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OCLC Support

About ordering

Discover how orders work in OLIB Acquisitions.

An Order in OLIB is equivalent to the order form in a manual acquisitions system. It contains details relevant to all the items ordered e.g. Supplier, Order date, Order Number, Currency and Delivery method. Order items in OLIB correspond to the individual titles listed on the order form in a manual acquisitions system.

Orders are processed in the Orders domain. All items that are ordered are attached to an order. An order may have any number of items but is limited to one supplier. In the Orders domain, you enter the order header details and then details for each individual order item on the order. The status of the order and all order items defaults to Pre-Order. This enables you to enter as many details as you wish, save them, and return at a later time to complete the order.

For each order item, you can search the catalogue to check if a copy is already in stock or a title record already exists. If so, you can use the existing catalogue record for this order item. If not, then you can create a new catalogue record to be used for the order item. A minimal amount of bibliographic detail may be entered for acquisitions purposes. You can search the catalogue and either insert an existing title record or create a new title record in context.

Create new orders in the Orders domain. Using the streamlined workflow, order items can be added quickly, especially if you have configured acquisitions reference data defaults. You can create order items in 2 ways:

  • Click Search in the Title field - If you click Search in the Title field, you simply retrieve an existing title or create a new one and insert it into the order item details. Most of the order details will have defaulted if you have set up reference data defaults. See Ordering for more information.
  • Click New at the foot of the Order Items box - If you click New at the foot of the Order Items box this takes you to the detailed Order Items layout. Using this you can enter more complex details such as sharing the cost of an item between different cost centres and recording the locations that copies of the order item will go to. See Extended Order Items Layout for more information.

Create new order using Supplier Online Services: Using the Supplier's system (e.g. Coutts' Oasis), you can place your order online with the Supplier and they will send to OLIB an EDI Quotes message. This contains shell bibliographic data and ordering information. OLIB uses this to create Title records, Order with Order Item records and (if used) accounting information. When the items arrive, you check them into OLIB as normal.