[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Recalls (was Re: Circulation and cataloguing questions)

[Tara Robertson]

Hi,

I'm wondering how the academic libraries who are currently using Evergreen
are dealing with recalls?

Did you change your circ policies to get rid of semester long loans so there
aren't recalls?

Something else?

Thanks!
Tara

On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 12:23 PM, Dan Scott <dan at coffeecode.net> wrote:

> On Fri, Nov 05, 2010 at 08:30:41AM -0400, Duimovich, George wrote:
> > Thanks for raising this question - I've also been asked to look into this
> as a number of our branches have long term loan policies for staff clients.
> As some of the items are on really long term loan (multiple renewals), they
> haven't been showing up in the pull list because the items haven't been
> checked in. It would be nice if the pull list had an optional feature (say,
> something like "include holds for potential recalls") so that you could see
> all holds and then optionally target some still on loan for recall. This
> probably won't be useful for those libraries with strict circulation rules,
> but for those like ours where we have lots of items on extended loans, it
> would be good to have. So "potential recalls" might be those items on loan
> that have been renewed more than so many times, or are on some kind of
> extended loan.
>
> On the subject of recalls...
>
> I just spent two days with Art Rhyno, Robin Isard, and Rick Scott
> working on automated recalls for scenarios like this, based on the
> requirements raised and agreed upon by the circulation staff at the
> University of Windsor, Algoma University, and Laurentian University.
>
> I committed the results of our efforts today into Evergreen trunk as
> http://svn.open-ils.org/trac/ILS/changeset/18630 - in a nutshell, the
> result is that if a library sets a few configuration settings, then the
> act of placing a hold (by any patron) on a title that has copies out for
> extended loan will pick one of those copies and automatically shorten
> the loan period and notify the person who currently has that item that
> they now have an earlier return date. It also sets the remaining renewals
> to 0 and optionally applies a different set of fine rules.
>
> If there are any items available for targeting, this code is not
> invoked. If the pertinent settings are unset, this code will not be
> invoked. But once the settings are in place, any user can invoke the
> recall simply by placing a hold - assuming that the loan period for the
> desired item is greater than the recall threshold interval.
>
> This is only in trunk, not in 2.0, as there are undoubtedly still a few
> bugs to work out, but the commit message provides more details on how
> this operates:
>
> Initial support for recall of items triggered by placing a hold In
> academic libraries, it is common for groups like faculty and graduate
> students to have extended loan periods (for example, 120 days), while
> others have more common loan periods such as 3 weeks. In these
> environments, it is desirable to have a hold placed on an item that has
> been loaned out for an extended period to trigger a "recall": truncating
> the loan period, setting available renewals to 0, optionally changing
> the fines associated with overdues for the new due date, and notifying
> the current patron of the recall.
>
> New actor.org_unit_setting entries and hold targeting logic enable
> libraries to control whether a hold will trigger a recall of a
> circulating item as follows:
>
>  * "Recalls: Circulation duration that triggers a recall" (recall
> threshold) is specified as an interval (for example, "21 days"); any items
> with a
> loan duration of less that this interval will not be considered for a
> recall
>
>  * "Recalls: Truncated loan period" (return interval) is specified as an
> interval (for example, "7 days"), such that the user who currently
> has the item checked out will get the greater of either the recall
> threshold, or the return interval.
>
>  * "Recalls: An array of fine amount, fine interval, and maximum fine"
> is an optional setting that applied the new fine rules to the current
> circulation period.
>
> When a hold is placed and no available copies are found by the hold
> targeter, the recall logic checks to see if the recall threshold and
> return interval settings are set; if so, then the hold targeter checks
> the currently checked-out copies to determine if any of the currently
> circulating items at the designated pickup library have a loan duration
> longer than the recall threshold. If so, then the eligible item with the
> nearest due date will be recalled.
>
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