Modifying circulation rules in Polaris is a notoriously messy and time-consuming affair. The Patron Services staff know the circulation policies and what they want to accomplish, but often must work with an ILS Administrator who can interpret the data and tables to get the changes applied.

To bridge the gap between the subject matter experts and the data, the CLC created a method that allows the patron services staff to see their current circulation rules and update the data in a straightforward way using custom Polaris reports and Excel. The end result is hours of saved time for the ILS Administrator and virtually eliminates user error or miscommunication. Mike Fields from the Central Library Consortium presented on this topic for OH-IUG 2021.

With 5 dedicated staff members and 17 member libraries, the CLC has lots of ideas about how to best serve the libraries and improve patron experience, and the capacity for only a fraction of them. For the past three months, we have been moving our work from a HelpDesk and a long list of projects to the KanBan workflow management method in order to lay bare all of our work, use feedback loops and data to prioritize what’s most impactful, and
get it from backlog to done in a predictable and repeatable way.

We are still building our process and while we have a long way to go, we have already seen marked improvements
in the quality, speed, and consistency of the work that flows through the KanBan boards. Wes Osborn and Kalee Burkett will share about our journey in implementing this new way of working.

Link to Video