Defining a Borrower Circulation Type (BTYPE)

Borrower circulation types (BTYPEs) determine general circulation rules for different groups of borrowers. (For example, you can have a BTYPE for residents and another BTYPE for non-residents. Each BTYPE would have different circulation rules.) General rules include limits on such things as the number of lost or overdue items and unpaid fines a BTYPE can have, and when a borrower’s barcode should expire.

Because many types of borrowers can share the same circulation rules, you do not need to create a BTYPE for every category of borrower on your system. (For example, you may have both staff and management personnel checking out items in your library. However, if both BTYPEs have exactly the same circulation rules, you only need to create one BTYPE and use it for both types of borrower.)

When you set up a new BTYPE code, Horizon creates a BTYPE group that contains that code. You can also choose to create your own BTYPE groups that contain multiple BTYPE codes. This lets you apply circulation privileges and parameters to more than one BTYPE at a time. (For more information, see Setting Up Circulation Privileges and Parameters.)

You can create and modify BTYPEs and BTYPE groups whenever you need to. However, you should create most BTYPEs and BTYPE groups before you load or create borrower records so that you can assign appropriate BTYPE codes to the borrower records when you load or create them.

Horizon also lets you choose whether default circulation privileges and parameters apply to various BTYPE groups. This means that you should define BTYPEs and BTYPE groups before you set up circulation privileges and parameters.

You can delete a BTYPE if no borrowers are assigned to that BTYPE. If borrowers are assigned to a BTYPE that you want to delete, you must reassign those borrowers to another BTYPE before you can delete the BTYPE. You can also delete BTYPE groups that you create. You should only delete a BTYPE group if you have first deleted all the BTYPEs contained in that BTYPE group.

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