Loans

Best Practices for Loans

Currently at Location

• Always be aware of your location, displayed in the upper right corner of every Alma screen. If you frequently switch between locations or work at a shared PC with someone who does, make a habit of double checking when you start using Alma.
• If location is not showing, check Always Show Current Location
  

Fulfillment Notes

• Any note you add will likely be visible to a patron on their account, so choose your words with that in mind.
• If you want to add a note to a loan from the patron's loan record:
  
  1. Click the row action item list icon (the ellipsis)
  2. Select View Notes
  3. Click Add Note
  4. Type in the note and click Add
  5. Click the back arrow to the left of Loan Notes to get back to the patron record
• An example of a loan note: If you accidentally returned/discharged a barcode, you would want to loan or charge it again with a note about what happened.

Patron Session Time-Out

After you scan in a patron's barcode, the session will time out after five minutes of inactivity. You will not be logged out of Alma, but you will need to re-scan the patron's barcode to re-open their record and continue working with them.

Loan an Item

1. Verify Current Location on the menu bar

2. Go to Fulfillment >> Manage Patron Services

3. Scan or manually type patron ID number (if manually typing ID, click on Go)

4. By default you see Loans tab

1. Default will always be to display Loans of current session

2. Change the Loan Display to All Loans to see all items currently out to the patron
   

5. Scan/enter item barcode into Scan Item Barcode field (if manually typing barcode, click on OK). Item is loaned to patron's account.
   

6. Continue loaning addition items if needed

7. Click Done or hit CTRL+ALT+D when finished loaning to that patron
   

Loan an Item to a Sponsor via a Proxy Account

Important: The patron needs to identify that they want to loan items to their sponsor account before items are loaned. Otherwise, the items will need to be checked back in and re-loaned to the proxy.

If a proxy (a.k.a. research assistant) is already affiliated with Harvard, they use their own Harvard ID for checking out books. There is a Use Proxy checkbox on the Manage patron Services screen that allows you to select the sponsor for the loan.

Proxy (a.k.a. research assistant) cards will still exist, but the only people who will have them will be non-Harvard affiliates working as proxies. 

To loan an item to a sponsor via a proxy:

1. Select/Verify current location

2. Go to Fulfillment >> Manage Patron Services

3. Check the Use proxy checkbox first
   

4. Scan or enter the patron’s Harvard ID (or Research Assistant ID if they don't have a Harvard affiliation aside from their proxy position)

5. Select a sponsor from the drop-down menu and click Go

6. Scan in item barcode(s)

Loan an Item that has No Barcode (Creating On-The-Fly Items)

If a patron wants to check out an item and Alma says that no item exists with that barcode:

1. If not already there, go to Fulfillment  >> Manage Patron Services

2. Scan or manually type patron ID number (if manually typing ID, click on Go)

3. Click on Create item, located to the right of where you would scan in the barcode
4. Select Holding Type
   1. Best Practice: Use New even when barcoding a periodical volume because it's faster and easier; the item is flagged so that the record is updated once the item is returned
   2. Best Practice: Leave Suppress for discovery checked
5. Choose Citation Type: Book 
6. Enter as much information about the item as possible:
   1. Under Item Information you must include Location and Collection, Barcode, Material Type (Book, Issue, etc) and Item Policy (loan period)
   2. Nothing is needed in the Public Note field
   3. If the book is in another language and the patron is present, consider asking them for assistance with the title, author etc.
   4. Scan Barcode into field
7. Click Save
8. The item will be loaned according to the Item policy entered and the patron's status.