Remember, you can reserve kits up to a year in advance!

How to video:

Reserving a Kit

Find a kit that is available when you need it. You can either view available kits, or select a specific kit to see when it is available.
White squares in the calendar means the kit is available to be reserved.
Pick the day you want the kit to ARRIVE at your library, and click the blue hyperlink “reserve” to start the process.
*Note: If you are borrowing from another library, you should anticipate a 1-2 week delay between when the title is requested and when it will arrive, due to limited library and staff hours, and courier pickups and drop offs.
Travel time is automatically built in to the calendar schedule.





The kit name and home library are automatically filled in.
*Patron Name: Your library
*Patron Phone: The contact phone number for your library or kit keeper person.
*Patron email: email for person overseeing kit or library group email
*Patron notes: This is where you can make a note if it is going to a particular library user or any notes you wish to make. For example: FFL- Nora Kane
*Pickup Library: your library.
The dates are automatically put in. You cannot change them. If these dates don’t work, you can cancel the transaction and start over.
If you are satisfied with the information, click the green button at the bottom to complete the reservation.



You then get a confirmation screen, which is also emailed to you. It includes the kit title, author, a confirmation number, the home library, borrowing library, dates, and contact info for both libraries.
*NOTE: from this point on, if you need to cancel, contact the home library.



The kit should then appear in the list of kits involving your library (You can adjust the settings on the kit keeper main menu page at the top of the list).
From here, you can track the progress of the kit. After a step is completed, the black rectangle on the main page will move accordingly.
Here you can see, I reserved the “Test kit for training” and it is now on the list. Click the “Track” button to the right to monitor progress.



This is a kit that has been reserved. Blue for prep, yellow for lending, red for transport, blue to check in, and a few extra days for quarantine and cushion until it is ready to go out again. White means it is available once more.

Tracking

You receive an email every time a step is updated in the tracker
Click on the “Track” button to the right of the Kit title in your queue to update.

• Step 1: Home Library is checking and sending Kit
  • The home library checks that the kit is ready. If sending to another library, they put it in a currier bag and follow the usual steps to send it to another library.
  • When this is done, make a note (either a barcode or an x, anything) and hit enter to update the tracker.
• Step 2: Pickup Library is receiving Kit
  • When the kit arrives at the library, either scan a barcode or enter anything, and hit enter to update the tracker.
• Step 3: Patron is picking up the Kit
  • Michelle Lee does this step at the same time she updates that the Kit has been received so she doesn’t forget. You can determine what work flow is best for your library.
  • Generally, this update is for when the Kit is ready to be lent to the user, or when the user physically picks up the Kit.
• Step 4: Patron is returning the Kit and being shipped.
  • The person/user has returned the kit, is has been checked over by library staff, put in a currier bag, and is being sent back to the home/lending library.
• Step 5: Kit is being received by Home Library
  • The Kit is physically back in the Home Library.
• Step 6: Kit is checked and ready to go again
  • Books have been checked for condition, any supplemental materials have been replenished, etc.
  • If there are any problems, you can change the Kit status to ‘repair’, ‘staff’, ‘retired’, or ‘inactive’, and make any notes.
• Once you update the last step, the Kit is removed from your queue list.
• The “Actual Dates” fill in as you update the tracker.
  
  
• The black rectangle moves along as each step is updated as an extra visual to mark the progress of the kit.
  
  
  

How to change or delete a reservation

As of right now, you cannot make changes to a reservation once it has been entered.

However, you can ‘delete’ a reservation by going in and completing the tracking, which will remove the reservation from the queue and show the kit as available again.
You will still get all the emails for the steps.