it is necessary to put their borrower number into the AnonymousPatron system preference. 

Go to Koha administration > System preferences and search for AnonymousPatron. 

This will bring back a variety of system preference options because the Anonymous Patron is used for several different functions within Koha. 

This system preference will automatically be populated with the borrower number 0 or it maybe blank. Insert the borrowernumber of the Anonymous patron you have defined into the AnonymousPatron system preference. Hit Save all OPAC preferences.

Whenever a patron’s data is anonymised it will be associated with the Anonymous patron that has been created.