[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Holds placed prior to status change

[St. John, Leslie]

I've been analyzing our holds processes for a while and your conversation got me going back around to do some double checking a couple of things.  So we just performed a test on the scenario presented; a copy is missing, then found, checked-in but not immediately targeted; and reconfirmed what others have said that retargeting the previously missing and now available copy results in an immediate retarget.  However when examining why a hold is not triggered please consider that it is not only the item that must pass the "test" for the hold, but the patron and library have an effect on hold targeting also. 

Also under consideration should be how often the targeter runs and how long it take to finish its process.  A third parallel process was added to our holds targeter which allowed the targeter to finish its processing, which wasn't happening, and also resulted in vastly improved time for targeting new items. You may not need three processes as we are a fairly large consortium but it's something that could be explored.

On making the missing status holdable, consider if holds being allowed on copies that will never become available (we don't find all of our missing items) is what is desired.  It really won't solve the original problem plus will result in some collateral damage as now holds that will never be filled will have to be identified and an explanation provided to patrons as to why they were allowed to place holds on items they can't get. I do hate those avoidable PR issues so much as I've developed a low tolerance for screaming patrons. 

Hope this helps some.

-- 

Leslie St. John 
PINES Consultant
Georgia Public Library Service 
A Unit of the University System of Georgia 
1800 Century Place, Suite 150 
Atlanta, GA 30345-4304 
lstjohn at georgialibraries.org 
pines.georgialibraries.org