[OPEN-ILS-DEV] copy create date vs. receive date in ACQ for hold protection

[erickson]

Hi,

I'm trying to solve the problem of accurately managing copy age hold 
protection for items created through acquisitions.  I seem to recall 
some recent discussion about this in IRC, though I don't know if any 
decision was reached (and the relevant logs elude me) so I'm taking it 
to the list...

Age protection looks at copy create_date to determine how long to 
protect the copy from foreign holds.  If an item is created through 
acquisitions, though, the create date of the copy will be the date at 
which the copy was, well, created and not the date it was marked as 
received (i.e. arrived at the library).  This means that some portion of 
the age protection interval will be spent waiting for (holdable, 
age-protected) on-order copies to arrive at the library from the vendor, 
limiting the value of age protection.  I see 3 possible ways out of this:

1. Set copy.create_date to 'now' at copy receive time.  This is the 
simplest solution, but has the disadvantage of clobbering some 
potentially useful data - the date the copy was actually created.

2. Change the age hold protection logic to investigate the receive date 
(acq.lineitem_detail.recv_time) when available, falling back to 
copy.create_date when not.

3. Add a new field to the copy to track receive date (active_date?) in 
addition to create date.  This would also require changes to the age 
protection logic.

Preferences or alternate suggestions?

Thanks

-b

-- 
Bill Erickson
| VP, Software Development & Integration
| Equinox Software, Inc. / Your Library's Guide to Open Source
| phone: 877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
| email: erickson at esilibrary.com
| web: http://esilibrary.com