Hi Andreas,

I just did a quick test and selecting an item type when placing a hold appears to be optional. I wonder how to display the information if there is a mix of item type limited and 'any itemtpye' holds. Would 'any itemtype' count for all queues? The granular display could maybe be another setting for |OPACShowHoldQueueDetails.|

Hope this helps,

Katrin

On 05.04.2017 15:32, Andreas Hedström Mace wrote:
Hi Christopher!

Thanks for your reply. Simply not showing the information is of course one way 
to go, but unfortunately I don’t think this is an option for us since we have 
previously shown the hold queues for 20 years or so, with our old system. Our 
patrons are used to having this information available. But things like high 
demand hold periods (which I interpret as shorter loan periods, for popular 
books) is one of the reasons we would like to show separate hold queues in Koha 
- to give the patrons a more accurate view of when they can expect to receive a 
book.

Not showing the information, as we do today with the limits that are currently 
in Koha, has instead increased the number of questions about the hold queues, 
and apparently adding a lot of confusion.

Best regards,
Andreas

________________________________________

Andreas Hedström Mace
Librarian
Stockholm University Library
Stockholm University
106 91 Stockholm
Tel: +46 (0) 8-16 49 17
www.su.se/english/library/
________________________________________









Den 2017-04-01 21:04 skrev Koha på uppdrag av BRANNON, CHRISTOPHER 
<koha-boun...@lists.katipo.co.nz på uppdrag av cbran...@cdalibrary.org>:

Andreas,
        Our consortium simply does not show the patron where they are in the 
queue.  We find it to be misleading, due to the number of items available to be 
placed on hold, local holds priority, cancellations, and high demand loan 
periods that kick in.  Plus there is the rare occasion a hold is shifted.  
Showing that information is just inviting patrons to try and manage what the 
system is doing.  We do let them know how many requests are on the record, but 
that is it.  We never let them know where they are in the queue, even if they 
ask.  This has worked very well for us.

___________________________
Christopher Brannon
IT Coordinator


702 E Front Ave
Coeur d'Alene, ID 83814
(208)769-2315 Ext. 456
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-----Original Message-----


Hi all!

We are at Stockholm University Library experiencing some difficulties with how 
Koha is currently handling hold queues, and are considering development in this 
area. Are there any other libraries who are experiencing similar issues (see 
below), and would be interested in the development of separate hold queues? Or 
have an opinion on whether this would be a good/bad idea?

In Koha today it is possible to limit the fulfilment of holds per branch (same 
pick-up location as home/holding library) and item type. For us, it makes most 
sense to view this as several hold queues for one bibliographic record. For 
example: a person queuing for a book from the textbook collection (item type = 
”TC”) isn’t actually queuing for books for the general collection (item type = 
”GC”). But Koha handles this as one big queue. This isn’t a problem for the 
holds per se, as Koha only fetches the book that has the right criteria to fill 
the hold (i.e. the correct item type or home/holding library) but it has proven 
to be an issue for our patrons.

As Koha displays it as one big queue, it might seem that the queue is much 
bigger that it actually is. This has confused a number of patrons, and have 
discouraged others from placing holds. Continuing our example: a book has three 
patrons on hold for item type GC, when a new patron adds a hold for TC. This 
makes this person number four in the queue in Koha today, making the patrons 
believe that they will have to wait weeks or months for the book (in our 
library TC is 7 days, GC 28 days) when in reality it is only one week.

For us, this would better be described as two queues:
One with 3 patrons on hold (General collection) One with 1 patron of hold 
(Textbook collection)

The same is true for hold fulfilment that require pick-up location to be the 
same as home/holding library (i.e. hold fulfilment per branch). Say a public 
library also have a school library in it’s organization, that is a special case 
where books from the other libraries should not be sent to the fulfil holds, or 
vice versa. As in our example above it would be better to display queues 
separately so 5 holds at the main library won’t discourage a student from 
placing a hold on that same book at the school library.

So my question is basically, is there are other libraries out there who are 
using any of these hold fulfilment features (or would like to), and would want 
to see a new feature to separate/split hold queues? Or who could see the 
benefit of such a feature.

Please note that separate hold queues would of course only come in effect if 
any system preference that limits hold fulfilment is set to allow. Also, this 
would not effect holds to pull.

I look forwards to hearing people’s opinion about this!

Best regards,
Andreas

________________________________
Andreas Hedström Mace
Librarian
Stockholm University Library
Stockholm University
106 91 Stockholm
Tel: +46 (0) 8 16 49 17
su.se/english/library<http://su.se/english/library>
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