The other day at our branch we had a patron sitting at a computer - not logged in. She was waiting for some other patron's reservation to expire so that she could log in. I had thought it was a reservation system problem. Or that the patron who complained was mistaken about his reservation time or computer number. I discovered that the Help Desk can track the history for the computer - reservations and logins. Very useful when there is a dispute of this sort.
Of course, check the RAC report first: from the main screen of Admin, go to Reports (top left corner) and select Scheduled Bookings Report. If the grace period has expired, it will not show. Then call IT and ask the help desk person to check the history for the computer or for the patron (you need the library card number). In addition, we find that a 10 minute grace period works better - gives us more time to deal with problems. Of course, we have very few "no shows" so other patrons don't lose access to computers. If a branch has a high percentage of "no shows", then perhaps this isn't advisable - stick with the default 5 minutes grace period.
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It is good to know about the possibility that someone might be "squatting", as it really had neve occurred to me. I must be naive! It might also be good to know that I.T. can check back one whole year on computer reservations, if we have either the customer's card number or the computer number. This information can be useful for settling disputes or if an incident occurs, and we're lucky enough that the perpetrator used a library card to sign on to his/her computer!
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