CAC meeting, May 5, 2009
Agenda
1) Transition to new ID cards 2) records for patrons not affiliated with Vanderbilt 3) use of Google Calendar to report circulation hours 4) notices, due in 7 days
Minutes
1) Transition to new ID cards
Rick Wood discussed the schedule for the transition of the identification cards from using SSN as the identifier to a randomly generated 9-digit number. New employees and students will receive new cards starting on June 5, and all replacement cards for existing employees and students will be encoded with the new system starting on June 5. Incoming freshmen will receive cards encoded with the new system. All students will be transitioned to the new system by the end of the fall semester, 2009. University faculty and university staff will be transitioned to the new system by February, 2010. There is no firm schedule to transition medical employees, although new employees will receive cards in accordance with the new system starting June 5. There is no firm schedule to transition alumni, although alumni may go to the Card Office to be issued a new card after June 5. There will be no charge for the issuance of a new card. All schedules are currently DRAFT and subject to change.
2) records for patrons not affiliated with Vanderbilt
Proposal for assigning an Acorn record for patrons not affiliated with Vanderbilt. This is an issue, since we will no longer be using the SSN as an identifier. The following process was accepted, with the understanding that the algorithm for encoding the Alt ID needs to be approved by LITS. The Alt ID will be used to log into Acorn. The card will have a magnetic stripe that will be encoded with a random number, and it will be swipe-able for the purpose of checking out books.
Proposed Process
Key question: Does the patron have a VUNetID? If yes, there may be a record in the database, and Acorn should be checked. Assuming no VUNetID…
1) Patron fills out necessary Card Office paperwork and goes to the Card Office to get the card.
2) Patron returns to the library with card in hand.
3) An Acorn patron record is created at the service desk, using the 9-digit number as the User ID.
4) At the time the Acorn patron record is created, the patron selects an Alternate ID in accordance with a defined algorithm. The Acorn PIN is automatically generated at the time of record creation, and the default PIN is the first four digits of the 9-digit card office number. Staff should write the down the Acorn ID and default PIN and give it to the patron.
The proposed method of creating an Acorn ID is the following: First 3 characters of the last name (L), followed by the first 2 characters of the first name (F), followed by the birth month (M, two digits), followed by the birth day (D, two digits). If the last name has less than 3 characters, use all the characters of the last name and fill in the remaining spaces with 0 (zero). The completed Alt ID will have 9 characters. The completed form will be: LLLFFMMDD
5) After the record is created, and the Alt-ID is selected, staff demonstrate how to login to Acorn with the Alt-ID and default PIN (and why the patron needs to know this). The Patron is advised to login to Acorn and change the PIN.
3) use of Google Calendar to report circulation hours
There have been some unexpected bumps. Chiefly, there is some confusion about how the calendar software sends alerts in regards to changes in schedule. These are being worked out. Tao remains enthusiastic about the use of Google calendar, and please continue to use.
4) notices, due in 7 days
Some GIMS materials (CDs, cassettes) circulate for 14 days. An “due in 7 days” notice was created for these materials. If other libraries wish to use such a notice, please notify Tao.