[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] RE: Open-ils-general Digest, Vol 11, Issue 11

[Fitzgerald, Carol]

I'd like to offer our perspective on a couple of Francis McNamara's
questions that Jason addressed:

RE: > 8.  When I create an item, the bib did not show up in the pac
until I 
> checked in that item.  We don't do that.  We have too much stuff going

> through, it just goes to the shelf, they cannot stop and check it in 
> before doing that.  Is there an option to not have to check it in?
Jason's response:

There's at least one PINES library asking for that now, but I need to
figure out if the current behavior is due to actual PINES policy or not.
But we can definitely make it a configurable setting.  As more non-PINES
libraries try out the software, we'll take any hard-coded PINES-policy
and turn them into options.  One of our goals is that library software
should never dictate library policy.  The software should just enforce
it where necessary (we're also against "babying"
the users, but sometimes that is asked for too).
----------------------------

Jason, one of my pet peeves about our current system is that we have to
check in items after we've added them.  Our vendor rep informed us that
it was put in at the request of public libraries (their largest client
base) who needed it to cut down on errors.  I neve quite got the logic
of that.  We are a relatively small library and don't have a large
volume of new physical items to add (including serials), especially
since we've begun adding more electronic books and serials.  The extra
step of having to check in an item after we've added it is something
we've adapted to but would be happy to cut out of our process!

----------------------------
RE: <snip bib_status and staff_only flags>
> Is there anything like that in Evergreen?

Jason's response:

Right now, the visibility of a record is dependent on the state of its
items (which are easy to edit in batch).  I'm not sure of the design
rationale for not having a record level override of item attributes like
holdability and OPAC visibility, but if a strong enough case is made for
one it could be added.
-----------------------------

We have staff-only records that do not display in the opac, for a number
of reasons.  One is that our acquisitions staff like to be able to put
in records of out-of-print titles our researchers have requested and
that we've been unable to acquire yet or where our copies have gone
missing or are lost or damaged.  We don't put them in as "on order"
because we've not yet found a vendor who can provide the title.  Still,
we want a record in the staff pac to show that we are actively
searching.  Some book distributors keep our requests on file and,
sometimes months to years after we've let them know we're looking, come
up with a copy for us.  There are enough out-of-print classic titles in
photovoltaics, physics, chemistry, etc. to warrant our attention to this
process for our researchers.

The reason we want the record in the staff pac (as opposed to a "wish
list"), is so the title will come up when we conduct a search of the
collection prompted by a request for the title.  We do not, however,
want the title to display in the opac because we do not physically (and
may never) have the item.

Obviously, we can always find another way to deal with what are now
staff-only records.  However, it's worked in our current and our
previous system fairly well and we wouldn't mind having that
functionality in our next system.

Carol Fitzgerald
Library
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Golden, CO
carol_fitzgerald at nrel.gov