[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Fulfillment Prioritization

[Thomas Berezansky]

I think you have the "hijack" backwards. You are assuming that an in  
transit hold will be hijacked and pulled back to the home library. In  
fact, the only "hijacked" transits will be "Patron A has a hold with a  
copy in transit, we will ignore the in transit copy and put this copy  
we are checking in on the shelf for them *right now* instead, pushing  
the transiting copy off of the hold". No patron will get a copy that  
was going to a different patron as a result.

It looks like most of your other concerns on this stem from that  
initial misunderstanding, though you are correct that things may go  
right back into transit when they show up. That is no different than  
if a hold is canceled while in transit, though.

Thomas Berezansky
Merrimack Valley Library Consortium


Quoting "Hardy, Elaine" <ehardy at georgialibraries.org>:

> Thomas,
>
> While improving the hold fulfillment along these lines would be helpful
> for our patrons and staff, I do see some problems with the idea to
> "hijack" an in transit item to fulfill the hold. While these issues won't
> necessarily occur if there are plenty of copies of a title within a
> consortium, I do see them occurring for those titles with few copies in
> the consortium. The problems I outline below would be if there are no
> copies in the local system for the original hold to fulfill and a hold for
> a patron at the owning library hijacks it after it is received at the
> original hold library.
>
> A lot of patrons monitor their holds, especially if it is an item they
> need by a certain date or just really want to read. If suddenly a copy
> that was in transit to them is back to waiting for a copy, I see unhappy
> patrons. Unhappy patrons that the front desk staff would need to deal
> with, without understanding themselves why it happened. I can see staff
> adding to the unhappiness if they let the patron know they saw the item
> come through and it went right back out.
>
> Another potential problem is increased costs in courier service, depending
> on how a library pays for that service. We pay per pickup, but if someone
> pays per package, immediately sending an in transit item back out might
> add costs. Although other changes that would make the local copy more
> likely to be trapped would decrease costs and might balance this. It is
> also going to increase staff time when they have to repackage the item to
> send it back out for what they would see as no  reason.
>
> Another potential problem, at least in PINES, is that it could increase
> the amount of time all holds on an item would take to be filled as well as
> that individual hold by the local patron. It is very possible that the
> "hijacked" item takes another week or longer to make it back to the local
> patron, where an item at a nearby, out of system, library would be there
> faster. For us, this is because of the time it can take to get from branch
> to central, where the statewide courier picks it up and then the time on
> the other end from central library to branch. Some systems can only afford
> once a week pickup at their branches. So, even when the courier delivers
> from central library to central library within days, another two weeks can
> be added to transit times because of local issues.
>
> As I re-read your steps, how you are thinking of the design may make some
> of the above not occur (if you mean that if there is no local item at the
> holding library, the item will stay to fulfill that hold before it returns
> to the owning library) but I just wanted to make sure you've considered
> them.
>
> Elaine
>  
>  
> J. Elaine Hardy
> PINES Bibliographic Projects and Metadata Manager
> Georgia Public Library Service,
> A Unit of the University System of Georgia
> 1800 Century Place, Suite 150
> Atlanta, Ga. 30345-4304
> 404.235-7128
> 404.235-7201, fax
>  
> ehardy at georgialibraries.org
> www.georgialibraries.org
> http://www.georgialibraries.org/pines/
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org
> [mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of
> Thomas Berezansky
> Sent: Friday, March 09, 2012 5:04 PM
> To: Evergreen Discussion Group
> Subject: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Fulfillment Prioritization
>
> There is a desire for copies to fill local holds before going into
> transit, even when there are already copies in transit. This would result
> in copies showing up to fill holds that are already filled, but would also
> allow for holds to go to the hold shelf faster when a copy is already
> right there.
>
> I have worked out the following thoughts for this, but would like more
> opinions before work is started on it.
>
> The general idea would be to add a new Org Unit setting to control the
> behavior. When enabled copies returned to the library would:
>
> 1 - Look for non-captured holds at the current location. If any exist,
> capture for them and move on to the hold shelf.
> 2 - Look for captured but in transit holds at the current location. If any
> exist, "hijack" that hold and move on to the hold shelf. The original copy
> will remain in transit.
> 3 - Resume all other holds/transit/reshelving/etc code normally.
>
> This may require teaching the hold targeter to update the list of copies
> *without* wiping the captured state of in-transit holds, perhaps with a
> special parameter passed in. That parameter may be best supplied when
> doing the "Retarget Local Holds" checkin modifier work, rather than as
> part of normal hold targeting. Especially if the first additional
> limitation below is included.
>
> I am thinking that there may need to be additional limitations, for sanity
> purposes, but am not sure about them:
>
> 1 - Limit to copies owned by the library that the checkin is happening at.
>
> This would basically prioritize local copies as filling local holds, but
> would not prevent someone else's copy from transiting. That transit may
> even be back to their own library.
>
> 2 - Not run the code if capturing local holds as transits.
>
> Because otherwise you may just be displacing things that are intentionally
> in a limbo-transit state.
>
> 3 - Require a checkin modifier be active, which may remove the need for
> YAOUS.
>
> If replacing the YAOUS then this would allow for per-workstation
> decisions. If alongside the YAOUS then the YAOUS being disabled could be
> used to hide the checkin modifier outright. Either way SIP may need to be
> taught how to (optionally) enable this modifier.
>
> 4 - In the event of a Force or Recall hold being in the stack, *never*
> fill a different hold instead.
>
> These are copy level "force cut in line because we have a really good
> reason" holds in Master/2.2, and I don't think we should avoid transiting
> to fill them.
>
> Thomas Berezansky
> Merrimack Valley Library Consortium
>
>
>
>
>