Tip for: 03.23.15

In order to view a patron’s history you must have settings in place to keep that history. There are three ways you can do this: individually, for each patron you wish to keep history, by policy, or all at once through Patron Preferences.

View Patron History (v6)

To view patron history:

1. Bring up the patron in Circulation.
2. In the gear menu, choose History or Patron History.

Or:

1. Bring up the patron’s record in Patron Management.
2. Go to the Statistics tab.
3. Click Show History.

Charges and Payment records, as well as Refunds and Lexile History, will be kept no matter what, but Check Out History and Renewals will only be kept if you Keep Patron History.

Patron History is useful if you or your patron wish to know what items they’ve been checking out. Some libraries choose not to keep the history for privacy reasons or because of state laws prohibiting it.

To keep history for all patrons:

1. From Tools, open Preferences.
2. Go to the Patrons area, and the Patron Rules tab.
3. Check the box Keep History for All Patrons.
4. Save the preference.

This preference will keep history for all patrons, regardless of other settings. In order to allow keeping history by policy or by individual patron record, uncheck the box Keep History for All Patrons.

Note: If the policy or patron record preference was checked before you turned on Keep History for All Patrons, when you uncheck that option, those boxes will still be checked, and will need to be modified on an individual basis or with a utility.

To keep history by policy:

1. From Tools, open Preferences.
2. Go to the Policies area.
3. Change the Patron Policy drop-down menu to the patron type you want to keep history for.
4. On the Patron side, go to the Other tab.
5. Check the box Keep Patron History.
6. Save the preference.

To keep history for individual patrons:

1. Open Patron Management.
2. Locate the record for the patron you want to keep history on.
3. Go to the Statistics tab.
4. Unlock the record.
5. Check the box Keep Patron History.
6. Save the record.

To completely disable patron history:

• In Preferences, the Patrons area, the Patron Rules tab, uncheck the box to Keep History for All Patrons.
• From Tools, open Utilities.

In Alexandria version 7:

• In the Patrons category, select the Disable Keep Patron History utility.
• The utility will disable patron history everywhere; to disable certain policies, set the Patrons with a Policy of selection.
• Run the utility.
• In the Modify Records notice, check that the number shown matches your expectations, then click Yes.

In Alexandria version 6:

• In the Circulation category, select the History - Keep Patron utility.
• Change the selection to Deactivate Patron Keep History.
• The utility will disable patron history everywhere; to disable certain policies, set the Select By to Policy.
• Run the utility.

That utility will not clear the patron history, only uncheck those boxes. To clear history, use the Remove Patron History or History - Clear Patron utility.