Check-in

Check-in involves simply scanning barcodes to mark loaned copies as status: returned. The interesting case is when the returned copy was assigned to a hold and the holds workflow takes over.

Getting to the check-in screen

Go to Library level navigation path: Circulation then Check In.

The page has simply a field: scan bar and the recent return history.

Scanning a return

1. Scan the copy’s barcode into the field: scan bar, which is ready the moment the page loads.

If you’ve clicked a button or a row you don’t need to do anything about it: the first character of the next scan pulls focus back to the field: scan bar and is typed into it, so the scan still lands. Pressing key: / does the same deliberately. Neither fires while the cursor is in another text box — Lyra can’t tell your typing from a scanner’s — or while a dialog or popover is open; closing one puts the cursor back in the field: scan bar.

On a device with a camera, button: Scan with the camera under the field: scan bar opens a full-screen scanner instead — handy for a cart worked away from the desk. It stays open while you scan: each ordinary return is confirmed inside the camera view, and the messages that need you — a hold to set aside, a copy that wasn’t checked out with its button: Record as in-library use — appear there too. button: Done closes it.

If the copy was on loan, Lyra works through this order:

1. Marks the loan status: completed.
2. Adds a row to the feed with the cover, title, barcode, the returning patron’s name, and the return time. A copy that came back late says how late it was.
3. Decides what happens to the copy next (see below).

The row is the confirmation. Nothing else pops up for an ordinary check-in, so you can work down a cart at the speed of the scanner and only look up when something needs you.

The scanner is the whole UI for this page. You don’t pick a patron first; the loan record already knows whose it was.

What happens to the copy

After a successful check-in, Lyra checks if there is a hold waiting for that copy. The next steps depend on whether there is an active hold or not:

• No active hold for this item. The copy is immediately available to loan again. Re-shelve it normally.
• An active hold for this item exists. Lyra automatically assigns this copy to the front-of-queue hold and marks the hold Ready on screen: All Holds (see Holds workflow). Set the copy aside for pickup instead of re-shelving it.

This is the one check-in that interrupts you, because the copy goes to the hold shelf rather than the cart. Lyra sounds a different tone, names the patron it’s now waiting for under the field: scan bar along with the date it has to be picked up by, and marks the copy’s row in the feed status: Ready with the same date and name. The message stays until your next scan, or until you close it with the button: ✕ at its right.

When the copy wasn’t checked out

If you scan a copy that has no active loan, Lyra says message: Copy is not checked out. under the field: scan bar and offers button: Record as in-library use, which records the copy as having been used in the library. Ignore it and scan the next copy if that isn’t what happened.

A barcode that matches no copy in this library is different: that’s message: Barcode not found. Check the number, or find the copy by title. shown on the field itself, with the number left in place so you can read what the scanner sent. Both halves of the scan loop carry a button: Find a copy control under the field, so the next step is the same on Check In as on Check Out.

In a school with more than one library, a copy from a sister library reads the same way — Check In only looks in the library you’re working in, exactly as Check Out does. Check that copy in at the library that owns it, so it comes back to the right shelf and the right hold queue.

See also

• Holds workflow covers what to do with copies that came back to fill a hold.
• Checkout — the outbound side: sending items out to patrons.
• If something goes wrong covers what to do when a check-in does something unexpected.