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Shelves

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Learn how to create shelving areas in the library location in OLIB.

►Cataloguing Reference Data> Shelves

Shelves are useful for Cataloguing and Circulation. They are used in the Catalogue module availability details to describe the shelving area in which an item can be found, for example, Oversize, AV, Stack, and so on. Each Copy of a Title can have a Shelf area assigned to it. Shelves data is assigned directly to Copy records.

  1. Go to Cataloguing Reference Data> Shelves.
  2. Click New Record.
  3. Enter a unique Key ID, Short and Long Description, e.g. Oversize.
  4. Default for is display only. It shows that this shelf area is the default for a specific Location.

This information is displayed after the Sub-location and before the Shelfmark, e.g. in copies hit lists:

9064573465 Main Library (First Floor) Large Print 362.17 BER Standard Available
  1. Optionally to limit a shelf to only one specific location, select a Location in Limit to Location (see below).

Global shelves and location specific shelves

You can associate a shelving area to a specific Location record in Reference Data. This controls shelf assignment when cataloguers are adding or modifying a Copy record.

To use this feature there are 2 fields to set up in Reference Data. (The system manager needs to add the attributes to Shelves and Locations using Layout Manager).:

  • Cataloguing Reference Data> Shelves: Optional Location Limitation

 Note: in the attribute controls if Hide if Null is set to Yes, you will only see the new field when in modify mode.

  • Locations: Exclude Global Shelf (alternatively use the one in System Administration> Admin Client Defaults if all libraries share the same policy on Exclude Global Shelf).

After you have assigned a Shelf to a specific Location, when the cataloguer adds or modifies a copy record, the list of shelves that can be assigned to the copy record will be limited, depending on whether the Exclude Global Shelves field is set to Yes or No.

  • Yes (or null): when editing a Copy record, the list of shelves the cataloguer can select from is limited to those that are assigned to the location already selected . (All other “global” shelves are excluded). If the location does not have any shelves assigned to it, the list of shelves that can be selected from will only include “global” shelves, i.e. those shelves that are not assigned to a location.
  • No: when editing a copy record, the list of shelves the cataloguer can select from is limited to those shelves that are assigned to the location already selected, plus those shelves that are not assigned to any location. If you change the copy’s location and the current shelf is assigned to the location that you change from, the current shelf value will be removed from the copy record.

Exclude Global Shelf also applies to default shelf information where it is configured in other domains (Serial Copies, Locations, Orders, Order Items and Digital/Films).