Going FINE FREE in ALMA

Posted on September 25, 2023 by kim

On April 29, 2022, I have an email from Carl telling me that Provost Kostelis had given us permission to go FINE FREE.  For some reason, I never sent you all an email telling you when I had gone into Alma and made the changes, but what I do remember that I did not do it immediately.   So, I don’t have an exact date of when the change was made.

I am reasonably sure it was done by May 15, 2022.  I thought change was working, but evidently, it has not been working properly.  At that time, I configured it the way all the Faculty/Staff TOU’s are configured and I am really surprised that it didn’t work the same, but evidently, there has been an update and it needed tweaking. 

TODAY:  I made two configuration changes.  I am cc’ing Dana, because she has access to the Configuration, because I want her to know understand what I did.  Dana:  See attachment for the TOU’s that I changed.

Change to All LOAN Terms of Use that charged fines:  

In the Maximum FINE field: (created new policy, see below)  Alma Knowledge base:  last sentence is the clue.

And because I don’t trust anything:  In case the above change doesn’t fix it, I create this new policy in OVERDUE FINE: 

The ORIGINAL SETTINGS on all these TOU’s: 

UPDATE: 9/30/2023: I was able to check out a calculator to student and when it was a day overdue, it had NOT accrued any overdue fines. Maybe it’s fixed? I can’t guarantee that.

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How to read Government Documents call numbers

Posted on September 19, 2023 by kim

As we work on the Government Document deaccession project, we need further guidance on how to read the sudoc numbers (call numbers). Sudoc numbers are assigned by the Superintendent of Documents at the Government Printing office.

Northwestern University has a LibGuide that explains how to read this type of classification. At the end of the article is another link to Michigan State University’s LibGuide on how to read it.

A reminder as you work through this project. These documents have been moved at least three times in the past two decades. They are not in order any more. We have worked to pull what we could where we can find the documents.

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Faculty/Staff patron loads

Posted on September 5, 2023 by kim

Reminder: 

Faculty, Faculty Administrative are full-time employees

STAFF:  are PART-Time employees in both categories.

Faculty/Staff accounts are loaded constantly if they appear in the weekly report of active employees in Core CT -or- (for adjuncts) have started less than 3 months ago and have an assigned course in Banner. 

Expiration date:

If today is earlier than September 1st:  Expiration date is Dec 31 of the current year.

If today is September 1st or later, the expiration date changes to December 31 of the NEXT year. 

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Emeritus status

Posted on July 10, 2023 by kim

Not all retired faculty get emeritus status.  I get emails from HR telling me that a faculty member has a pending request and then later I will get an email that they were granted it.  But, not all faculty who ask, receive it.   I leave messages in ALMA, I am sure you have seen them.  Look at Ewa Wolynska’s record, to see the note(s).  And I immediately do an update on the record. 

This is the ONLY scenario that I ever say YES to the following question, because it allows me to change their user status to Faculty Emeritus.  It will not be overwritten, ever. 

The expiration date changes for a while, depending on HR/Payroll.  They may be still here working as an adjunct, so the expiration date will change over time, while they are working or getting pension payouts.  At some point, the record will expire and I will change the expiration date to 12/31/2040, so we don’t have to worry about them ever expiring.  But the Faculty Emeritus status alerts me so I know they were given it.  I usually look at these in January and June. At that point, I edit things.

It’s a funky system, but it works better than them having to call me to be given privileges.  I then had to bug HR.  In Millennium, it was an easy fix, it is not so easy now.  Donna Stevenson in IT has to be sure that the faculty member appears in the exceptions list.

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CCSU ALMA User Groups

Posted on July 10, 2023 by kim

In Alma, the patrons are all in separate User Groups.  In Millenium, we called them Patron types. 

EVERY patron from either CCSU or the consortium are all Consortium Students.  The only exception are the GUEST Borrowers, because they cannot borrow between campuses (SUNY or Brandeis).   It is Consortia Students, because we could only have one consortia status and there are more students than faculty.  To differentiate them, look in ALMA under General Information.  The Job Category will say Consortium Faculty.   If it is blank, it is a student.

So, all current faculty staff and students in the consortium have this status and depending on where the record lives, depends on who is one.  Our CCSU folks are broken down into:

Faculty:  Full time

Faculty administrative:  Full time staff

Faculty Emeritus:  Retired faculty with note from HR that status has been granted.

Staff: Part time/Adjunct Faculty Staff

Continuing Ed:  Part time students Undergrad and Graduate

Undergrads:  Full time Undergraduates

Graduates: Full time Graduates

PhD:  These folks have Faculty and Staff.

For statistical purposes in our ALMA:  The Consortia Students are faculty, students and staff from the other institutions.

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ALMA printing of bills

Posted on February 16, 2023 by kim

This is a screenshot of how printing is set up in ALMA as of October 2022:

The next step: below is the process in ALMA to run and print the bill for replacements (BFR):  

In Alma Configuration/Fulfillment/OVERDUE LOST LOAN PROFILE and we have three profiles that we manually run weekly:  Students/Guests/Course Reserves. If this process fails, check this link.

Leave Configuration and go back to ALMA, select ADMIN from the left side menu and PRINTOUTS Queue. 

From the Printouts Queue, manually print out each bill.

Bill in Banner, mail bills to students.

All staff must have the Print Queue Operator Role, to use the Access Services Print Queue if needed. 

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Alma Printing of Bills (backup procedure)

Posted on January 24, 2023 by kim

Here are the steps to find who had bills generated when Alma printing FAILS:

  • Go to Alma/Configuration/Fulfillment
  • Select Physical Fulfillment/Overdue and Lost Loan Profiles (this is where you manually run these bills)
  • Click on VIEW OVERDUE AND LOST LOAN Jobs button in upper right
  • Find the correct job, click on ellipse, select VIEW
    • This report gives you the number of loans processed, the number that failed/succeeded to be changed, et.
  • Click arrow on the right of the selection:  Change to Lost Profile
  • Click on ellipse, select View Succeeded Records
  • Click the Changed to Lost link to find the list of patrons, with their ID numbers.
  • Then go back into Alma Fulfillment and print the lists of Loans for each patron.
  • Generate the bills in Banner as normal, etc.

Do this for all categories that fail to print.

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LALCC no longer a Closed Collection

Posted on December 2, 2022 by kim

As of November 9th, the LALCC collection changed from a closed collection to a normally circulating collection.

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Books in CLOSED Collections

Posted on October 18, 2022 by kim

A closed collection does not normally circulate. For example, Reference, Ready Reference or the LALCC (Latin American, Latino and Caribbean Center). Basically, these materials can be used in the library, but on rare occasions, they are allowed to loaned out of the building. All material can be used in the library.

For Reference/Ready Reference, one of the Reference staff will most likely be with the faculty member. When it is from the LALCC, Dr. Mary Ann Mahony will tell us if we can check the material out.

Guests must use the material in the library and return it to the Circulation desk when they are done with it.

When the item is checked out: A pop up box will alert you that the book is from a restricted or closed collection, BUT you should have an OVERRIDE button. Click that and check the book out. The due date will be the date of checkout. Overdues will run at the 28/56 days overdue, with the bill for replacement appearing at 90 days overdue.

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Power Failure & door alarms

Posted on June 15, 2022 by kim

As we know, whenever we have a power failure, we can sometimes hear the door alarms on the first floor going off and we will need to re-alarm them. We should always just double-check them just in case to be sure that the lights are blinking properly because sometimes the door alarms don’t sound, they just turn off.

Today, I did an audible check of the doors in the back of the Stacks, since Jose mentioned that we were having a problem with the alarm in Stack 7. Dave and I did a check back in the winter, so I figured it was time again. Today, I found Stack 5, 3, 2, and 1 alarms off. It occurred to me that given the numerous power failures we have had recently, this might be turning the alarms off.

If we have a power outage while we are here, or find out that we had one while we were closed, we should check the doors down here, but also do a run from Stack 8 down to be sure the doors are alarmed. There is a separate key in the key box for the Stack alarms. Be sure to wear earplugs when you do it and warn any students/staff on the stack level.

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