Managing Loans

With a big book collection (or a small one as well I suppose) your family and friends may want to borrow a book from time to time. You know how it goes: you think you will remember, and you're sure they'll remember - but eventually they end up somewhere and you don't know where. One thing is for sure, it's probably not on your shell.

This is why the loan manager was introduced in Book Collector. You can easily select a book to loan out, track it, and most importantly: get it back in the end!

Loaning a book

Here's how you can loan a book to someone, and save the information in your database.

• Select the book you want to loan to someone.
  Tip: Use the standard Windows method of CTRL+Clicking or Shift+Clicking to select more than one book in one go.
• Click Loans | Loan Book.
• Type in the name of the loaner in the "Loaned To" field.
  Tip: When you've typed in a name, it will automatically be added to the Loaned to dropdown menu, so next time, you won't have to type their name!
• By default the Loan Date is set to the current date, as you're probably loaning the book out today.
• Under Due Date, select the date you want the book back, and be sure to mention this to your friend as well :)
• You can leave the Return Date empty for now. If you accidentally click a wrong date, you can use the "Clear" button to de-select.
• The box in the bottom of this screen can be used for special loan notes (maybe you want to make a note to yourself that you want to ask your friend what he/she thought of the book?).
• Now click OK to loan the book.

Returning a loaned book

When your friend returns the book, you probably want to check it back into your collection again right away. This is very easy.

• Select the book your friend returned.
  Tip: Use the standard Windows method of CTRL+Clicking or Shift+Clicking to select more than one movie in one go.
• Click Loans | Return Book
• You will see that in the Return Date field todays date has been selected as the return date.
• If you want you can add or edit a comment again here in the bottom of the screen (so what did your friend think of the book?).
• Hit OK and you're done, the book has been returned to your collection.

Managing your loans

You can view all your current loans, past loans, overdue loans in one handy screen. Click Loans | Manage Loans to open your Loan Manager.

You won't see anything here if you haven't loaned anything out yet (use the above section to try it out). But if you have loaned out items, they will all show up here.

• If you'd like to edit one of your loans, use the top left button after selecting one of your loans. It will open a screen that I think you are familiar with now.
• To return one of your loans, you can also use this screen. Click a loan and then use the 2nd button on the toolbar for this.
• To remove loan information *forever*, click one of the loans, and hit the third button on the toolbar (the one with the cross).
• How about some filtering? You can filter this screen with the eye buttons, from left to right:
  • Eye with two arrows: Show all loans
  • Eye with just the red arrow: Show outstanding loans
  • Eye with the red clock: Show overdue loans
• Next to those buttons is a white box. Use it to search your loans. Empty the box and press enter or click the Filter button to go back to your previous view.
• Use the Print button to print a list of your loans.

There you go, all your loans managed. No more missing books and trying to figure out who borrowed that very special edition of one of your books - simply find out with your personal Loan Manager!