[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] forum?

[Jason Etheridge]

On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 1:02 PM,  <Cathyk231 at aol.com> wrote:
> I'm new here...trying to find discussion forum list.
> Wonder if anyone has brought up the matter of "queue" (SP? )  I belong to a
> FL library system in the winter months that uses a different system than
> Greenleaf.  Knowing how many people are ahead of you when reserving a book
> (queue) is very beneficial for me.

Hi Cathy,

Depending how simple or complicated you have your holds behavior,
staff can do Actions for this Record -> View Holds and sort by Request
Date for a poor man's holds queue.  However, this isn't exposed to the
patron.

The main problem here is that the configuration of Evergreen holds
behavior is geared toward flexibility, and you could in fact have
"multiple" queues.  For example, if desired, local patrons could jump
in front of foreign patrons (or "cut in line") and have dibs on local
items, for the purpose of holds fulfillment.

I'm not sure how to tackle that for a patron-facing indication of "how
soon will I get this book?"  We probably can't expose the full
complexity of how a library might have holds configured, but we could
try to make an estimate.  What we show may be misleading or outright
lying.   Is it better or worse to show a queue that is "shifty"?  Or
one that doesn't reflect reality?

For similar reasons, we're not showing Due Dates to patrons for items
held by other patrons, though as more folks start using Evergreen they
may decide differently.  That may be a case of us trying too hard to
protect the patron from themselves.

-- 
Jason Etheridge
 | VP, Community Support and Advocacy
 | Equinox Software, Inc. / The Evergreen Experts
 | phone:  1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
 | email:  jason at esilibrary.com
 | web:  http://www.esilibrary.com