Example Circulation Rules from Adopters

• This is a first pass at rules to enable some basic loan import - we expect to have many more rules before we go live
• We have a central library system and professional school libraries that all share an ILS, but the professional school libraries have different rules, so the main organizing principle is location
• Beyond location, we're still trying to decide if we will group by material type or patron group
• we do expect to use loan type to enforce special circulation scenarios (like library use only)

• We chose to organize our rules primarily around locations and patron groups
• We use loan types to handle our Reserves

• Most of our rules are based on material type and patron group
• We also have some circulation rules based on loan type, used for items such as course reserves
• As we only have a single library on a single campus we do not use campuses, institutions, or libraries in our circulation rules
• We also do not base our circulation rules on location. 
• We use location to indicate whether something is part of a collection in addition to it's physical location.  So our library has many locations (nearly 200) despite only occupying one building.   Thus using location circulation rules would be very inefficient and result in more rules than necessary
• There is one rule at the top to prevent materials from circulating to certain patron groups (student workers and "API" - used for generating API tokens)

• Large multi-library system, using location, loan type, and patron type
• Some locations charge fines, some do not
• Complex rules around media and equipment circulation that differs (somewhat) by location

• We simplified our rules in 2015 when we migrated to OLE.
• These rules follow the tiered approach we were using in OLE. 
• Working well so far

• Prior to migration  Material types, Loan policies, and Loan types were identified for removal. Fines were simplified prior to migration to Folio.
• The primary reasoning behind the style we used for our ruleset was readability by other staff members and new staff members down the road, including:
  • The `first-line` method was applied.
  • Policies were written utilizing the nested feature.
  • Nested rules were written to correspond with the order defined in the `criterium`. (Top levels are restrictive with the final layer (Material Type) having the active policies applied. 
  • A large number of comments were included. 
• Extra rules were added to the top to ensure that items in special collections were blocked as well as setting a default reserves policy for items with an effective reserves location.
• NOTE: As of 7-28-2021, there are a few policies that were added to accommodate discrepancies in imported data from the patterns established for FOLIO.

• Most of the BNCF rules are based on loan type, patron group and material type
• There are three loan types:

-        Prestito = the book can circulate and exit from the library

-        Consultazione = the book can’t exit from the library, it’s only for in house use

-        No Prestito = books can’t circulate·        

• There are different patron groups setting in FOLIO, that are differentiated according to what kind of material to which they can have access and to the loan type (they can bring the item out of the library , they can read the item only in the library or both)

Most of our rules are based on loan type and patron group

Some of the notice policy shown as "standard" will be replaced with more specific policies

There is very little policy variation between the libraries that constitute the University of Chicago Library

We try to keep it simple.

• The rules are based on patron groups and loan type.
• Most patron groups have the same rules.
• We don’t use hold, only recall and page.
• We don’t use folio for invoice and such.
• We don’t use location in the rules.