Monday Minutes: Statistical Patron and Local Use

by Jessie Zairo on Jul 27, 2020

In this week's Monday Minutes, Kelly and Jessie walk you through setting up a statistical patron and training local use in the library. One way to track the use of in house items is to “check out” the materials to a statistical patron. The “check out” process doesn’t check the book out but instead tracks an in house use of the item.

You can create a statistical patron for tracking reference material, magazines, archives, genealogy, etc.

Setting up a Statistical Use Category

To use this method for tracking in house use you first will need a patron category set up for your statistical patron.

1. Go to More > Administration > Patrons and circulation > Patron categories
2. Click ‘New category’ at the top of the page
3. Enter your code and description
4. Under Category type select Statistical
5. Click Save

Setting up a Statistical Use Category

Next, you will need to create a new patron of the statistical type.

1. Go to Patrons > + New Patron
2. Next, add your statistical patron. Since this patron is not a real person, simply fill in the required fields and the correct library.
   1. In our example, we use First Name Reference
   2. Last Name Statistical Patron
   3. for cardnumber you can use something like "refstat"

Click Save

Checkout to a Statistical Patron

When collecting items that have been used within the library, you will want to check them out to your statistical patron.

1. Pull up your statistical patron
2. scan the barcode(s)
3. click checkout

Instead of marking the item as ‘checked out’ the system will record that the item was used in house. You will notice the circulation table will not populate.

Other System Preferences

The other way to record local use of items is to set your RecordLocalUseOnReturn preference to ‘Record.’ Then whenever you check an item in that is not checked out a local use will be recorded.

With this method, all "check-ins" are recorded, such as a check-in for a hold, a transfer, etc.