consolidate or group renewals with their original circs in Check Out History tab in My Account in the TPAC

[Jason Etheridge]

It may be less confusing to patrons to present renewals not as separate circulations in the Check Out History interface, but to group them with the original circulation and add an extra column or two showing the number of renewals used and/or the last date of renewal.

[Jason Etheridge (phasefx)]

Or alternately and more simply, just present the fact that an entry in that list was a renewal based on the renewal flags.

[Michele Morgan (mmorgan)]

Became aware of this issue today when a library staff member passed on a question from a patron who was confused about whether the book was still out or not.

I think the renewals should certainly be grouped with the original circulation. As far as the patron is concerned, it's one transaction. If they're using their circ history to keep track of titles they have read, extra rows for the same title just clutters things up in addition to being confusing.

Certainly the column label "DATE RETURNED" is just wrong when the transaction was a renewal.

Ideally, I think the renewals should be grouped with the original checkout, but at the very least the DATE RETURNED column label should be changed.

[Michele Morgan (mmorgan)]

This is still an issue in 3.6. in both TPAC and the Bootstrap OPAC. The columns that display to the patron in Check Out History are:

Title
Author
Checkout Date
Due Date
Date Returned
Barcode
Call Number

An item that has been renewed once shows as two rows in the Check Out History table. The original circ that was renewed shows a date in the Date Returned column. The current circ shows no return date, just an asterisk.

It is also likely that the two rows are not adjacent to each other which adds to the confusion.

One approach is to collapse the multiple circs to one row and add a Date Renewed column which could display the most recent renewal date. The Date Returned column would only be filled in when the item is returned.