First available copy requests on serials

When requests are allowed for serials, and a patron clicks Place Request at the title level, a message directs the patron to select individual issues. In the staff client, this option does not prevent a staff member from placing an item-specific request for a monographic title, and the staff member can place a first-available-copy request for an issue or standing order An order placed with a vendor or the publisher directly for all publications in a series, all volumes in a set, or all publications of a single publisher. part.

If the item record is linked to a Serial Issue Record, is holdable, and has data in the Issue field, the request is treated as a first available copy request. The MARC Bibliographic level entry may or may not be S. If there are other items with matching Issue data linked to the same bibliographic record, these will also be eligible to fill the request. When considering whether Issue data matches, internal spaces and all punctuation are considered, but letter case and beginning and trailing spaces are ignored.

If the item is linked to a bibliographic record with the Bibliographic level entry S, but there are no linked Serial Issue Records, the request can be filled by that specific item only—the equivalent of an item-level request on a monographic title. In other words, if you do not use the Polaris Serials subsystem, but manually enter volume data in the call number of the item, the first-available-copy functionality is not available.

Note:
Libraries who do not use the Serials subsystem can allow individual item requests, setting up each specific issue with an item record. Or, they may use the grouped request functionality in the staff client (Grouping a Patron’s Hold Requests).