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    Redefining Patron Type

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    • Article Type: General
    • Product: Aleph
    • Product Version: 20

    Description:
    We have an idea for changing the way that we use the Patron Type that we are thinking about for our Aleph 20 upgrade.

    Currently, the patron types that we use are essentially redundant with the patron status codes. E.g., Faculty have patron status 01 and patron type FA. Graduate students have patron status 04 and patron type GR. My understanding is that the patron type is present for statistical purposes, e.g., it is recorded in loan records, hold records, history files, etc. But I don't think it plays a functional role, e.g., whether a patron has certain privileges. Since we currently have a one-to-one mapping of statuses and types, we don't get any real value out of the types we currently have defined.

    The idea is to change to a small number of types to indicate which institution the user is affiliated with. That is, a Notre Dame faculty member would have status 01 and type ND, while a Saint Mary's faculty member would have status 01 and type SM. A Notre Dame Grad Student would then have status 04 and type ND.

    Do you have any thoughts on this in general? Are there issues that we would need to address? Also, the only table where I've found setting for this is pc_tab_exp_field_extended.eng. Are there any other tables, or configuration that I need to be aware of?

    Resolution:
    Some multi-ADM sites assign a unique prefix in the util g/2 last-bor-id (the Aleph-assigned patron ID) for each xxx50 library (such as "NDU" in ndu50, "SMC" in smc50, etc.) If you were starting from scratch, that might be a good idea, but changing this for existing patrons is not really feasible -- so, yes, I think that setting the patron type to represent the college would be a good idea.

    You write: "My understanding is that the patron type is present for statistical purposes, e.g., it is recorded in loan records, hold records, history files, etc."

    The following grep shows the Oracle records the BOR-TYPE is found in:

    barnabas.library.nd.edu-18(1) HCC50-ALEPH18>>grep BOR-TYPE Z*
    Z305: 02 Z305-BOR-TYPE PICTURE X(2).
    Z35: 02 Z35-BOR-TYPE PICTURE X(2).
    Z36: 02 Z36-BOR-TYPE PICTURE X(2).
    Z36H: 02 Z36H-BOR-TYPE PICTURE X(2).

    The Z35 is the central record for circ statistics, so its inclusion there is the critical piece.

    pc_tab_exp_field_extended.eng is the only Aleph table you need to change for these new BOR-TYPE values.

    • Article last edited: 10/8/2013