Koha Administration

How to control patrons and circulation?

Settings for controlling circulation and patron information.

3.1 Patron Categories

Patron categories allow you to organize your patrons into different roles, age groups, and patron types.

Get there: More > Administration > Patrons & Circulation > Patron Categories

Patrons are assigned to one of six main categories:

Adult
- Most common patron type, usually used for a general 'Patron' category.
Child
- Children patrons can have a guardian to be attached to them.
Staff
- Librarians (and library workers) should be assigned the staff category so that you can set their permissions and give them access to the staff client.
Organizational
- Organizational patrons are organizations. Organizations can be used as guarantors for Professional patrons.
Professional
- Professional patrons can be linked to Organizational patrons
Statistical
- This patron type is used strictly for statistical purposes, such as in house use of items.

3.1.1 Adding a patron category

To add a new patron category click 'New Category' at the top of the page

The 'Category Code' is an identifier for your new code.

Enter a plain text version of the category in the 'Description' field.

Important

This field is required in order to save your patron category. If left blank you will be presented with an error.

Enrollment period (in months) should be filled in if you have a limited enrollment period for your patrons (eg. Student cards expire after 9 months or until a specific date)

Important

You cannot enter both a month limit and a date until. Choose to enter either one or the other.

Important

This field is required in order to save your patron category. If left blank you will be presented with an error.

Some patron categories can have a minimum age (in years) requirement associated with them, enter this age in the 'Age required'

Important

This value will only be checked if BorrowerMandatoryField defines the dateofbirth as a required field on the patron record

Patron categories can also have a maximum age (in years) associated with them (such as children), enter this age in the 'Upperage limit'

Important

This value will only be checked if BorrowerMandatoryField defines the dateofbirth as a required field on the patron record

If you charge a membership fee for your patrons (such as those who live in another region) you can enter that in the 'Enrollment fee' field.

Important

Only enter numbers and decimals in this field

Note

Depending on your value for the FeeOnChangePatronCategory preference this fee will be charged on patron renewal as well as when they are first enrolled.

If you want your patron to receive overdue notices, set the 'Overdue notice required' to 'Yes'

You can decide on a patron category basis if lost items are shown in the staff client by making a choice from the 'Lost items in staff client' pull down

Important

Note that this is only applicable in the staff client, so changing this value on patron categories who do not have access to the staff client won't make any difference

If you charge patrons for placing holds on items, enter the fee amount in the 'Hold fee' field.

Important

Only enter numbers and decimals in this field

In the 'Category type' field choose one of the six main parent categories

Important

This field is required in order to save your patron category. If left blank you will be presented with an error.

The Branch Limitations let you limit this patron category to only some branches in your library system. Select 'All branches' if you would like any library to be able to use this category.

You can decide if this patron category is blocked from performing actions in the OPAC if their card is expired using the next option. By default it will follow the rule set in the BlockExpiredPatronOpacActions preference

Next you can choose the default privacy settings for this patron category. This setting can be edited by the patron via the OPAC if you allow it with the OPACPrivacy system preference.

Finally you can assign advanced messaging preferences by default to a patron category

Important

Requires that you have EnhancedMessagingPreferences enabled

These defaults will be applied to new patrons that are added to the system. They will not edit the preferences of the existing patrons. Also, these can be changed for individual patrons, this setting is just a default to make it easier to set up messages for an entire category.

Note

After setting the default for the patron category you can force those changes to all existing patrons by running the borrowers-force-messaging-defaults script found in the misc/maintenance folder. Ask your system administrator for assistance with this script.