By Geri Laudati
On 10 August 2000, Memorial Library (and hence the Music Library) implemented new loan policies. These include a twenty-eight day borrowing period for undergraduates and a biannual uniform due date for faculty and graduate students.
Books and scores borrowed by faculty and graduate students will be due on 30 December or 30 May. Rollover and renewal dates to the next due date occur one month prior to either. So, if you check out or renew a score on 30 April, it will not come due until 30 December. There are six renewals allowed and the majority of these can be done directly by borrowers through MadCat.
In MadCat, patrons can click on the tab "Patron Info" to get a list of those items charged and the dates they are due. One can choose to renew all or just a few of the items charged. The entire process takes less than one minute. Unfortunately, self-renew will not work with recordings or scores with parts. In these cases, please feel free to email Charles Schneider or phone (263-2961) to renew your materials.
Although fines are not charged to faculty on overdue materials, we encourage you to return or renew materials in a timely fashion. The new circulation system, although not otherwise known for its efficiency, automatically declares materials lost after they have been overdue for forty-two days and generates bills for replacement fees. It may also then block you from borrowing materials, something many discovered last January. Because undoing the system-applied conditions (items lost and patrons blocked) requires much extra work for circulation staff, we ask your cooperation in helping to avoid these situations.
Loan periods for faculty and graduate student use of Audio Facility materials have not changed. At present, renewals on recordings and videos are not permitted but this may change in the next few months. Music and dance faculty and teaching assistants may borrow recordings for the semester and videos for one week using audio cards. Other music and dance graduate students may borrow recordings for one week and videos for three days, again using an audio card. Both cards can also be used to check out non-circulating journals and collected works, for limited circulation periods, at the audio desk. We hope to make this process less cumbersome by next semester.