Below are the circulation policies that the Alleycat participants have agreed upon. Based on the participants' experience, the Alleycat membership may need to make additional revisions to the policies.

Loan Period: 21 days for patrons; 45 days between libraries

Renewal: None. Once the software is upgraded to handle renewals, then it will be offered with 1 renewal of 21 days.

Recalls: Materials may be recalled. Recalls are not done through the system but rather by contacting the borrowing library directly.

Requesting items: Any patron in good standing belonging to a participating library may use Alleycat. Current definition of "good standing" is any patron with a library card that has not expired. Any item that can be requested through Alleycat is allowed. The software allows libraries to block items that they do not wish to loan. Patrons can request items that their library owns but that are not available (missing, lost, checked out, etc).

Notification: If the patron has provided an e-mail address, each library can determine when the patron is notified. Seven different status messages are available. A minimum of "Received", "Unfillable", and "Expired" statuses must be checked off in the library profiles.

Priority: Holds will be filled on a first-placed, first-filled basis.

Missing in Transit: If the materials in transit cannot be located at either the lending or borrowing library, please contact TBLC to activate DLLI tracking.

ILL: When an Alleycat hold is unfilled for 30 days, the library will be notified that the request cannot be filled. The ILL staff may then forward the request onto OCLC and notify the patron that there will be an additional delay.

Lender String: The software will establish an algorithm to determine the lender string for a request to make sure that activity is balanced between libraries. The patron will not be able to designate a specific copy or library. Instead the system will determine the lender string and place a hold at the title level at the lending library.

Alleycat Requests: If the lending library does not respond to an Alleycat request within 5 days (7-10 days for large systems), the request will automatically move to the next library in the lending string. The request will expire after 30 days. After the request expires the borrowing library will receive e-mail notification.

Charges: The borrowing library accepts responsibility for the materials loaned to its patrons. Overdue charges will be determined locally. Since each local system determines the circulation policies for these items, there is no need to develop a system wide fine & fee policy. The patron's home library will keep the monies collected for late fees; the owning library will get the monies collected for replacement and processing costs. This policy and fund collection will be reviewed periodically to evaluate equitability.

Book Bands:

• Book bands are printed on Avery 6464 label
• Lending library puts label on book
• Do not cover barcode
• Lending library records request number and pickup location on label
• Lending library does not place their library name on book label
• Borrowing library enters patron's due date on book label

DLLI bag labels:

• Labels are printed on blue paper
• Use template supplied
• Delivery service requires
• No return address
• Library's physical address

Refer to library addresses and route to information