How Restrictions Work

Restrictions in the library system work similarly to Active Directory permission settings. This means that the user creates different borrower restriction groups, sets up the permissions for those groups and then add the borrowers to whichever group the user wants them to belong to. The borrower then inherits the restrictions of their restriction group.

As many restriction groups as necessary can be created all with different allowances. For example, it might be beneficial to have one restriction group for staff and a separate restriction group for other borrowers. Each group can then have different loan periods, reservation limits etc.

As well as being able to set up restrictions on borrowers, restrictions are also in place for each of the resource types; e.g. Book, and the different media types within the resource type such as Paperback or Hardback. If you have set various different restrictions for the resources, media types and borrowers, the system will compare the restriction across all levels and take the Lowest of them all (with the exception of restrictions that are locked).

There is a default restriction group set up when the user first installs the library software. This is called Normal and allows the borrowers to take out and reserve 3 resources for a maximum of 14 days. Any existing borrower and any new borrowers that are added will belong to the default security group initially. The user may change the default restriction group (once it has been created) to the preferred group, which will automatically change the restrictions for anyone who belongs to the default group.