SWIFT/Prospector Reconciliation Process

The Prospector Reconciliation Process is an annual activity that all Prospector participants complete in order to identify items that were loaned in the previous year that have not been returned. How you identify items that are considered long overdue will vary depending on how your library interacts with Prospector and/or which Integrated Library System you use – details for each system are below. Please note that Steps 1, 2, and 3 apply only to libraries that were actively LENDING in 2021. If you did not begin lending until 2022, or are currently participating in Prospector as a borrowing library only, you only need to complete steps 4 and 5, which will commence in January of 2023!

Step 1: Run Institutional Overdue Report

For Lenders that use Sierra or the Millennium Resource Sharing Broker (RSB)

Use the Millennium INN-Reach report “Institutional Overdue” to find your items loaned to other INN-Reach libraries in the previous year that remain unreturned. The report requires a “Minimum days” and “Maximum” entry.   The “Minimum day” entry is the current day of this year and the maximum is that number of days + 365.

Example: Running Report on October 1, 2022

Minimum Days: (the current day of the year) – October 1  would be “274”

Maximum Days:  (Minimum value + 365)  = “639”

These parameters will produce a report of your items still checked out to an Inn-reach patron, with a due date in 2021. Depending on what day you produce the report, those “Minimum” and “Maximum” numbers will obviously change.

Documentation for accessing and running the Institutional Overdues report in the Millennium RSB client can be found on the SWIFT Knowledge Base at: INN-Reach Reports for Prospector Lending Transactions

For Lenders that use Polaris

• Use the INN-Reach Institutional Overdues Report
• Right Click on report and select Output Type of CSV
• Double Click on Institutional Overdues
• Select Organizations (branch or All)
• Enter the minimum number of days
• Click Submit

For Lenders that use Koha

• Run the ILL – Overdue and Lost items with Patron Information (4443) Report
  • Go to Reports Module
  • Enter 4443 in Search box
  • Click Run
  • Select Branchcode from menu (will default to your branch, based on login)
  • Click Run the report
  • Click Download to export results in CSV

*Note: Koha does not have a parameter to limit results to things that were due in the previous year, and it does not include all values needed for the Reconciliation report. Home Library (the library that the borrowing patron is affiliated with), and Call Number have to be retrieved from the ILL plugin module. See step 3 for field detail and format.

Step 2: Search your library for your items – October 2022

When the resulting report is compiled, the owning library searches for their long-overdue items on their own shelves on the chance that some of the items were shelved without being checked in. Check in any found items and remove them from your list.

Step 3: Share report of unfound items –  December 2022

After the list has been completely searched at the home library and any found items removed from the list, email your list of remaining long-overdue items to Document Delivery Chairperson (jhoffman@denverlibrary.org) in excel spreadsheet format, containing the following headers:

Note – It is important to include both the Barcode and Call Number.  For Institutional Overdue lists produced using a DCB or Millennium, the Call Number field can be changed to Barcode by right-clicking on the header. Please be sure to add a column and capture both data points (barcode and call number) on your list.

The Document Delivery Chairperson compiles each library’s list into one master search list.

Step 4: Search your library for other libraries’ items – January 2023

The Document Delivery Chair will send the master list of unfound items out to all libraries and each library simultaneously searches for those items on their shelves on the chance that another library’s item was mistakenly shelved at your library. Prioritize searching for items that were loaned to your library and those that share your call number system. Check in and return  found items to the owning library and post the item to the listserv as “found” so other libraries don’t continue looking for an item that has already been located.

Step 5: Report Out and Clean Up – February 2023

After all libraries have completed the search of their own shelves for the long-overdue items, the Document Delivery Chair compiles and shares information regarding found items as well as a summary Reconciliation Report. Each home library then takes steps to take their long-overdue items out of circulation.  Please contact the borrowing libraries before checking in or otherwise clearing Prospector transactions on items lent from your library to avoid accidentally crediting lost item charges to their patron’s account.