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By Jean Cleveland
jclevela@uga.edu
The less-good news: Faculty members need to renew charged-out UGA library books based on this past year’s inventory due date of Feb. 15.
The good news: The process now can be done electronically, saving faculty members the annual trek to the library with an armload of books.
“As most everyone knows, the UGA Libraries migrated to a new automated circulation and catalog system--GIL--last summer,” says Claire Colombo, head of the circulation department at the main library. “One of the most exciting features of the new system is the ability of our patrons to renew materials online.”
Letters have been sent to departments and distributed via the Libraries’ electronic newsletter explaining the procedure for renewing books electronically. The letters are also Web-posted at www.libs.uga.edu/maincirc/inventory.html or by clicking on “find out what’s new” under the FAQ section of the Libraries’ home page. Online renewals are not possible for items that were charged out manually.
“Materials--such as software, materials from the map collection, government documents and bound journals--are not charged-out on GIL and therefore cannot be renewed remotely,” Colombo explains. “These items must be renewed at the library from which you borrowed them.”
The loan period for faculty for most books is 180 days. With two renewals, the book may be kept for a total of 18 months if it has not been recalled. At that time, the material must be physically returned to the Libraries if the faculty member wishes to continue to use it.
“We expect the next release of software will allow us to return to a fixed loan period for faculty, as many have requested,” says Steven Brown, head of circulation at the science library. “However, until that time your loan period is no longer fixed. Instead the load period will be 180 days from the day that you charge-out the item unless someone else is waiting for the book.”
The Libraries plan to implement an e-mail notification system soon that will speed communication and replace many paper notices. “To help us prepare for e-mail notification, you may wish to send your preferred e-mail address to maincirc@arches.uga.edu so that your address may be updated,” Colombo says.
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