3.6. Ways That Cardinal Can Help During Service Disruptions

Last Updated 10/10/2024

Things That Cardinal Can Do For You During Service Disruptions

Add An OPAC Banner Announcement
Set An Emergency Closing for Your Library
Bump Due Dates Forward
Freeze / Suspend Your Users Unfilled Holds
Cancel or Transfer Holds of a Closed Branch
Set Your Library as “Skip For Holds”
Block Your Patrons from Placing Additional Holds
Don’t Charge Fines / Waive Fines
Add a Holds Hard Boundary
Disable or Update Your Email Notices
Update Patron Account Expiration Dates
Activate Auto-Renewals
Update Your Student Access Accounts

Add An OPAC Banner Announcement

If you have alerts that you’d like to make visible at the top of your OPAC, we’re happy to add those for you.

Set An Emergency Closing for Your Library

If you’re closing your library to the public, you (or we) can run the emergency closing process in the Closed Dates Editor for your expected closed dates. This will move the due dates for all loans and hold shelf expirations forward to the next day that the library is expected to be open. If you end up needing to be closed for a longer period, this process can be repeated, as needed. Staff can also backdate checkins when you reopen. We recommend that this process be run for each branch, rather than for the system as a whole. If the process has run correctly, you should see the number of transactions updated, like this:

Circulations: 55 / 55 | Holds: 116 / 116 | Reservations:0 / 0

Bump Due Dates Forward

If your library is still open, we can bump the due dates on all your current loans forward to some date in the future, or by an amount of time like an additional two weeks, so that all of the items aren't coming due at the same time. We can do this by circ mod if that’s helpful, so that for instance we update books and audiobooks but not technology items.

Freeze / Suspend Your Users Unfilled Holds

If your library is closed, you may wish to freeze/suspend the holds that have been requested to be picked up at that library. This will prevent the holds for that closed library from showing up on the picklists of other libraries, being pulled from their shelves and then sitting around when they can not be sent. We can set it so that holds your patrons place are frozen every minute, so that they'll still be able to place holds during the disruption, but those holds aren't filled until you're ready to handle the traffic. Once you ask Cardinal to unfreeze the holds, they'll start showing up on picklists again. If you’re offering curbside service where users are requesting materials via the catalog, we do not recommend this option.

Cancel or Transfer Holds of a Closed Branch

If a branch is going to be closed indefinitely, we can change the pickup library on unfilled holds away from that closed branch to another branch that's open. Alternatively, we can cancel all of the holds that were destined for pickup at the closed branch.

Set Your Library as “Skip For Holds”

If your library is closed and not able to pull things on your pick list, we can set your branches as “Skip For Holds.” If a library chooses this option, their collection will not be targeted for holds for local patrons or for resource sharing. If you are still providing curbside checkouts that patrons are requesting by placing a hold or wish to continue resource sharing and filling patron holds, we do not recommend this option.

Block Your Patrons from Placing Additional Holds

Some libraries want to block patrons from placing additional holds during the library's closure to prevent a large backlog of hold requests and long pull lists once libraries reopen. We can do so with a library setting "not a pickup location" that makes your branch(es) ineligible to be the hold pickup location. If the patron already has one of your branches selected as their preferred hold pickup location, they will not be able to complete the hold placement, but there is no clear message, so we recommend adding a banner stating that holds cannot be placed while the library is closed. We can create the OPAC banner for you.

Don’t Charge Fines / Waive Fines

If you are open or providing curbside service, we can set your current circulation policies to “no fine” so that you are not charging overdue fines during this time period. Even if you are not open, we can also retroactively waive recent or accruing unpaid fines for items that aren’t marked “lost” or “claimed returned.” If you request this option, it would be wise to evaluate the effects of backdating on billing when checking in your material.

Add a Holds Hard Boundary

If you are not currently participating in resource sharing, but do not want to suspend/freeze patron holds because you’re providing limited service like curbside hold fulfillment, we can set a “hard boundary” for your system. This will prevent your patrons from placing holds on materials that are not owned by your library system. If your library is fulfilling holds with materials transiting from other branches within your system, we can set a hard boundary of 1 (system). If you are not transiting materials between branches, we can set a hard boundary of 2 which will limit the patrons’ pickup library to the branch that owns the item. The hard boundary does not prevent patrons with a home library outside your library system from placing holds on your materials, so your staff should only pull materials when the pickup library on the pull list matches your branch or system (as appropriate). Pickup library can be added as a column in the pull list using the column picker: https://nccardinalsupport.org/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=477

Disable or Update Your Email Notices

If you set an Emergency Closing or ask us to update due dates for your library’s circulations, then your patrons should generally not be seeing notices. If however you’d like us to disable email notices for your system, we can also do that. If you'd like us to edit your email notices, please contact us at: help@nccardinalsupport.org

Update Patron Account Expiration Dates

If you’d like us to update the expiration dates of patrons accounts expiring soon, we’re happy to do that for you.

Activate Auto-Renewals

If you’d like us to activate auto-renewals for your system, we’re happy to do so.

Update Your Student Access Accounts

A number of systems have seen a bump in their students’ usage of electronic resources during this time. If you’d like us to process a fresh feed from your school system for Student Access accounts, please let us know.

Other Information That May Be Useful During Service Disruptions

Resolving transits for libraries that are not currently resource sharing:

When running the pull list and pulling items from the shelves, staff should be sure to display the pickup location as a column on the pull list and reference this page for the most up-to-date information about which libraries are resource sharing and which are not when determining whether or not to capture items on the pull list.

If you find that items are targeting patron holds for libraries that are not yet resource sharing during check in, staff should choose Cancel Transit from the Actions menu on the Item Status screen, as libraries should not collect or store in transit items for libraries not currently accepting shipments.

Note: Once an item has been shipped to the hub, only Branch Admins can cancel transits when the transit source is a different branch (i.e., when the item is owned by a branch other than the hub library).

If there are other holds on the item, you can check in the item using these checkin modifiers: Retarget Local Holds and Retarget All Statuses.

If the item has no other holds, you can check in the item using the checkin modifier: Suppress Holds and Transits.

Please be aware that check in modifiers are "sticky", which means they will stay on until you uncheck them again, even after you log out of Evergreen completely and log back in later. So, it is always a good idea to uncheck them before you close out the tab or move on to something else.

Retarget Local Holds and Retarget All Statuses:

Suppress Holds and Transits:

For libraries that are open or offering curbside checkouts:

Instructions for setting up self-check workstations to help limit close contact of staff with patrons: https://nccardinalsupport.org/index.php?pg=kb.chapter&id=105

If you want to set the due dates forward for the items you are checking out to patrons in your curbside service, you can manually change the due dates for those items when checking out in the patron account by clicking on Date Options and selecting Use Specified Date until Logout:

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