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

[Erica Rohlfs]

Sorry, Kate, I was traveling all night, and I'm a bit tired. I read
"prediction" and my brain thought about Captions and Patterns. Cloning the
subscription will help clean that page up. However, perhaps someone who
does like to keep those predictions around can discuss the advantage.

On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 12:06 PM, Erica Rohlfs <erohlfs at esilibrary.com>
wrote:

> 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 associated items are withdrawn?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 having those older predictions around, for at least historical reference,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
>
>


-- 

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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