2.7 Overview to Circulation Classes

Let's start with some fundamentals. First, the catalog is a collection of holding records called items. Each item has many attributes, such as copy, volume, association with a bibliographic record, etc. Key to managing an item are three additional circulation attributes: location, status, and class.

The circulation classes are a table of values establishing the terms of loans, i.e., the time period of the loans by hours or days. Classes also control the hour a loan can start and when it should be returned, and how fines are accumulated.

Each catalog may have its own unique table of circulation classes. Each item is assigned a single class.

These windows select and/or create individual classes, and then allow the editing of the class's values. For most libraries, the default set of classes are sufficient for circulating a collection. Nevertheless, some libraries will need to create special classes, and are able to do so here.