[Koha-devel] availability of a reserved item

[Adrea Lund]

Our public library is in the process of migrating from Follett to KOHA with 
Liblime's help and we would like to contribute to the discussion re: how 
reserved items are listed in the catalog.



Our current ILS, Follett, displays the status of items as "on hold" as soon 
as a patron or staff member place a hold on an item and it stays that way 
until the patron who placed the hold checks it out or the hold is cancelled. 
We would like to see the same thing in KOHA. While testing out our migrated 
data in KOHA, I actually made a note abouts "holds" showing up as 
"available" in both the staff client and the OPAC, and I added this to my 
list of potential "bugs" to mention to our project manager Beverly.  I'm 
glad to see that this is being discussed.

In our public library we see no reason not to display the true status of 
items that are "on hold."  The suggestion "not currently on shelf" seems too 
confusing for patrons and staff.  We agree with Susan Bennett's comment - 
"We try to give our patrons the best customer service possible so I'm for 
giving them more complete information."

In our opinion, items on hold need to say clearly in the OPAC and staff 
client that they are "on hold", or we could be looking all over the library 
for them and they would be sitting on the hold shelf.



I have come across another problem related to holds...  I'm not sure if this 
is the right place to bring it up, but I'll describe it anyway.

When I go to place a hold in KOHA's OPAC or using the staff client, and I 
want a particular volume of a multi volume set - for example our library has 
the DVD set for "Deadwood the complete second season"- KOHA shows you 
specific volume info on the material details page, but then when you click 
on "place hold" that info is gone. You can't tell one volume of the set from 
another, which is a problem if perhaps you have disc 1 and want disc 2 which 
is checked out by someone else.  In the staff client you at least get a 
barcode, but unless you've previously written the barcode down of the volume 
you want, you are out of luck.  This problem could be solved by including 
volume info on the page where you "place a hold on a specific copy."



Thanks,

Adrea



Adrea Lund
Head of Adult Services
Grand County Public Library
257 E. Center St.
Moab, UT 84532
435-259-1111 ext11