Question

The sublibrary SSSSS is going to stop charging processing fees for lost materials and wants to waive all such existing fines.
SQL (see Additional Info below) finds 20,101 lost-book processing-fee (z31_type 040) records for sublibrary SSSSS in the Z31 (cash table) that are marked as Open. The plan is to change the z31_status of these z31's to "W" (Waived), and add a note to the z30_description field indicating what has been done.

There's a concern that these z31 records may be connected to other records which may also need to be updated. Are they?

Answer

There's no place in Aleph that a patron's outstanding fines are totaled. {This is inconvenient when trying to get the fine sum with SQL. Article 000012398 ("SQL to find sum of what patrons owe") discusses this.} But it makes things easier for you: when the z31_status is changed from "O" to "W" (or “C”) there's no need to worry about the effect on other records.

Additional Information

SQL query:

select Count(*)
from xxx50.z31
where z31_type ='0040' (0040 - Lost material - Handling)
and z31_status ='O'
and z31_sub_library ='SSSSS';

Category: Circulation (500)

• Article last edited: 2/14/2015