Re: Handling Holds at a Public Library

[Karen Perone <kperone@xxxxxxxxxx>]

>libraries handle the "clear the holdshelf" in Holds
>Management.  So far ours are giving a lot of headaches.
>       How often do you run it?
>      Does one person run it all the time or do you train
everyone in your dept.?

We have 4 circ desks at our library (adult, children's, branch, bookmobile) We
have someone in each dept. trained to clear the hold shelf. We ran into a lot 
of "duplicate" hold problems until we started to run the Clear the Holdshelf 
function every day (or as close to every day as possible) I keep an eye on the
Circ report (M, I, C from the main menu) and will clear all holds when the 
number of items on the holdshelf is way over what I know we ever have on the 
physical hold shelf at one time.

>       How do you handle that a book has its x number of
>days (in our case 8 days) from the moment it is checked in
>(or, in this case transferred) and not being able to run the
>hold notices each day?

>If it takes two days
>(as it often does) to get the mail, the person now has a
>notice that says "you have eight days from the above date"

We have always called our patrons as soon as an item arrives at the checkin 
desk that has a hold on it. We do this based on the notice that is generated 
at the time of checkin, not the system-generated paper notice. We very rarely 
physically print the notices (we "go through the motions" of printing and then
quit out to clear the file) but will print out a notice if we can't reach the 
patron by phone.

>        The above, as unclear as it may be, has already
>occurred.  We know we can take the line off the hold notice,
>or give the hold shelf extra days, but we think 8 is already
>a lot when you are trying to handle all the holds on Steel

The Release 12 documentation shows that you can now include the actual date on
the pickup notices. See p. 105 of the Release 2000 Selected Enhancements 
document or check the User Manual for details.

Karen Perone                  kperone@xxxxxxxxxx
Systems Coordinator           voice: 330-821-2665
Rodman Public Library         fax: 330-821-5053
Alliance, OH 44601            http://www.rodman.lib.oh.us/rpl/