2009/5/1 Agnes Rivers-Moore <arm@hanover.ca>

Hello all

I work with a few libraries testing Koha, and a question has come up about setting permissions for "patrons".

As I understood this, permissions are for staff accounts only, to control their use of the staff client modules, based on their login. I see in the list of permissions that there is one flag (permissions) to set user permissions, and another (staffaccess) to modify permissions for staff users, and this confuses me as they seem to be the same.

NOTE: I'm assuming you're using 3.0 staffaccess controls whether you can delete staff members, change their passwords, or change the permissions for staff users. Note, however, that Koha's definition of a staff user is one that is in a category that has the type Staff. Koha has a hierarchy of types; for instance, under the Professional type, you might have Professor and Teacher's Aide categories. It has been noticed that the permissions screen exists for all patron

types, and I have had some confused questions about whether staff have to check the "Borrow books" permission before anything can be checked out to a new patron, and why we need a "staff" type at all if any patron can be set to use the staff client. I can see their point, so I am wondering:

Has anyone used permissions for patrons who are not on staff, and if so what for?

Could this screen be set not to appear except for specific patron types, e.g. "Staff" (even for superlibrarians)?

Thank you all, Agnes

--

Agnes Rivers-Moore Assistant Librarian Hanover Public Library

I think the main uses for the Staff patron type are statistical tracking (you might want to omit staff checkouts or consider them differently) and different issuing rules. For example, you might not want to charge your staff fines on their checked out books, or allow them to check out more books. Also, the category of a patron is much more visible than which permissions they have. There might be other ways in which Koha specially treats staff patrons that I'm not aware of, though. You _could_ customize the toolbar so that the Set Permissions menu item only appeared for certain categories, but it would take some coding. -- Jesse Weaver

Agnes -- I see in the list of permissions that there is one flag (permissions) to

set user permissions, and another (staffaccess) to modify permissions for staff users, and this confuses me as they seem to be the same.

Similar, but not the same. Being able to change permissions for another staff member (or even for one's self) would be a "higher" level of access. Fewer people will need that level of access.

It has been noticed that the permissions screen exists for all patron types, and I have had some confused questions about whether staff have to check the "Borrow books" permission before anything can be checked out to a new patron,

No. "Borrow books" is the one permission that defaults to ON.

and why we need a "staff" type at all if any patron can be set to use the staff client.

You don't. You might have student volunteers or other non-staff help. Howevver, staff patron types will be protected from having their permissions modified by users without "staffaccess".

Has anyone used permissions for patrons who are not on staff, and if so what for?

An typical case might be for a machine account used by a self-check device. That account would have access to make transactions, but might reasonably have "Borrow books" set OFF, since no books should be issued in the machine's name.

Could this screen be set not to appear except for specific patron types, e.g. "Staff" (even for superlibrarians)?

I don't think any controls exist for that yet, but I suspect additional controls will be added under Granular Permissions work in coming months. -- Joe Atzberger LibLime - Open Source Library Solutions