RE: Replies to circulation notices

["Mann, James H." <JMann at gcpl dot lib dot oh dot us>]

Carol
I have the replies to both circulation and courtesy notices sent to me.
We get maybe 5 replies a week and they fall into some general
categories:
-- Patron claims item was returned. These mostly end up as snags or bad
checkins, and are forwarded to the appropriate branch.
-- Thank you, cancel my request, again forwarded to the appropriate
branch.
-- Those that are briefly entertaining like emails that get sent
overseas or out of state due to bad email address. I once had a
grandmother who tracked down her granddaughter's books, returned them
and made a donation.
-- The most difficult to deal with? AOL users who don't include the
notice in their reply and sign the email "Jim"

Hope this helps. 


Jim Mann
Technology Coordinator
Greene County Public Library
Xenia Ohio 45385
(937) 376-2996 x210
mailto: jmann at gcpl dot lib dot oh dot us
-----Original Message-----
From: innopac-bounces at innopacusers dot org
[mailto:innopac-bounces at innopacusers dot org] On Behalf Of Carol Gyger
Sent: Thursday, November 04, 2004 6:27 PM
To: IUG INNOPAC List
Subject: Replies to circulation notices

I'm curious about how other libraries handle email replies to automated
emails.

We send hundreds of circulation notices daily via email for holds pickup
and overdues.  The emails are sent from our "circadm" account on our III
server.  The "Reply-To" is the same account however our router is set to
not accept replies.  Recently we turned on "reply" for about 24 hours
and
discovered quite a variety of messages including auto-replies and
replies
that didn't include the original message.  Without the original message,
we don't know the customer's name.  Hmmmm.  How do other libraries
handle
this?

We are considering adding text to the body of the email "To reply via
email, please go to http://our.library.org/blah.blah";.  Clicking on the
link would take them to a webform where they are prompted to fill in all
pertinent information.  Is anyone using this method?

I'd love to hear what others are doing.

-carol

Carol Gyger
Systems Administrator
Fort Collins Public Library
201 Peterson St.
Fort Collins CO  80524
(970)221-6716
gyger at julip dot fcgov dot com


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