Fulfillment: Physical item recall: option to recall more than one copy
Currently in Alma when a request is placed on a title where there are 10 copies all out on loan, and none available, a single real-time recall notification is sent to the patron who has the oldest loan, changing their loan status to 'recalled'. The 9 other patrons who have a copy are not made aware of the potential demand for the item at that time.
For the case where there are many copies of a title, the patron requesting the title could be better served if we were to recall more than one item. For example, we might say: up to 3 copies - recall 1, 4-6 copies - recall 2, 7-9 copies - recall 3, etc, etc
This proposal seeks to enhance how Alma's request mechanism handles recall of loans, with potentially more than one item being recalled, perhaps in proportion to the total number of copies.
Jenny McNally
shared this idea
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fneumayer
commented
Will this proposal - this function - be taken into account in the Circulation Desk New UI?
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Chris Jones
commented
Have to say this being delayed again is not a good sign at all. It has consistently been in NERS and multiple rounds of voting. Would be useful to have a substantive update on this.
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Verena M.
commented
To whom it may concern:
I have received the following statement from Ex Libris on July, 28th 2022:
"This enhancement is not removed from our roadmap; however, it was assigned a lower priority than many other fulfilment developments, so it is improbable that it will be developed this or the following year." -
Chris Jones
commented
Hi,
I see from the Alma Roadmap highlights:
https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/@api/deki/files/74878/Alma_Roadmap_July_2019.pdf?revision=1That what appears to be the NERS 4025 outline is covered on p.69
"Multiple Item Recall
• Library will be able to implement more flexible recall policy options
• It will be possible to set a recall policy to apply the shortened due date to any
item or to a configurable percentage of copies that is in a request queue."Due 1st half of 2020
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Anonymous
commented
I'm very pleased to hear that this is planned as all library systems I have ever come across (Including Aleph, which is also an ExLibris product) have been able to recall multiple copies of an item and it is very frustrating and restricting that Alma can't. Allowing recalls on multiple copies would make life so much easier for various reasons and would solve so many problems that result from our automatic renewals policy. Are there any updates as to when this planned improvement will be taking place?
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Jenny Mc
commented
We're also interested to know if there's any further development on this?
Thanks
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Chris Jones
commented
Hi,
Has there been any further progress on this issue?
Thanks!
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Hi,
Thank you for this idea. We will indeed add more flexible policy configuration options for the recall process, including the option to set the percentage of recallable copies that should be recalled. For example, if there are 10 copies, of which 3 have already been recalled, and the parameter is set to 50% then 4 items will be recalled (.50 * 7=3.5)
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Roy Vickers
commented
This would be a much overdue enhancement. Items with high multiples are also likely to have multiple reservations. Removing the option to renew across all copies in such cases would hopefully encourage students holding those items to be more time-conscious in their strategic use, as well as giving those waiting a fair opportunity.
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John Springett
commented
Thank you for adding this, it was on my list of things to do. This cases us lots of problems with fines. We tend not to charge overdue fines as they are caused by non hold related issues. We do however charge recall overdues, but the overdue holds of course do not show this as they were not recalled!
This is also stopping us from using term loans as holds will never be satisfied if the recalled item is not returned.
Many thanks
John
