Lost Loan Status
Closing a lost loan changes the item's status to missing. This means that items we know are lost will turn up on lists for missing item searches, even though we know we won't find them. Not closing the loans means that we can't purge patrons from the database, even if we know that we are not going to get back the item or be paid the replacement fee.
It would be preferable if items retained a status of Lost even if the loan is closed, so that we can differentiate between items that are lost and items that just can't be found. This would also improve reporting so we can keep track of how many items are lost by patrons versus missing in the library.
Laura Krier
shared this idea
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Cheryl Grubb
commented
Yes! Sometimes a lost item and it's replacement fee need to be removed from a patron's account, even when the item has not been returned or paid for. All ways to handle this are problematic. Discharging an item makes it "available," so to indicate the item is really still lost, it must be marked "Missing," which isn't accurate and results in erroneous search lists and statistics reports. Marking an item Found or removing a lost fee from a patron's account by waiving it leaves the item on the account. By "paying" the fee the item is declared "Lost & Paid," even when the item is not paid for. I would like either the ability to manually set an item status to "Lost" or to have an alternate option to "Lost & Paid," such as "Lost & Closed."
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Manu Schwendener commented
+1