Hi!
I wanted to send this message along because I’ve been contacted by some patrons directly and three staff members have also run into this issue and asked about it since Friday.
Alumni Patrons Who Have Items Due (and cannot renew them)
If you have a patron ask you to renew items due Dec. 18-31st, saying they cannot log in to do it, and you look up their account and see something like the above: it’s because
they are no longer a valid “student” at the U of M. Either they are not taking classes (In which case they really need to return the materials if it’s safe to do so and they are able) or they graduated and they need to apply for Alumni Status.
If you look up the patron and they have an external account type (meaning their password is stored in SignUM) and they have the user group Alumni, then they need to sign in to SignUM
and apply for Library Access.
We have a libguide with instructions, found here: https://libguides.lib.umanitoba.ca/alumnihelp/
I check the queue of people needing this account changed daily in SignUM, in the morning. If I know that someone has applied, I’ll look again for them
as well.
Once they are properly configured, you’ll see something like this:
At that point (takes about 15 minutes from when I approve the account) you will be able to change the due dates for their items to April 30th; the Management Group approved
Date.
Please remember, you have to have graduated from the U of M in order to be Alumni. The patron is responsible for contacting the Alumni Association and supplying
us with their alumni number. Instructions are included in their library welcome letter that I send when they apply, as well as in the LibGuide. Their Alumni Number is not their student number.
If you have any questions about accounts (because it’s all a huge jumble!!!) please do not hesitate to ask! There are so many exceptions and “well usually
we do … but this year…” right now that it’s OK to be confused! I just wanted to remind everyone about Alumni accounts so that we can get patrons up and running as fast as possible.
Happy Holidays all!
Allison Erhardt
Library Systems Specialist
University of Manitoba Libraries
University of Manitoba
306 Elizabeth Dafoe Library
25 Chancellor’s Circle, Winnipeg, MB, Canada, R3T 2N2
PH: 204.474.7153 | email: Allison.Erhardt@umanitoba.ca
