[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Serials Questions - Best Practices

[Erica Rohlfs]

Hi Kate!

My questions are this:
•         Is it better to clone a new subscription every year and start
fresh?  What might be the advantages/disadvantages of this method?

I have not heard a consensus on the best method. However, I recommend that
you clone the new subscription. Over time, staff make adjustments to
holdings to represent exceptions to expected publication schedules or other
irregularities. In making these adjustments, they sometimes create data
that may be problematic. Problematic holdings data accumulated over time
can eventually cause errors at serials receiving time, because serials
receiving triggers a re-summarization of holdings for OPAC display
purposes. Cloning subscriptions at yearly intervals instead of building up
bigger sets of holdings on a single subscription could help mitigate such
problems.  One potential disadvantage to this is that the holdings
summaries in the OPAC are broken up by year.  This may or may not bother
you.

•         What effect does deleting the old subscription have on any
issuances which were received under that subscription? Will it delete them
too?

I’m not sure if this Launchpad ticket will help answer your question (I
just retested in 2.7): https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1296886

•         Is there any reason to be concerned about all the used up
predictions that are still cluttering the subscriptions after their
associated items are withdrawn?  (Aside from the fact that there isn’t any
obvious way to sort the whole prediction list descending, so it’s hard to
see if the /new/  predictions came out correctly.)

Perhaps someone else can better answer your question. I would think that
having those older predictions around, for at least historical reference,
should be fine. I would recommend that you only keep the primary prediction
Active, though. When you go to create a New Issuance, the Caption/Pattern
drop down menu will display the ID # of your active predictions. So, it
will be helpful to keep that list tidy.

I hope this helps!
Erica


On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 3:07 PM, Kate Butler <KateButler at rodgerslibrary.org>
wrote:

>  Our library uses the serials module in a pretty basic way, which
> essentially replicates how we used serials in our old system:
>
>
>
> It’s used for magazines/newspapers only, not any other serial publications.
>
>
>
> When the title is added to the system, a subscription is created, with the
> proper number of streams and the current pattern of publication, and we
> generate a bunch of predictions (usually about a year) so circulation staff
> can receive the items when they arrive in the mail.
>
>
>
> When we run out of predictions, we just generate a bunch of new ones in
> the same subscription.
>
>
>
> Newspapers are held for about 30 days (we don’t barcode these, so no items
> are created) and magazines for roughly a calendar year.  When circulation
> staff pulls old magazines they scan the barcodes into a withdrawal bucket
> and this gets emptied by tech services on a regular basis.
>
>
>
> My questions are this:
>
> ·         Is it better to clone a new subscription every year and start
> fresh?  What might be the advantages/disadvantages of this method?
>
> ·         What effect does deleting the old subscription have on any
> issuances which were received under that subscription? Will it delete them
> too?
>
> ·         Is there any reason to be concerned about all the used up
> predictions that are still cluttering the subscriptions after their
> associated items are withdrawn?  (Aside from the fact that there isn’t any
> obvious way to sort the whole prediction list descending, so it’s hard to
> see if the /new/  predictions came out correctly.)
>
>
>
> Kate Butler
>
> Technology Librarian
>
> Rodgers Memorial Library (Hudson, NH)
>
> http://www.rodgerslibrary.org/
>
>
>



-- 

Erica Rohlfs
Project Manager
Equinox Software Inc. / The Open Source Experts
Phone: 770-709-5572 | 1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457) x5572
Email: erohlfs at esilibrary.com
Web: http://www.esilibrary.com
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