Entering HasHads

For KLAS-to-KLAS patron transfers, a patron’s reading history (Has-Hads or HHs) automatically transfer with the rest of the record. Thanks to PIMMS, more and more libraries will be able to automatically transfer records, even if one of the libraries uses WebReads or another system. Eventually, even BARD HHs will be automatically imported into the system right away.

In the meantime, however, at least some out-of-system patron transfers will come with a paper or .pdf list of HHs to enter manually, and BARD HHs are only created when the BARD Circulation Stats are manually uploaded. So: should you spend valuable staff time adding these HHs?

See the Key Notes blog post on Why Enter Has-Hads? for more information to help you make that choice, then chime in:

Do you enter all of your HasHads? What about just recent HasHads, that are otherwise more likely to be assigned by Nightly? Has leaving them off ever caused trouble for you?

I think it depends on your circumstances for staffing in your library. We in NC are fortunate to have a Patron Processing department that enters these in to KLAS so that patrons can take advantage of having the system use their HasHads are a way to help deliver them the materials they want with repeats. I think that without a complete history of HasHads you are doing a disservice to patrons by not allowing the system to do its work to help them make better reading choices and you're also working counter to the capabilities of the system to help you by allowing it to make some decisions for you. The great advantage of the way our program is structured, as compared to a public library is that we can actually keep reading histories for patrons and use it to offer a much better way of service to patrons. We have adopted practices that aren't as stringent as public library about patron reading information. By having a service without this barrier we can create a better modern online catalog experience than even the best public library has to offer. My vision is to someday offer an online catalog experience that allows it to offer up further reading suggestions based on what a patron has already read and allow a patron to serve themselves better, kind of like what Amazon does when you order up books or other items from their site or the way Netflix can serve you up other movie and television choices based on what you've already watched. Why not take advantage of a "Netflix" or "Amazon" experience if some of the necessary ingredients, like being allowed to keep reading histories, already exist? Entering ALL HasHads, while it may seem time consuming to do so, in the long run offer a great advantage to patrons and staff.

Some great points! The more complete a patron's history is, the better KLAS can serve them--now and in the future. Thanks for sharing your approach!

Non KLAS libraries still have the patron's "has hads" in some database form. When I get a transfer from a non-KLAS library, can't they send me an excel file of has hads so I can dump that excel file into KLAS? Yesterday, I input 18 pages of has hads, and it just seems so senseless (not to mention a waste of time) to go from database to paper and then paper back to database. Please advise.

Nancy figured out a trick for that! If you can get the transferring-out library to send the has-hads to you as a file (text, pdf, anything you can copy-and-paste from) rather than a printout, you can import them the same way you import BARD HHs.

1. Make the HasHads list into a .csv

• Open up one of your BARD files in excel.
• Note you've got lots of different columns. Leave Report Type and Library alone.
• Paste your patron's ID into the CMLS ID column
• Prefix - DB should cover most HHs
• Paste in the Item IDs - these are the individual numbers of the books
• ItemType - leave it alone
• Download Date & Time - update one to be the day of the transfer. Then copy it to the rest of the spreadsheet. It needs to be in the format of the .csv rather than excel's format - "June 1, 2018 11:59 am" for example.
• We don't load Title or Author, but extra quotes can cause issues, so delete those out - just leave the headings.
• Transaction # - we don't load this, so leave it as it was.

Once you have things sorted, save as a .csv file

2. Load the .csv using the "Load BARD Circs" tool
Instead of choosing BARD as the source, choose Out of State Braille.

3. We'll do some clean-up
Contact Customer Support with the patron ID and the transfer date, and we can change the Transaction Type on the HasHad record from "OSB ... " to "AddHasHad"

It's still a bit of work, but hopefully an improvement on having to type in 18 pages of HasHads... or on just leaving them off the record!

This is great, thank you!