Holds and quarantine
I've tried to search my Koha mailing list archives, and studied the 19.05 manual for a solution to the following problem, but I'm either overlooking something or the problem hasn't been discussed. Our little library has a pandemic protocol where books that are returned (in a drop box) are checked in twice a week, then put on a special quarantine table. On Sunday a volunteer comes in and sanitizes the books. Then they can be checked out again. The problem has to do with holds. When a book with a hold is checked in, the librarian has to respond to Koha's popup in one of two ways: press "Confirm", or press "Ignore": 1. If the librarian presses "Confirm", then the patron will eventually notice when they log into to their account that the book is ready for pickup, when in fact it is on the quarantine table and is NOT ready. 2. If the librian presses "Ignore", then the patron won't get notified that their book is ready for pickup. Instead, their hold is still pending and the book is seen as available in the catalog. Either choice isn't quite right. What we'd like to have happen is for the patron somehow to be informed that their book is ready for pickup not when it's checked in, but AFTER it's gone through the quarantine process, which takes an unpredictable amount of time. I don't see how the CART shelving location functionality and cron job can deal with both holds and unpredictable quarantine times. Thanks in advance for any ideas!
Take this with a grain of salt, as we rarely circulate material. . . You could create an account called quarantine - ignore the holds for the first checkin, and check it out to quarantine, and then when it's ready to go back into circulation check it in and 'confirm'. I know, extra steps. Elaine VWML <https://vwml.org> On Tue, Sep 15, 2020 at 1:16 PM Mark Alexander <marka@pobox.com> wrote:
I've tried to search my Koha mailing list archives, and studied the 19.05 manual for a solution to the following problem, but I'm either overlooking something or the problem hasn't been discussed.
Our little library has a pandemic protocol where books that are returned (in a drop box) are checked in twice a week, then put on a special quarantine table. On Sunday a volunteer comes in and sanitizes the books. Then they can be checked out again.
The problem has to do with holds. When a book with a hold is checked in, the librarian has to respond to Koha's popup in one of two ways: press "Confirm", or press "Ignore":
1. If the librarian presses "Confirm", then the patron will eventually notice when they log into to their account that the book is ready for pickup, when in fact it is on the quarantine table and is NOT ready.
2. If the librian presses "Ignore", then the patron won't get notified that their book is ready for pickup. Instead, their hold is still pending and the book is seen as available in the catalog.
Either choice isn't quite right. What we'd like to have happen is for the patron somehow to be informed that their book is ready for pickup not when it's checked in, but AFTER it's gone through the quarantine process, which takes an unpredictable amount of time.
I don't see how the CART shelving location functionality and cron job can deal with both holds and unpredictable quarantine times.
Thanks in advance for any ideas! _______________________________________________
Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz Unsubscribe: https://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
Hi Mark Maybe the section "How will this help libraries?" of the following how-to will give you more ideas: https://bywatersolutions.com/education/new-system-preference-for-trapping-ho... Best wishes: Michael -- Geschäftsführer · Diplombibliothekar BBS, Informatiker eidg. Fachausweis Admin Kuhn GmbH · Pappelstrasse 20 · 4123 Allschwil · Schweiz T 0041 (0)61 261 55 61 · E mik@adminkuhn.ch · W www.adminkuhn.ch Am 15.09.20 um 22:15 schrieb Mark Alexander:
I've tried to search my Koha mailing list archives, and studied the 19.05 manual for a solution to the following problem, but I'm either overlooking something or the problem hasn't been discussed.
Our little library has a pandemic protocol where books that are returned (in a drop box) are checked in twice a week, then put on a special quarantine table. On Sunday a volunteer comes in and sanitizes the books. Then they can be checked out again.
The problem has to do with holds. When a book with a hold is checked in, the librarian has to respond to Koha's popup in one of two ways: press "Confirm", or press "Ignore":
1. If the librarian presses "Confirm", then the patron will eventually notice when they log into to their account that the book is ready for pickup, when in fact it is on the quarantine table and is NOT ready.
2. If the librian presses "Ignore", then the patron won't get notified that their book is ready for pickup. Instead, their hold is still pending and the book is seen as available in the catalog.
Either choice isn't quite right. What we'd like to have happen is for the patron somehow to be informed that their book is ready for pickup not when it's checked in, but AFTER it's gone through the quarantine process, which takes an unpredictable amount of time.
I don't see how the CART shelving location functionality and cron job can deal with both holds and unpredictable quarantine times.
Thanks in advance for any ideas! _______________________________________________
Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz Unsubscribe: https://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
Excerpts from mik's message of 2020-09-16 19:27:46 +0200:
Maybe the section "How will this help libraries?" of the following how-to will give you more ideas:
https://bywatersolutions.com/education/new-system-preference-for-trapping-ho...
Excellent, thank you! I missed this, and I believe it is the correct solution for us.
participants (3)
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Elaine Bradtke -
Mark Alexander -
Michael Kuhn