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Home > Minerva > Circulation > Essential Tips & Tricks

Circulation: Essential Tips and Tricks

The Manual

New Minerva libraries should familiarize themselves with the online user manual at http://130.111.64.52/manual

Search Shortcuts

As a shortcut, rather than click the Search button, you can use the barcode entry box by preceding search words with a single character indicating the type of search, e.g. "tHarry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", "aGrisham, John" for author John Grisham, or "pSmith, John" for patron John Smith, "dCross-country skiing" for subject "Cross-country skiing". Commas are optional and are treated as spaces.

Slow System Response

If the system slows down momentarily, resist the temptation to hit keys or mouse buttons repeatedly.  This can confuse or destabilize the program.  If the system remains slow, try exiting the Millennium Circulation software, then restarting it. This sometimes helps.

Patron Record Notes

Use variable field  “n” Note for passive notes in a patron record, and “m” Message for a notes you wish to pop up on the screen whenever that patron record is accessed.

Suppressing Records

Need to preserve an item record for an item that is long overdue, but prevent its display in the catalog? Set Icode2 to "w" Withdrawn, or "n" Suppress in the item record. When the item is returned or replaced, just set Icode2 back to "-" and the item will again be visible.

Notices

Innovative advises libraries to print notices and bills frequently. Every day is best.It is most efficient to print All Levels of notices at the same time.

Timing of Bills

Note that if you do not print bills with the same frequency of notices you may run into problems, however. This is because printing All Levels of notices will look at transactions for which a last notice has been sent and, if the gap between that notice and the time for billing has elapsed, will change the item status from Overdue to Billed. If you do not generate both notices and bills on the same schedule, a patron may show up as having been billed before the bill has actually been printed.

Email Notices

If you need to send email notices to multiple patron email addresses, e.g. home and campus addresses, enter the addresses, separated a comma, in a single email field in the patron record.

Holds

There are two types of holds or reserves: Title-Level Holds (also known as Bib-Level Holds or Copy Returned Soonest Holds) and Item-Level Holds:

  • For most holds, place a Bib-Level Hold and do not limit to a location in Millennium (in the OPAC, there is not the option to limit to an owning location). This method ensures that your patron will receive the first available copy of a title; if there is a long waiting list, your patron will get your copy first even if patrons from other libraries have been waiting longer.
  • If the volume field was used in the item record because there are multiple volumes attached to one bibliographic record, you must place an Item-Level Hold. In the OPAC, there will be a screen listing the volumes and the desired volume must be selected for the hold to be processed. When placing holds in Millennium, staff must careful to check if the volume field has been used; if it has been, you must request a specific volume.

Broken Holds

These can be items that appear as checked out on a patron record when they aren't or items that give a message they are checked out when they are actually in hand; most need to be sent to the Innovative Help Desk to be resolved but some can be fixed locally by library staff. Before sending a request for a broken hold to be removed, change the status to "@" IR OFF Site. Close the item record and scan it through Check In, then try again to perform the desired transaction (checkout, deleting the item record, etc.) In many cases this will clear the old hold; if it doesn't, send a request to Maine InfoNet Support at http://espresso.ums.maine.edu:8088/ and submit a Broken Hold request.

Expired Holds

Regularly clear expired holds. This operation removes holds which have passed their "not wanted after date". Clear Holdshelf can be used to recognize items that have been waiting longer than the hold pickup time in the applicable loan rule, and move them to the next person in the queue. Read about the function in the Release 2000 manual.

Removing a Negative Fine

To remove a negative fine from a patron record (Page #100076 in the Manual):

  1. Create a charge for the patron with the same amount as the negative charge.
  2. Select the positive and negative charges.
  3. Choose the Waive Fines button.

Non-requestable Item Status Codes

The following item status codes are non-requestable in the OPAC and will give the message, "This item is not requestable" when an attempt is made to place a hold. Note: Staff are able to override the code when placing requests in Millennium, so care must be taken before placing any requests in Millennium.

  • q -- Owns --- For use by Maine InfoNet staff only
  • $ -- Paid
  • z -- Claimed Ret'd
  • m -- Missing
  • l -- Lost
  • s -- On Search
  • n -- Billed --- Set by system when bills are processed -- do not change a status to Billed
  • w -- Withdraw Shelf
  • k -- Online
  • o -- Library Use Only