2025-11-18 FOLIO Implementers Meeting Notes

Date

Nov 18, 2025

Agenda

• Housekeeping (5-min.)

Homework and Pre-Reads

Background Information

Recording

https://recordings.openlibraryfoundation.org/folio/implementation-group/2025-11-18T10:55/

Attendees

@Thomas Trutt @Darsi Rueda @Charlotte Whitt @Maura Byrne @Kate Deibel @Stephanie Kaceli @Scott Peterson @Susan Kimball @Martina Tumulla Jesse Randolph @Olga Kalachinskaya @Peter Murray @Kimberly Smith @Brooks Travis

Notes

🗣️ Discussion Points

🔍 Housekeeping & Topic Calendar (11:04–11:09)

• Overview: Thomas introduced the meeting, noting a light agenda due to the holiday season. He shared the link to the Topic Calendar and Idea Bank for 2025 and encouraged attendees to add ideas for next year.

• Discussion: Charlotte suggested including new “in house use” functionality developed by NLS and Index Data, which could support equipment circulation use cases.

• Proposal: Thomas proposed scheduling a demo in early 2026 to explore this functionality further, as today’s meeting was too short notice.

🛠️ Main Topic: Circulation & Equipment Handling in FOLIO (11:09–11:57)

Time Range: 11:09–11:57
Theme: How libraries manage non-bibliographic items (equipment, tech, wellness items) and what improvements FOLIO needs.

Sub Points:

• Current Practices Across Institutions:

  • Scott: Equipment circulation is mostly short-term loans (laptops, iPads, power banks). Some institutions allow room reservations and specialized collections.

  • Kate: PCOM circulates varied items (chargers, medical models, skeletons). Voyager grouped equipment in one record; FOLIO allows granular holdings, but discovery becomes cluttered. Considering hiding equipment from discovery and using LibGuides for visibility.

  • Susan: Five Colleges use loan types for equipment (1 hour to 1 week). Suppress items from public catalog. Implemented actual cost billing and custom notice policies. Circulate diverse items (therapy lights, neurodivergent kits). Highlighted complexity of overdue fines and billing.

  • Darcy: Created multiple material types for billing tiers (cables vs laptops). Finds this overly complex; interested in simplifying via actual cost.

  • Thomas: Cornell circulated everything from sewing machines to games and rooms. Previously used LibCal for booking + FOLIO for checkout, which caused sync issues and patron frustration when items weren’t available. Eventually abandoned booking due to overhead and conflicts.

  • Maura: Tech Bar uses FOLIO for inventory and circulation. Highly siloed with complex circulation rules and overdue policies. Circulates tech items, video games, puzzles.

  • Olga: 80% of circulation is equipment. Uses loan types (5-hour, 24-hour, 1-week). Shows equipment in discovery and previously used a widget for laptop availability. Uses LibCal for bookings but wants integrated FOLIO booking with date/time. Advocates for automatic actual cost and booking functionality.

  • Kimberly: MTSU circulates tech items and manages study room reservations online. Uses separate systems for Library of Things and tech desk.

  • Jesse: SU delegates long-term equipment booking to Media Services due to lack of FOLIO booking support.

• Complications Identified:

  • Lack of integrated booking in FOLIO.

  • Overhead in managing actual cost billing manually.

  • Discovery clutter when equipment is visible.

  • Inconsistent handling of MARC vs instance records; impacts discovery and billing.

  • Patron frustration with late returns and cross-location returns.

• Ideas for Improvement:

  • Add custom fields in inventory for serial numbers, purchase dates, replacement cost.

  • Enable automatic actual cost billing.

  • Develop API endpoints for real-time availability (e.g., number of items available, next due date).

  • Support title-level requesting for equipment pools (e.g., laptops).

  • Integrated booking system with date/time in FOLIO.

  • Improve discovery integration for instance-only records.

• Humorous Aside: Skeletons dressed for holidays at PCOM; umbrellas circulated informally; Thomas joked about spam calls during meeting.

✅ Decisions Made

• Schedule a demo in early 2026 with Charlotte and NLS team to showcase new location functionality and discuss equipment use cases.

• Continue using Topic Calendar for idea collection.

• Explore feasibility of custom fields and automatic actual cost billing in FOLIO roadmap.