How Sierra Determines the Loan Rule by Checkout Location
By default, the system uses the LOCATION fixed-length field in the item record to determine which loan rule to apply to a circulation transaction. When the Loan Rule Determined by Checkout Location feature is enabled, the system instead uses the checkout location when selecting a loan rule. This enables libraries that circulate items among branches to use their own loan rules rather than rules established by other branches. This feature affects the following circulation operations:
- Checking out items
- Calculating fines on overdue items
To determine the checkout location, the system consults the Locations Served assigned to your user. The system considers the first branch (location) code that is assigned to that Locations Served to be the checkout location. If there is not a Locations Served assigned to your user or if the Locations Served assigned to your user represent invalid locations (a.k.a. Locations Not Served), the system uses the item's location.
Not Applicable to Checkouts to INN-Reach Patrons
This feature does not affect checkouts of INN-Reach items to requesting patrons. When the patron site checks out an INN-Reach item to the patron, the system uses the location specified in the virtual item record to determine the loan rule that governs the checkout. This location always belongs to the owning site, rather than the patron site. As a result, the due date assigned to the INN-Reach item does not take into account the days that the patron site might be closed.
Setting Up the Feature
To set up the Loan Rule Determined by Checkout Location feature:
- Contact Innovative to have the feature enabled.
- Set the Renewals: Check loan rule at time of renewal circulation option to "NO". This option is incompatible with the Loan Rule Determined by Checkout Location feature.
- Assign a Locations Served to all of the users in your system.
- Assign a statistics group to all of the users in your system.
- Add all statistics groups in your system to the Statistical Group Maintenance table. When this feature is enabled, the system uses the Statistical Group Maintenance table to calculate overdue fines.
Fine Calculation Affected
Enabling the Loan Rule Determined by Checkout Location feature changes the way Sierra calculates the number of days and hours for which to fine patrons for overdue items. For more information, see Charging Overdue Fines.