Tip of the Week

Tip for: 12.16.02

New Patron Location (NP)

We all know that it can take time to change patron homerooms at the beginning of each school year (if you aren't lucky enough to receive a download from the district). What do you do if a teacher changes homerooms or gets married during the school year? To help save time performing this task Alexandria has the New Patron Location (NP) command.

To use the NP command:

In the command line type NP 'Teacher's Name' (i.e., NP Smith)

Hit the <enter> key.

Scan the barcodes of the students to change the location.

When finished, hit <enter> to go back to Check In/Out.

We realize that there are many different ways that librarians access student records. Some use student cards with the barcode on them (that the students keep with them). Others may have the student barcodes on a paper by class. Still others may use a card with a barcode on it for each patron that is kept in the library. However, you access patrons, as long as you either scan or type the patron barcode number into the program, you can use this command to save time when changing a patron's location or homeroom. If you use the browsing command to make your patrons current, you will need to print an alphabetical list of barcodes for all of your patrons before entering the NP mode. This will allow you to quickly move patrons to new homerooms, particularly at the beginning of the year. Another option, as we mentioned before, is typing in the number. If you have a class list with the student number and that is what you use for their barcode number, you can use that to type the barcodes in.

All of these options will allow you to use the NP command to save time as you change patron homerooms (locations) either at the beginning of the school year or anytime throughout.

The Alexandria Staff Librarians