Posted by Linda Johnson on February 3, 2011 at 20:57
Since we will begin checking out with our scanner soon, I would like to know from your experience what the easiest method is--do you have patron barcode cards, look up the patron by name, or use a patron number?
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I think it depends on the library automation program you are using; some are easier to do one thing than another, and there are some programs that will do all easily. If you have a very busy circulation desk, then it's probably easiest to give patrons their own library card to scan. However, cards are easily lost or forgotten. Adults probably carry their other cards and will keep their library card with those; but kids won't have wallets usually, so you might want to stick with by name checkout for them, unless they can remember a number. If you have a school library, they might already have a lunch number or some other number they need to remember - so just make that their library number as well. Try to pick a number that won't change every year.
I would recommend you do a trial run with your library team, and see what works best.
We use ResourceMate, but it sounds identical to what Sandra is describing. Name look-up works just fine. I toyed with the idea of patron cards but in the end decided that I would rather use that money elsewhere. You can always go back later and add them if you want, though that could be a tedious process if you have a large patron base.
We use Concourse and we find that just typing "," first name (comma first name) works well for us. You don't have to capitalize and if there are multiple people with that name, a list appears with last names so that you may choose the correct person's name.
Replies
Linda,
I think it depends on the library automation program you are using; some are easier to do one thing than another, and there are some programs that will do all easily. If you have a very busy circulation desk, then it's probably easiest to give patrons their own library card to scan. However, cards are easily lost or forgotten. Adults probably carry their other cards and will keep their library card with those; but kids won't have wallets usually, so you might want to stick with by name checkout for them, unless they can remember a number. If you have a school library, they might already have a lunch number or some other number they need to remember - so just make that their library number as well. Try to pick a number that won't change every year.
I would recommend you do a trial run with your library team, and see what works best.