A Six-Part Guide to Imports, Record Readiness, Duplicates, Updates, and Cleanup

The beginning of a new school year has a way of making patron management feel urgent – fast. A record may need review. A student’s information may need attention before checkout. A transfer may require confirmation that the site association is current. A staff member may need access at more than one school. Before long, one small question can turn into a much larger cleanup conversation.

This series is designed to help Destiny Administrators and District Users get patron records ready for the new school year, whether they support Follett Destiny® Library Manager, Destiny Resource Manager, or both. The core workflow – understanding how data enters Destiny, confirming records are current, resolving duplicates, reviewing updates, and making careful cleanup decisions – applies across Destiny products. Some steps and settings are product-specific, so each post calls out those differences where they matter. For Destiny Resource Manager sites, pay special attention to Access Levels, Resource Groups, and active resource checkouts.

I work with Follett Software now, but before that I spent 10 years as a Destiny customer – first as a school librarian and later as a district coordinator. In my experience, beginning-of-year patron issues are much easier to manage when you sort them into the right category before troubleshooting.

Where to Start

If you are not sure where to begin, start with the one that best matches the challenge you are having.

1. Destiny Library Manager and Resource Manager Patron Imports: What to Check Before You Update Records: Start here if you need to understand how patron records get into Destiny, who owns that process, and where to look before troubleshooting.
2. Start the Year Strong with Up-to-Date Patron Records in Destiny Library Manager and Resource Manager: Start here if you understand the import process and want to confirm that records are ready for the new school year.
3. How to Prevent Duplicate Patron Records and Barcode Conflicts in Destiny: Start here if you are seeing duplicate issues, barcode conflicts, or records that are not matching as expected.
4. Make Scheduled Patron Updates Work for You in Destiny Library Manager and Resource Manager: Start here if your district uses Scheduled Patron Update and you want to confirm that the setup still supports the year ahead.
5. Inactivate or Delete Patron Records in Destiny Library Manager or Resource Manager? How to Decide: Start here if you are deciding how to handle records that should no longer stay active.
6. Patron Cleanup in Destiny Library Manager and Resource Manager: Staff, Transfers, and Multi-Site Users: Start here if the major cleanup is done and you are working through the details that can still create day-to-day confusion.

You do not have to read these in order if you are solving one specific problem. If you are working through beginning-of-year patron management more broadly, this is the order I recommend:

• Understand how the import works.
• Confirm records are ready for the year.
• Review duplicate records and barcode conflicts.
• Review scheduled update settings.
• Make careful cleanup decisions.
• Finish with staff, transfer, and multi-site details.

If patron management feels bigger than it should right now, start by identifying whether the issue relates to the import process, record readiness, duplicates, scheduled updates, cleanup decisions, or site-level details. Then use the post that matches that issue instead of trying to solve everything at once.  That approach usually saves time, reduces confusion, and makes the start of the year feel much more manageable.

Read Next: Destiny Library Manager and Resource Manager Patron Imports: What to Check Before You Update Records

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About the Author

Richelle O’Neil spent a decade serving schools as both a librarian and district administrator before bringing that firsthand experience to Follett Software. As a Customer Success Manager specializing in the Follett Software Library Suite, she understands the day-to-day realities schools face and what it takes to support them well. At home in Texas, she is usually trying to keep up with her two rescue dogs, Ben and Gracey.