Koha/Гід для новака/Категорії позичальників

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8. Категорії позичальників

To the database, there are types of people as well as types of items. To have you better understand what impact the borrower types have, I’ll go through what I put into borrower categories in Koha. Just as defining item types was super dooper important, so is defining your borrower categories.

For now, I’ve set up 5 borrower categories. They are: Adult, Youth, Trustee, Staff, and Non Resident Borrower.

I didn’t want to lump in Non Residents with the rest of these fine folks because in Massachusetts, we get funding to offset non resident borrowing. You also might later want to know how many residents of your town use your library. You might want to charge an annual fee for non residents. Having a separate category lets you do all of that.

I didn’t want to charge my trustees, my staff, or my library kids fines. I also wanted my staff to know when they were waiting on a trustee. So there’s the rationale behind those categories.

Notice that I didn’t set up male / female categories. You’ll see that option when you go to actually add a borrower, which happens later.

Again, it’s crucial to understand how this works, or you’ll have a big headache later. You can always change things, but you have a choice between assigning a category now, or changing a bajillion patron records later. So if you still don’t get it, feel free to email me at <mhelman (at) illinoisalumni.org>.

8.1. Додайте категорію

Click on Add category on the Category admin page when you’re ready to start.

8.1.1. Шифр категорії

This field will only take 2 characters. Don’t panic. I don’t think you really see this field much later. I believe it’s primarily around so that the database can manipulate things. It’s the description field that will show later on. I just used A,Y,T,S, and N for my borrower codes.

8.1.2. Період реєстрації

This is the number of years that the person’s record will last. Suppose you wanted to charge non residents an annual fee. When you set up a non resident record, you would set this slot to 1 and the enrollment fee to whatever you wanted to charge. I set mine stupidly high so that I wouldn’t have to re-enter records annually.

8.1.3. Верхня межа віку

This is what tells Koha the maximum age someone can be for a given category. This is what you would mess with if you want a separate category for children. I set mine for my children’s category to 18. I’m not sure what happens once a kid turns 18, I’m assuming Koha will produce an error, and that I will need switch them to the Adult Borrower code.

8.1.4. Необхідний вік

This is what tells Koha the minimum age someone can be for a given category. For my Adults, I set this to 18.

8.1.5. Плата за реєстрацію

This would be what you charge people to use your library patrons per annum. Originally, it was hardcoded at $30 a year, which you can’t change. However, if you set this to 0 to not charge your patrons, it will say $30 a year / Paid in the Members screen, so don’t worry.

8.1.6. Необхідність сповіщення про запізнення

This is a yes or no dropdown menu. I’m not precisely certain, but I suppose it helps keep track of overdues for a borrower category. It’s used when creating overdue reports.

8.1.7. Межа видачі

I believe this is the amount of stuff that a patron’s allowed to check out. I set mine to 99, thankful that I don’t have patrons that want more than that. I once had a patron who would sign out in excess of 300 items. All of them came back in great shape, on time, every time. So, I would suggest another digit on this box, especially if we want to draw in regional libraries that lend to other libraries.

8.1.8. Плата за резервування

I’m jumping to the wild conclusion that this is the amount you wish to charge a patron for placing a hold. We don’t charge, so I set it to 0.