Using the circulation software/resource access for lending of AV equipment

We recently introduced the lending of our AV hardware/equipment via our circulation software here in Marburg. The hardware (microphones, cameras, speakers, audiorecorders and much more) is checked in/out at a special counter called “Medienzentrum” and basically treated like the more classical media (books …). Every device got an entry at our local catalogue to make it available for circulation (aka using the complete infrastructure of our circulation software like reminders, statistics and so on). Of course such an entry doesn’t appear in the main catalogue or OPAC. Within the circulation software we use for any category of AV hardware a different frame (for those using LBS: “storage room/concordance” are different for each hardware type) because we need the option that lending of cameras could be different from lending a microphone …

Any chances that the community would think about the lending of hardware in Resource Access as this feature becomes essential here at our library? Or … well … are there more libraries out there with such weird ideas

Kindest regards

Hi - I think that most of our institutions circulate non-traditional items. In fact I’ve heard of everything from back-packs to umbrellas (not quite a to z) being circulated by libraries currently engaged with FOLIO.

The system is already designed to accommodate this kind of local need by allowing institutions to create as many ‘material types’ as they like and including material type as an element in the loan rules. So you could easily have different loan rules for different kinds of equipment as long as if they were designated as different material types. For that matter you can also have different rules for materials that circulate from different desks. So if you had the same special material type being loaned at different locations they could follow different rules.

I’m assuming (because it’s pretty basic) that FOLIO will have some kind of indicator to let our discovery layers know when something is to be suppressed from display and we’re already working on ‘Fast Add’ as a way to allow brief record creation by non-experts.

The thing that I’d love to see (and know is quite a way down the road), is a way to let patrons place a reservation for these kinds of items for a set time (e.g next Tuesday from noon to 2 pm). That would allow us to use FOLIO for room bookings as well as equipment loans.

Hope this answers your question.

Andrea

Hello Andrea - many thanks for your reply (although I would say that there’s a certain difference - not in a technical but in a psychological way - in lending an umbrella or backpack for 10 €/$ or a camera for 3000 €/$). As a keen opponent of the one size fits all philosophy in library business I’m glad to read that the system allows as many material types as a library wants But this generates another question: when library A creates the material types a,b,c and translates them as bagpack, transponder and camera for example how will this very local definition be put in line with the definition of library B which says d,e,f (or 1,2,3) are bagpack, transponder and camera? Or (much worser) a,b,c are scanner, speaker and powerboard in library B? Sounds like refreshing anarchy to me An indicator for surpressing “Fast Add” brief or special records in a catalogue or discovery system is indeed needed and one of the essential killer-apps here. The idea of reservation for a set time is fascinating here but (believe it or not) we haven’t in-house using here in our mind. The 3000 €/$ camera can be checked out like the cheapest paperback.

Hi Christian,
My understanding is that material types will be entirely local. So unless there is some consortial functionality that requires coordination, it won’t matter one bit that material types don’t match up from one place to another (as long as it’s a field that NCIP can read for resource sharing functions).

We’ll each set up our own loan rules, just as we do in our current systems and the material type will be one of the criteria for the loan rule. Basically - it’s the combination of location, patron group, item state and material type that determines who can borrow a particular type of item from a given location, for how long and what the penalty is if they fail to return it.

For example:

• laptops (material type) from the law library( location) can be loaned to graduate students (patron group) for 24 hours, but
• laptops (material type) from the music library( location) can be loaned to undergrad students (patron group) for only 6 hours and
• standard books from the law library can be loaned to graduate students for 5 hours

Does that make sense? Does it answer your question?

Hi Andrea … I can assure you - it absolutely makes sense and answered my question I’m really glad that we would have more local possibilities here to define a material type as I got the impression that the lending business more and more leaves trusted territory (aka lending of books or normal media) - albeit it could blow up RA a little bit. At the moment we have 1100 rules in Marburg University Library which combine department, patron group, material type, type of loan, loan indication and loan period (it’s regulation 25 of altogether 68 regulations in LBS4 circulation). And still my colleagues want more. So - yes: it definitely helps that the material types will entirely be local.