There are legitimate situations where a request initially submitted as a Book Chapter request must ultimately be fulfilled by sending the entire physical book. While this workflow is uncommon, it does occur when the pages requested encompass the entire book rather than a chapter.
Currently, if the lending library updates the request in ILLiad as Shipped (Loan), the update is successfully transmitted to RapidILL, but Rapid rejects it because the request type is a Book Chapter. As confirmed by Ex Libris Support, (Case No : 234664006) Rapid only allows the Shipped action for requests that originated as Books, resulting in the request remaining active until it times out and is marked Unfilled.
This creates several problems:
• The borrowing library receives the physical book, but Rapid continues to treat the request as unfilled.
• The request is routed to additional lenders unnecessarily.
• Borrowing libraries may create duplicate OCLC requests to obtain the item, resulting in duplicate shipments and unnecessary staff work.
• Lending libraries have no supported way to notify Rapid that the request has actually been filled with a physical item.
Requested Enhancement
Allow lenders to indicate that a physical loan has been shipped even when the original Rapid request was submitted as a Book Chapter. Possible approaches include:
• Allowing the existing Shipped update to be accepted for Book Chapter requests.
• Automatically converting the request from a chapter request to a loan when a Shipped update is received.
• Providing an alternate status (for example, "Filled as Loan") that closes the request appropriately while informing the borrowing library that a physical item has been sent.
• Allow for communication between libraries within the system to confirm a loan is acceptable by the borrowing library. Make it possible for the borrower to convert an existing request to a loan before the update to “shipped” happens.
This enhancement would better support real-world interlibrary loan workflows while preventing duplicate lending, unnecessary lender rotations, inaccurate request statuses, and additional staff intervention.