Demand Management and Consortia
SirsiDynix Product Management and Consulting staff met with Carol Dawe to discuss a proposed agenda for the Demand Management and Consortia Session at SuperConference that is scheduled for Monday afternoon 3/6/06 at 1:45 p.m. Our goals are to better understand the desired features and priority of three of the most popular Demand Management enhancement requests. We will also briefly update the group on updates and new features that have been added to Demand Management in the last several Unicorn releases.
We will begin with the brief update, and then move to the enhancements for discussion. SirsiDynix has suggested several points of discussion below the enhancement requests, and we expect that additional ideas will come up during the meeting.
It is our hope that during the meeting we can prioritize these enhancements with the group and in cases in which several features may be implied, to prioritize those features.
The Consortia SIG suggested the following 3 issues for discussion
- Unfilled Holds Issues
There have been times when a patron’s hold has not been filled in a timely fashion because a library has unexpected staff shortages, just aren’t efficient, etc. We would like to have the system automatically transfer an unfilled hold to the next library in hold queue after a predetermined number of days. At the present time a hold will stay unfilled forever unless the library fills it, it is checked out, or set to missing. Along with this, we would like the system to work as Dynix does and DRA did and have an “Unfill” option for each hold.
SirsiDynix questions: We believe that several updates could be implied by this enhancement request. We met with the forum moderators when this enhancement was originally proposed, and we determined that some consortia felt that the issue had been addressed by a 2003.1 feature that allowed the Pull on Shelf Holds report to NOT pull materials from locations designated as “closed”. However, other customers indicated that this did not address their concerns with unfilled holds. In reviewing the enhancement, here are some of the features that we believe might be implied:
a. An “unfill” option that just indicates that the library will not fill this hold with the proposed item right now so that if Pull on Shelf Holds is run later, a different library’s items might be suggested for the hold. Of course, if no change in item status occurs, the report may suggest the same item again.
b. An “unfill all” option that indicates that the Library will not be pulling any of the suggested items to fill holds right now. Note: Unicorn’s Pull on Shelf Holds list does not truly “commit” an item to fill a hold, so we are not sure if this would be a helpful feature. Each time the report runs it considers unfilled holds; if a hold for which an item was proposed the last time the report ran has not been fulfilled, the system will propose an item that could be different from the previously proposed item the next time the report runs.
c. An “unfill” option that indicates that this library does not want to allow “this item” to fill “this hold” and/or an option that indicates that the library does not wish to fill “this hold” with any of its copies. This would allow the library a variety of means to opt out of filling a given hold on a more permanent basis. This would require additional fields in the hold record and would be a fairly complex development.
d. A setting option that indicates how long Unicorn should attempt to fill a system or group range hold from a local or group collection. E.g., in addition to priority, there would be a setting that could be invoked for group and system range holds that would require that the system attempt to fill the hold from the collection of the pickup or patron library (depending on preordination) for x days before it could consider another location or group, and then attempt to fill the hold from the group for x days before it could consider the system. This option would likely cut down on transiting of items but could result in holds not being filled as quickly.
- Place hold limits by group of item types and single item types.
SirsiDynix: we have follow up questions on this item:
a. Would the parameter also be controlled by patron profile?
b. What would be the controlling parameters? E.g., in cases in which a consortium allows system range holds, would the hold limits be controlled by patron library affiliation or pickup library for the hold and/or some other parameter?
c. Would this apply to item specific holds, or also title holds? If it applies to title holds, in situations in which items of different types are associated with the same title, how would the count be calculated? E.g., if I can have 4 holds on item type1 and 2 holds on item type 2, and I place a title level hold on a title that has both types of items and I already have 2 item type holds but can still place item type 1 holds, can the hold be placed?
- The capability for making Local Only Holds possible in iBistro. That means rather than having one hold range that applies to ALL iBistro holds in a consortium, allow each line in the Hold Map to have the iBistro hold range designated. We think this is vital for Hold Map management and the ability to have working reciprocity of access. For example. Library A doesn’t allow the rest of the libraries to place holds on their DVD’s.
Library B allows all libraries to place holds on their DVD’s. What we would like is an easy way to prevent Library A’s patrons from placing holds on Library B’s DVD’s. IT would also be nice to do this in groups. Library A can’t place holds on certain item types at Library B, C, E, and G.
SirsiDynix: Would this apply to “placement” of holds or “fill” of holds? E.g., in the example above, if the title has DVDs from Libraries A, B and C, and Library A and B don’t place iBistro holds on each other’s DVDs, would a title level, system range hold be allowed from “Library B” but could only be filled via an item from Library B or C?