Reconciliation Process (INN-Reach)

The Prospector reconciliation process allows everyone to double-check for items before officially declaring them as lost within the system. Here is more information about the Prospector Reconciliation Policy (Search for Lost Items). The Chair of the Prospector Document Delivery Committee will begin the process by sending out general instructions to the Prospector community. 

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In the past, these instructions have included:

1. Go to the INN-Reach Reports and run an Institutional Overdues list to identify items from your collection with a due date from the previous calendar year. 

   1. Example parameters include:

      1. Minimum Days: The current day of the year that the report is run

         1.  (e.g. August 23 would be 235 days)

      2. Maximum Days: 9999 (the default can be used), or the current day (235) + 365 = 600

      3. Sort by: Patron Home Library & Name

      4. Locations: Limit the report to only your library location

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2. Copy and paste the list of items into an Excel spreadsheet.  Take that spreadsheet to the stacks to search for the items.

3. If you find any items on the list, make sure to check them in using the Check-In (No Patron) function.  This will clear the INN-Reach patron attached to the item.

4. Once the search of your local collection is finished, you would send a spreadsheet of the remaining unfound items to the Chair of the Document Delivery Committee. 

5. The Committee will determine a reasonable search timeframe and at the end of the search, the revised master list will be distributed along with some basic statistics about the numbers. The list will be sent to all Prospector libraries.  

6. Each Prospector library will search their local collection for all of the items on this master list. 

7. Found items are reported to the Alliance Listserv. Check in the item(s) using the Check-In (No Patron) Function.  When applicable, you can send the item back to the lending library.  

8. After all library searches are complete, local libraries can clean up their long-overdue items.  

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Cleaning Up Items Owned by Other Libraries 

1. Open the patron’s record

2. Click the INN-Reach tab

3. Right-click on the item and select “Delete Virtual Item”

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Cleaning up Items Owned by Your Library 

As you hear from each Prospector library that they have “cleared” your items in their system, go into Sierra and check in the item. If the borrowing libraries have not cleared your items, you may need to initiate contact. 

1. Change the item’s status to “missing.” 

2. Enter a note into the item record stating that the item was lost to Prospector. 

In addition, if the borrowing library has set the status to Lost, then you will not need to check it in on your end. 

• There will be a note in the record such as:  

  • IR03:Tue Jul 22 2015: Bill $0.00, lost by .p11111111@9aurp  

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Cleaning Up Items Still Checked Out to Your Patrons

1. Open the patron’s record

2. Click on the Checked-Out Items tab

3. Click on the item

4. Click on the Mark Lost Items button. 

• This will bill your patron for the item, so you may want to confirm with them first.

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