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Create a quarantine patron

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Discover how to create a quarantine patron to check out returned items for the duration of the quarantine period in WorldShare.

 Note: OCLC recommends documenting your current policies prior to making any changes. This will make it easier to revert changes when it is time to remove the quarantine configuration.

Overview

You can create a quarantine patron to check out returned items to for the duration of the quarantine period. This will prevent patrons from attempting to check out returned items, and you can set up the quarantine patron so that a staff member will receive a notification when the quarantine period is complete.

 Caution: To prevent performance degradation, please limit the number of items checked out to a single user account to under 1,000. Multiple accounts can be created for larger numbers of quarantined items.

Create a quarantine patron

Create a new patron type policy

  1. Sign in to OCLC Service Configuration and navigate to WMS Institution > Institution Borrower Categories.
  2. Add a row for a new patron type and name it Quarantine. Click Save. After saving, allow the system 15 minutes to refresh. 
  3. Navigate to WMS Circulation > Patron Type Policy. 
  4. You will now see a policy name called Quarantine. Click the link to edit the policy. 
  5. Leave all loan limits set to No Limit and click Save.

Create a new loan policy

  1. Navigate to WMS Circulation > Loans > Loan Policy. 
  2. In the upper right-hand corner, click Create New to add a new loan policy named Quarantine. 
  3. Update the loan period to reflect the amount of time the items will need to be in quarantine. 
  4. Apply a notification policy that will send an overdue notice once the end of quarantine is reached. 
  5. Click Save.

Update the loan policy map

  1. Navigate to WMS Circulation > Loans > Loan Policy Map. 
  2. Add a new row to the map using the green plus sign. 
  3. For Patron Policy, select Quarantine. Material Format, select All. Holding Location, select the All. Shelving Location, select All. Loan Policy, select Quarantine. Long Overdue and Lost Policy, select none. 
  4. Add additional rows as needed for multiple branches. 
  5. Move the location of the rows to the appropriate location in the loan policy map. The system evaluates the map from top to bottom, left to right until a match is found. 
  6. Click Save.

Create a quarantine patron within WMS

 Note: If your institution will be quarantining a large number of books, we recommend creating more than one quarantine patron. Checking out thousands of items to a single user can cause system issues.

  1. Sign in to your instance of WorldShare Management Services using an account with the User Admin role. 
  2. Navigate to the Admin Tab.
  3. Click New User.
  4. Provide a username and email address for the quarantine patron. The email address should be the address that will receive notifications for the due dates of the quarantined items. 
  5. Select Quarantine as the Patron Type.
  6. Click Save.

Check out returned items to the quarantined patron

As items are returned to your library, check them in and then check them out to the quarantine patron. After the designated quarantine period is over, a notification will be sent to the user specified in the quarantine record. When the quarantine period is over, items can be checked in to release them from quarantine. 

 Note: Items checked out with an existing hold request will require an override from a user with the appropriate circulation role.