Reservations parameters

Learn about the reservations parameters in OLIB.

►User Management > Locations: Circ Details: Reservations/Recalls
►Circulation Reference Data > User Categories
►Users
►Circulation Reference Data > Loan Terms

The following parameters should be defined to set up Reservations. The same set of parameters is used regardless of whether the reservation is placed in WorldView / OLIB Web / the OPAC.

 Caution: note that the Reservation Rules should first be considered carefully and planned out prior to setting up reservations in OLIB. Once you have a single rule set up, all other materials / users are excluded from reservations. Do not change the rules during a busy operational time.

Locations

A number of parameters can be set against each Location record. These are found in Locations: Circ. Details: Reservations/Recalls section.

This page should be completed as follows:

Field Instructions
Reservation Logic

This defines how reservations operate in the OPAC for users who are registered at that location. Consider carefully how this works with Multiple Locations and Reservation Rules

blank: leave Reservation Logic blank to indicate that users registered at this location can reserve anything, subject to limitations imposed in the other fields.
0: users at this location cannot reserve anything, irrespective of other parameters.
1: users at this location can reserve any item, subject to other conditions, unless there is an available reservable copy of the title at the user's location.
2: users at this location can reserve any item, subject to other conditions, unless there is an available reservable copy of the title at any location.

Reservations Allowed
  • This parameter indicates whether anyone is allowed to reserve copies catalogued for this Location. If this field is set to No, this location's copies will be excluded from the list of reservable copies when any user clicks the Reserve option in the OPAC to place a reservation. If this results in no copies being available for the user to reserve, a message is displayed to this effect and the user will not be able to submit the reservation.
  • Excluding User Category / Copy Category combinations: the Loan Terms details (Limits) allow you to disallow specific categories of User from reserving specific copy categories. When Reservations Allowed = No, OLIB does not go on to check the Reservation Rules, so these will not apply.
  • Excluding Individual Copies from Reservations: the Reservations Allowed field in the Copies layout also allows you to exclude a specific copy from any reservation options. This takes priority over any setting in Loan Terms or Locations above.
Reservations if Expired If you set this field to No, users from this location will not be able to place reservations if their membership has expired, i.e. if the Expiry Date in their User record is on or before the current system date.
Reservations if Banned If you set this field to No, users from this location will not be able to place reservations if they are 'banned' from circulation.
Reserve If On Loan?

Enter No in this field if you do not wish to allow users from this location to be able to reserve an item that they currently have on loan.

If set, when the user attempts to place a reservation on an item that he/she currently has on loan, a message will be displayed to this effect the user will not be able to submit the reservation.

Reserve if Reserved Either [null] or Yes in this field means you will allow users from this location to be able to reserve an item that they already have reserved (they can do this in WebView). This field determines whether users at this location can have multiple reservations per title. If it is set to No, the user will not be allowed to submit more than one reservation at a time for the same title. If an attempt is made to do this, a message is displayed to inform the user that the reservation was not possible because he/she already has a reservation on the title.
Reservable... Used for multi-site locations and reservation rules (below).
Hold Period

Indicate the number of days for which a held item will be retained. When an item is held, the calculation of the hold expiry date takes into account the library’s closed days and holidays. A process in daystart flags any held reservations as Held – Soon To Expire, when the To Expire On date is the day after the current system date. Library staff can run a filtered search on all reservations with this status and decide whether to warn the user that the hold on the item will be removed if he/she does not collect it that day or the following day.

Another process in daystart flags any held reservations that are past their expiry date as Held – Should Be Cancelled. Library staff can run a filtered search on all reservations with this status and decide whether to cancel the hold and return the item to the shelves (or hold it for the next user on the reservation list).

Additional Hold Period fields
The Locations domain can include additional hold period fields to define different default hold periods per copy category and per location per copy category. The system manager first needs to add these fields to the layout using Layout Manager:

Location Copy Category  a combo list of copy categories
Location Copy Category Hold Period a number field, max. 99
Add Location Copy Category Setting a button that adds an entry in the Location Copy Category Settings field below for the values you entered in Copy Category and Hold Period fields above
Location Copy Category Settings a list box that lists all the copy categories for which you have defined a Location-Copy Category hold period for this location

If you have entered a location-copy category hold period, this takes precedence over a hold period you have defined in the Copy Category record itself.

Reserve New Copies?

A Yes/No flag relevant to new copies, or copies whose category has been changed to a reservable category.

If set to No, copies are NOT added to existing active reservations:

  • when the copies are created manually or during the check-in process (unless the reserving user is included in the Order Items: Ordered For list and with Reserve On Receipt? Yes. In this case the copy is added to the active reservation even if Reserve New Copy? No).
  • when the copies Copy Category is changed to a category that is reservable

If this flag is empty, the default position is Yes.

Auto Expire Held Res? A Yes/No flag to indicate whether Held reservations should automatically expire and move on to the next user in the queue after the number of days specified.

Multi-site locations

These fields are used for Multiple Locations and Reservation Rules. The following fields implement reservations in multi-site libraries: Reservable User Categories, Reservable Locations, Reservable Copy Categories, Reservable Copy Statuses, Reservable Loan Statuses, Reservable Rules.

(Recall Num and Res Per Copy are not currently implemented).

Notice destination and notice destinations

These fields are used for Reservations Received Notifications and Rotas. It is now possible to configure OLIB so that Reservation Received notifications are only sent to the locations of the copies reserved. Where the reserved copies are at several locations, the Reservations Received Notifications would be sent to one location at a time in accordance with a pre-defined rota.

NCIP Password Required

If this field is set to Yes then when you make an NCIP request for which OLIB needs to authenticate the user, then the user record in OLIB must have a valid password, and the NCIP request must have the same password included. If the field is set to No or NULL then the password is never checked at all. (This means that in this case if a password is supplied on the NCIP message that is different to the users password then it won't be checked and authentication will still succeed).

Submit Res. As Active (NCIP), (SIP), (Folio)

Yes, No flag determines whether reservations placed by these functions should be submitted as Active reservations.

  • Yes: reservations submitted in e.g. WebView by users registered at this location will be submitted as Confirmed reservations
  • No / not set: e.g. WebView reservations will be submitted as Unconfirmed

This flag is not set by default, you should review it to ensure that it is set correctly for your library.

Set maximum reservations per user

This can be done in 3 places:

  • Go to each User category enter the maximum number of reservations on the Details page in Max Res. This is the maximum that a user of that category can have at any one time.
  • This field applies to all users in that category unless they have a different value in the Max Res field in their own User record. If this field is blank on the user record the value from the user category is used by default.
  • In addition it is possible to set a value for Max Res in the Loan Terms for a particular User category/Copy category combination.

Default Reservation Type

The default reservation type (Title, Copy, Set) can be configured in Admin Client Defaults.

Title potentially reserve all copies of a title
Copy reserve specific copy/ies
Set reserve all copies in a set

The system administrator first needs to add the Default Reservation Type attribute to the Admin Client Defaults layout using Layout Manager.

This is implemented in the Reservations domain whenever you create a new reservation.

  1. Go to System Administration> Admin Client Defaults.
  2. In modify mode choose Title, Copy or Set from the Default Reservation Type drop down.
  3. Save the changes.

Whenever you create a new reservation this default will be implemented.