Monday, February 25, 2008

Improved Patron Searching

Thanks to Innovative and Pam Skittino, we have more ways to search for patrons with Millennium.


You can now search for a patron by phone number and address!

It is pretty easy to do and you can do it anywhere you search for a patron in the Millennium staff applications. Here's how you do it:

In Circulation Desk mode:
  1. In the Scan or type patron barcode box, type the code letter of they type of search you will be doing. At a patron search screen, select the desired search index from the drop-down menu.
    n - name
    h - address
    j - phone number
  2. Type the search terms immediately after the code. For example,
    nolsen, kat
    h34451
    j847-362-2330
  3. Press the Enter key or click the Search button.

Notes:

  • Remember that Millennium automatically truncates a search, so typing nolsen, kat will find all the patrons with a name field that begins with olsen, kat and ends with anything else. So this search would find Olsen, Katie; Olsen, Kathleen, or Olsen, Katherine.
  • When searching for an address, Millennium is simply searching alphabetically for exactly what you type. So if an address is entered 413 N. Milwaukee Ave. and you search for 413 North Milwaukee Ave. you won't find the address, so you may have to try a few alternatives with address searching to find what you want.
  • Always verify a patron's address to make sure you have the right person when you search by anything other than patron barcode number.

1 comment:

Jeanne said...

Thanks for the additional info. This is exciting!!!