Skip to main content
OCLC Support

WorldShare Circulation release notes, October 2023

 

Release Date: October 22, 2023

Introduction

This release of WorldShare Circulation allows your library to use the enhanced service for WorldShare ILL integration to keep your circulation and ILL requests in sync.

These enhancements are the direct result of your feedback.

Recommended actions

For this release, we recommend that you review the following checklists and complete the relevant tasks so that you can adjust your policies and workflows and train your staff. These checklists identify updates that we have determined as significant for most institutions. We encourage you to review all of the items in the release notes to determine whether there are other items that might require additional action or follow up by your institution.

Administrative actions

These items require immediate action or decisions.

Action

If your library currently uses or is interested in enabling the integration between WorldShare ILL and WorldShare Circulation:

 Note: Your library will not be impacted by this release if:

  • Your library has not enabled integration with WorldShare ILL.
  • Your library has enabled integration only with Tipasa, Relais D2D, Project ReShare, and/or ZFL-Server.

New features and enhancements

Utilize the enhanced service for WorldShare ILL integration to keep your circulation and ILL requests in sync

With this release, all WorldShare Circulation libraries that have enabled integration with WorldShare ILL will be automatically migrated to ILL's newly developed and enhanced circulation integration service. 

If your library is not currently using WorldShare ILL integration, setting it up will streamline the ILL-circulation process. Staff who process ILL loans will no longer need to update WorldShare Circulation manually to create temporary items and patron holds, charge patron ILL fees, check out items that your library is lending, or check in items at the end of the loan period.

Workflow changes for patron borrowing

If your library is already using the integration between WorldShare ILL and WMS, you don't need to make any changes to your system configuration.

However, the following changes will occur when the migration is completed:

  • Temporary items and patron holds will be created in Circulation when the ILL request is updated to Received status in WorldShare ILL.
  • Patrons will be able to see their ILL requests in My Account only after the requested item has been received by your library.

Prior to this release, patrons and library staff could see pending ILL hold requests in Circulation, My Account, etc. as soon as the ILL request was submitted to lenders. After this release, the enhanced integration will wait to create temporary items and holds until the requested item has been received. As a result, your library will no longer need to delete holds in Circulation for ILL requests that are ultimately unfilled, fulfilled as copy requests, etc.

 Note:  Any temporary items and holds that were already created by the legacy integration (i.e. prior to 22 October 2023) will not be deleted or modified with this release. Any existing holds will continue to be visible to library staff and the patron and will be updated as usual when the ILL request is updated to Received status in the future. If the ILL request is not fulfilled, you may want to manually delete the hold request and withdraw the temporary item, per your library's current procedures.

New integration options

With this enhanced circulation integration, your library also will get more options to automate ILL workflows across WMS with WorldShare ILL including:

  • Borrowing: Choose the holding and shelving location assigned to temporary items
  • Borrowing: Charge your patrons fees for interlibrary loan
  • Borrowing: Check-in items that your library has returned to the lending library
  • Lending: Check out items that your library has agreed to lend to another library
  • Lending: Check-in items that your library has received back from the borrowing library

In OCLC Service Configuration, all WorldShare ILL libraries will now see these options for circulation integration in your WorldShare Circulation and WorldShare ILL configuration.

Review the  FAQs for WMS integration with WorldShare ILL to learn more about these new options and about the recommended steps for enabling each feature.

 Note: The new integration options will be disabled by default. If your library has been using the legacy integration with WorldShare ILL, then only the borrowing integration for the creation of temporary items and patron holds will be enabled in your WorldShare ILL configuration after this release. See Workflow changes for patron borrowing for what to expect after the release.

New and updated configuration pages

If your library wishes to make changes to your integration between WorldShare Circulation and WorldShare ILL, you will find the primary screens in OCLC Service Configuration.

For WorldShare Circulation, the primary configuration options can be found under WMS Circulation > Integrations > ILL Settings > Tipasa and WorldShare ILL. Prior to this release, these settings were limited to libraries using Tipasa integration. If you use WorldShare ILL, you can now use this screen to:

  • Enable integration to allow Circulation to respond to integration commands sent by WorldShare ILL
  • Choose the holding and shelving location assigned to temporary items created during the borrowing integration
  • Specify the barcode of the user account to be used to loan materials
  • Configure if patron fees should be charged automatically as requests are fulfilled by lenders

For WorldShare ILL, the primary configuration options can be found under WorldShare ILL > Circulation Integration. You can use this screen to:

  • Enable integration to allow ILL to send integration commands to WMS
  • Choose if your library will use different options for borrowing and lending integrations
  • See the WorldShare ILL release notes, October 2023, for more details.

 Caution: It is highly recommended that you review the FAQs for WMS integration with WorldShare ILL before making changes to your configuration. For example, there are several circulation policies, maps, and matrices that need to reviewed before enabling most of these features.

Bug fixes

There are no bug fixes associated with this release.

Known issues

See the Known Issues page.

Important links

Post-release sessions

To help you become familiar with the new features, enhancements, and improvements included in this release, please attend the upcoming webinar Product Insights: Resource Sharing.

Date: Thursday October 26, 2:00pm, Eastern Daylight Time (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC -04:00)
Registration: https://community.oclc.org/t5/resource-sharing-events/product-insights-resource-sharing/ec-p/44129#M4

Please note the session time zones when registering. The sessions will be recorded and archived for future viewing on the OCLC Community Center. Please register, even if you cannot attend, to receive a link to the recorded session.

Support website(s)

Support information for this product and related products can be found at: