Improve how Alma selects libraries for internal requests
We are 1 institution on Alma/Primo, our organisation is NHS Scotland. We have libraries from different NHS regions (or health boards) each linked to a particular campus.
When a patron requests an item on Primo and selects the pick-up location they belong to, Alma checks to see if that particular library can fulfil that request.
Thereafter it will just select randomly from the list of other libraries to fulfil the request.
The issue we have is that a library from the same campus may be able to fulfil that request but Alma may select a library up to 150 miles away to fulfuil the request.
So although we would not want to restrict a patron from making a request from any library, we would like it if Alma could select a library from the patron's campus first before checking other libraries from our institution.
We noted an idea 'Requestable by Campus Affiliated Patrons Only' but it is not quite the same our suggestions but I wonder if the changes made for this idea could be expanded to accomodate ours.
Derek
When a hold request is created and the holdings to fulfill the request is not available in the selected pickup location, Alma now matches the holdings to the request using additional parameters
For more information please see:
https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Release_Notes/010_2019/Alma_2019_Release_Notes#Select_Request_Locations
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Sue Harmer commented
Hi Moshe,
How will Ex Libris's planned enhancements work for both patron and library initiated digitisation requests, including digitisation requests placed via Leganto? Will we be able to customise the logic for the selection of copies for digitisation?
Sue
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Annelie Edelmann commented
It would be great, if this enhancement also means that an available copy at the library of the pickup location will be selected with prio 1. See our case #00570763.
Thanks
Annelie -
Derek Boyle commented
Great! Thanks for confirming this development Moshe. Our library colleagues will be pleased.
Derek -
Anonymous commented
This would be a sensible improvement - could allow patrons to collect an item from a local library rather than posting it to another part of the country.
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Judith commented
This is a great idea and would save time and money as we have to use Royal Mail to post items to other Health Boards and some Board use Recorded Delivery too
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Clare Scanlan commented
This would be a great enhancement Derek thanks for submitting it Clare
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Anonymous commented
Hi Derek
I think this is a great idea and would save the NHS a lot of money in postage.
Lynn
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Alex Forrest commented
Hi Derek, Sounds like a good enhancement.
We would like this type of request to be made based on the Item location/Campus irrespective of patron campus affiliation. So a campus being a group of libraries and a group of locations. We would like patron driven requests to be blocked if the item is within the same CAMPUS and allowed if the requesting and delivering CAMPUS are different. Not sure it's exactly the same issue but related (?) -
Anonymous commented
Derek - what about having the option for you to select the fulfilling from the list of available items?
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François Renaville commented
Yes, this would indeed be a nice enhancement. Thanks for creating the idea!
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Derek Boyle commented
Hello Borghild
I wonder if ours is this same
Derek
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Borghild Nordal commented
Our campus library get a lot of patron physical item requests even as there are a library much closer to that patron.
This recreate much more work and the items are now in transit in much of the time.
Creating a sorting by physical proximity one could use the adress of campuse in ALMA and something like Google maps.