Expected dates vs. actual dates received in Milser

[Dianne Schaefer <dschaefer@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Good morning,

Please excuse any duplication as this message was previously posted to
the Innovative law list but as I have not received any comments, I am
sending it to a larger audience. The reason that this was originally
just sent to the law list is that the topic would appear to be more
relevant to law materials, but we would appreciate any comments.

We are interested in hearing how other libraries handle the following
situation in Milser (we are on Release 2002, Phase2). We would like to
find a way to save the original expected dates in serial checkin cards
to have for future reference. Presently the system replaces the expected
date with claimed, late, or arrived dates, and then the original
expected date is lost.

The reasoning behind this desire to save the expected date is that it is
not possible to distinguish between those items that arrived later than
expected because of claiming from those that arrived later than expected
because of a change in the publisher's schedule. This then causes
difficulty when predicting when future issues should arrive.

Various options considered include adding the information to the note
field in the checkin box, but this is visible to patrons; to the message
field in the checkin record that pops up when viewing the card, but this
could get lengthy and difficult to decifer; or to create internal
note(s) in the checkin record, but that requires moving back and forth
between the card and record tabs and has the same problems as the
message field in terms of length and difficulty in locating the relevant
information.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Dianne

--
Dianne Schaefer
Systems Librarian
Social Law Library
1200 Court House
Boston, MA  02108
Phone: (617) 226-1318
Fax:   (617) 523-2458
Email: dschaefer@xxxxxxxxxx