With the move to Koha, too many items were not getting checked out/in at my library. This was due to the lag time we were not accustomed to when an item is scanned to when Koha finishes processing it since the server is in the “cloud” and no longer on premise. To combat this, we enabled the Sound on our Circulation Desk PCs.
Now when we scan an item, we hear a tone from the scanner that acknowledges a successful scan of the barcode. Next, we hear a tone from the PC when Koha has successfully processed the item. If you hear a fuzzy double-tone from the PC, Koha is alerting you that a warning message is being displayed on screen that needs to be viewed. (For an example of this “error” tone, checkin an item that is not checked out.) If an item has a Hold on it, you will hear a “Hold” tone for it alerting you to print the Hold Slip. Now our staff doesn’t scan the next item until they hear the “success” tone from the PC and we have greatly reduced this issue.
Andrew “Sherm” Sherman, IT Coordinator, Sump Memorial Library
Pioneer Consortium 