Re: [IUG] Auto Notices

["Hurcombe, Emma" <E dot L dot Hurcombe at aston dot ac dot uk>]

Hi,

We are a new UK customer who went live with Millennium before Christmas and use auto notices.  We send them as courtesy notices, recall notices and all overdues apart from the final one.  We send these manually so that we can print them and shelf check for the item in question before sending what is in effect a request for payment.

The main issues we have had relate to our sending of courtesy notices, which our users have been asking for us to send for over a year before we changed systems.  Now we are sending them we have found that while a number of people find them useful the queries were:

1.  The text of the notices - we needed to amend our original text as our users thought it was a notice to return the item, even though the header was 'Reminder notice'.  The text now says something like 'this is a notice to remind you that your books are soon due for return.  You can renew them online at http://library.aston.ac.uk )  This seems to have removed the confusion.

2.  Non-sending of emails - we have had a couple of periods when for some reason the notices were not sent automatically by the system.  This may have been an initial teething problem with our new system.  However, what this did reveal is that users quickly picked up that they had not had a courtesy notice and tried to use this as justification for not paying fines.  The common excuse being 'I didn't get a courtesy notice from you to remind me my book was due back so I didn't realise it would be overdue so it is unfair to have to pay the fines as your system didn't tell me.' (needless to say we didn't think this was a valid reason for late return of books.)

Hope this is helpful.
Regards,
Emma


Emma Hurcombe, BA (HONS), PGDip ILM, MA
Systems Specialist (LMS)
Information Systems Aston (ISA)
c/o Library & Information Services
Aston University, Aston Triangle,
Birmingham, B4 7ET
Direct Dial Telephone: 0121 204 4503
Internal extension: 4503

Fax:    0121 204 4530
LIS Homepage:  http://www.aston.ac.uk/lis/

-----Original Message-----
From: innopac-bounces at innopacusers dot org [mailto:innopac-bounces at innopacusers dot org] On Behalf Of Barbara Storch
Sent: 02 January 2008 20:54
To: innopac at innopacusers dot org
Subject: [IUG] Auto Notices

We have not used Auto Notices and would like to know if anyone who is
using Auto Notices has experienced any issues relating to its use.  Any
advice would be helpful.



Thank you.



Barbara J. Storch

West Palm Beach Public Library

100 Clematis Street

West Palm Beach, FL 33401

Telephone 561-868-7721

Fax 561-868-7706

E-mail: storchb at mycitylibrary dot org <mailto:storchb at mycitylibrary dot org>







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