PROXY BORROWER

Ann Moloney, Cardiff University

European EndUser

Helsinki Sept 2003

What is a proxy borrower?

Someone who borrows material on behalf of someone else… a slave, a ghost

Think of the ‘someone else’ as the sponsor, the master

Some ideas for use

• Research student borrowing for a supervisor

• A courier borrowing on behalf of a business

• A parent who wants to know what the 10 kids are reading

How do you link a proxy to a sponsor?

Very simple!

Call up the sponsor record

Open ‘Patron’ menu

Click on ‘Proxy patron’

Enter the proxy’s barcode…

Set an end date for the period of servitude if you wish…

… then ‘add’ the proxy to the sponsor

You can add as many proxies as you like

How do you check which proxies are linked to a sponsor, outside of the ‘Proxy patron maintenance’ screen?

From the sponsor’s record you can check the proxy list from this tab

Setting up a proxy is as simple as that!

So what happens when the proxy arrives at the Circ desk to do the sponsor’s bidding?

Click on the ‘ghost’ icon. There’s a count of 2

This proxy has two sponsors. Select the one required

Voyager switches to the sponsor’s record to make the charge

That’s about it…

but don’t go just yet.

There’s more to think about!

• How do I find which items proxies have borrowed?

• Not from the proxy’s record, and not from the sponsor’s…

Do an item enquiry, and check the patron icon to find the sponsor and the proxy

Summary so far

• A sponsor can have many proxies• A proxy can have many sponsors• You can set an expiry date on the proxy

relationship (or not)• But there’s no automatic removal

• To charge an item select the sponsor from the ghost icon

• The sponsor’s loan rights apply• Check the proxy ID from a loaned item enquiry

How (and why) we use ‘proxy borrower’ at Cardiff

• Manual system for issuing musical scores to University choir and orchestra members

• The scores are multiple copies obtained on inter library loan

• The Music Librarian wanted to issue these on Voyager without them counting for loan limits

Proxy borrower to the rescue!

• We created • a new patron category called ILL Scores User

• and a new item type called ILL Score

• We added ILL Scores User to the Music Library’s policy group and created a single user:• 91 day loan period for ILLScore

• no upper borrowing limit

• Bib/Item records are created for scores as they arrive from lenders

• University choir and orchestra members are added as proxies to the sponsor record

The ‘sponsor’ record uses barcode 1 (easy to remember)

The Music Librarian adds University choir and orchestra members as proxies

Orchestra member comes to borrow a score…

The item is issued for 91 days and it doesn’t count for the proxy’s loan limit

This gives us a simple, automated way of handling an exceptional routine in one of our libraries

Maintenance …

and things to look out for

All proxies are managed here. You can sort by column heading, add, delete, change an expiry date

Tip 1

• You can see all of a sponsor’s proxies from the sponsor’s patron record

• You cannot see that a patron is a proxy from the proxy patron record

May be a cause for grief!

Barcode 222 is a proxy, but barcode 444 is not

The stolen barcode references the active barcode, which has no proxy link

You can’t edit the barcode in proxy maintenance

So, if you change a barcode, check first if you need to make a new link

Tip 2

• For an item on loan, you can only find who the proxy is from an item enquiry

– So, what if the sponsor wants a list of who has borrowed on their behalf?

We provided some reports for the Music Librarian to run

She can check all loans made by proxies

And she can check for proxy links past their expiry date

That’s it!