More chances for automatic renewals
Right now, automatic renewals happen 3 days before the due date. If the item someone has out is supposed to fill a hold for someone else then it never automatically renews even if another item ends up filling that hold. There should be a schedule for automatic renewals to occur 3 days, 2 days, 1 day, before the item is due and the day the item is due so there are multiple opportunities for that item to automatically renew in the event that a hold gets filled by another library and that item is now eligible for renewal again. It's quite frustrating for staff and patrons when items don't automatically renew because it would've filled a hold but then the hold got filled by someone else and then the patron never knows that happened and they still get charged fines and have an overdue item on their account even though the item should've renewed for them.
Tatiana
shared this idea
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Erin Shield
commented
I thought there was a setting that allowed the auto-renewal to continue if there were other available copies and a hold gets placed? From help: "Your library can control this blocking message at the System level using the Patron Services Administration parameter Renewals: Block if there are holds. When this parameter is set to Yes, the block message is always displayed when there are requests for the title. When set to No, the block message is displayed only when the item being renewed is the only item available to fill the request. If other holdable and potentially eligible items are In, no dialog box appears and the item can be renewed."
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Emma Olmstead-Rumsey
commented
This seems technically challenging to implement but would be a really nice feature! We see the same thing happening in our system. it's very confusing and frustrating to patrons to be denied an automatic renewal only to look in the PAC the next day and see that the bib has no holds on it.