Council Decision

Recommendation to the Orbis Council regarding

Replacement Charges: Same for all institutions?

We recommend that whatever replacement charge is established, all Orbis libraries should have the same replacement charge.

Explanatory Information:

1. Orbis does not pay attention to the local location code in item records, so each institution may have only one generic replacement charge. A Law Library cannot charge a different amount from its main library, for example.

Since each institution must average the replacement costs of their various libraries and branches, the same averaging should be possible among the 12 Orbis institutions.

2. If institutions have separate replacement costs, the same title will cost different amounts (if lost). Because the system randomly selects which institution receives the request, patrons cannot choose a "lower priced" library from which to borrow in case the book becomes lost or damaged.

Having the same replacement cost for each institution may make explaining policy and procedure to patrons easier.

3. Each library collects the replacement charge from its own patrons for other libraries' lost books.

4. OhioLINK plans to do a biennial reconciliation by searching their own databases for items lost by their patrons belonging to other libraries. We just learned that this is theory only, and we are waiting to hear which fields they will actually be able to search for this information.

5. If it is not possible to use this semi-automated review-file-then-reconcile approach, another option is for each library manually to keep track of billings and credits as they occur.

6. If each institution sets a different replacement charge from each other, each institution adds minimum of 12 loan rules and 12 additional entries in their rule selection table. Wildcarding (which can be done if all libraries act the same and all patron categories are treated the same) allows for one loan rule.

Vote

Strength of feeling about recommendation

1- Strongly agree
2- Seems like a good idea
3- Neutral (could go either way: see benefits in both directions)
4- Think it's not so great
5- Strongly disagree (Reasons for strong disagreement are provided at end of document.
#- Don't have any opinion and don't care: can support either.
$- There are varying opinions within my institution, so I've marked more than one. Explanation will be provided at the end of the document.

              1   2   3   4   5   #   $
EOSC          _x_ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
GFox          _x_ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
LClrk         _x_ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
Lnfld         _x_ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
OIT           ___ ___ _x_ ___ ___ ___ ___
Reed          ___ _x_ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
SOSC          _x_ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
UO            _x_ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
UPtlnd        _x_ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
Whitman       _x_ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
Wlamtte       _x_ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
WOSC          _x_ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

Reasons for strong disagreement

(none provided)

Explanation of varying opinions within a single institution

(none provided)

Council Decides

Chart of OBC Votes

         Finances:

         All libs    
         same repl    
         charge?     
         ---------  
EOSC        y        
GFUniv      y        
L&C         y
Linfld      y       
OIT         y        
Reed        y
SOSC        y        
UO          y                  
UPtlnd      y        
WOSC        y                  
Whitmn      y       
WlmtU       y

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