Lost and Paid Items Report

When an item is marked lost or is overdue long enough to be billed, and the patron pays for the item, the item’s status changes to “Lost and Paid.”  The owning library retains the replacement payment for such items, but this payment may be collected at any MORE library.  When libraries take replacement payments for other libraries’ items, the payment in check form should be sent to the owning library along with the MORE reimbursement form. To assist library staff in tracking replacement payments on their library’s items, particularly for their items paid for at other libraries, and for collection managment purposes, items “lost and paid” each month are posted here.

Using the Lost and Paid Items report

This chart is a starting point for managing your lost and paid items. It’s recommended that you:

1. Keep track of reimbursement payments owed to your library. For example, you may wish to keep a list of payments from other MORE libraries as they are received, and document your follow-up with libraries from which you do not receive payment.
2. Make a collection-related decision about the item.

Spreadsheet fields:

• RECORD #(ITEM): a unique, identifying number for the paid-for item
• BARCODE: another unique, identifying number for the paid-for item
• TITLE: The paid-for item’s title
• ITEM LOC: The item location code associated with the item.  The first two letters of the item location code indicate the owning library
• OWNING LIBRARY: The library that owned the paid-for item, based on the item location code
• PAYING LIBRARY, BY STAT GROUP NUMBER: The statistical group or terminal number of the library where the item was paid for.  This may or may not match the owning library.  0 indicates an ecommerce payment for the billed item
• PAYING PATRON: The paying patron’s record number, searchable in the Check Out (Circulation Desk) function in the “Key or scan patron barcode” field. See the Record Numbers document for details.
• PAYMENT DATE: The date and time of payment

Keep track of reimbursement payments

1. Find the paid-for items owned by your library in the list by locating your library’s 2-letter code in the “Owning Library” field. The list is sorted by owning library.
2. Find your library’s items paid for at your library (Owning Library=your library’s 2-letter code, Paying Library, by stat group number=a number in your library’s stat group range). For accounting purposes, you can likely ignore these items, but, for collection purposes, you may want to re-order the same or a similar item.
3. Find your library’s items paid for via ecommerce (Owning Library=your library’s 2-letter code, Paying Library, by stat group number=0). For accounting purposes, you can likely ignore these items, too.  They will appear on the MORE Administrator’s monthly Ecommerce Report, and your library will receive the payment from IFLS.
4. Find your library’s items paid for at another MORE library (Owning Library=your library’s 2-letter code, Paying Library, by stat group number=neither 0 nor a stat group number in your library’s range).
   1. Look up the patron record and view their Fines Paid. View the fine details for the paid-for item to determine if the item was paid for through an over-the-desk transaction. If a library marks an item lost and the patron pays via ecommerce, the stat group of the library that marked the item lost will appear in the “PAYING LIBRARY, BY STAT GROUP NUMBER” field, but the fine detail will note an ecommerce payment.
   2. In any way you see fit (a paper list, another spreadsheet, etc.), make a note as to whether or not you’ve received reimbursement for the item paid for (over the desk) at another MORE library.
   3. Check the payment date and allow the library some time to deliver the payment.
   4. If you do not recieve payment within about 1 month of the payment date, send an email to the circulation manager or director of the library that took the payment along with identifying information about the item.  Here is a template for an email message if no payment is received:

[item barcode and title] Replacement cost: $[price from item record] This item was lost and paid for on [date] at your library by [patron record number]. To date we have not noted receiving payment for this item. Please check your records and let me know if you have already sent this payment. Otherwise, please send the amount as listed above to [your library, attn: yourself]. Please let me know if you have questions. You could also use this report to find items paid for at your library but owned by another library, to ensure that you have sent out the appropriate reimbursement to the owning library.  To do so, sort the list by “Paying library, by stat group number” and find all the entries associated with your library’s stat group range.

Make a collection-related decision

1. Do you want to re-order an exact replacement, or a similar title?
2. Once you’ve made that determination, delete the item record. If you have re-ordered a replacement, create a new item record once it’s received.