Regional Holds
If your library has acquired the Consortium Management Extensions product, Sierra automatically converts title-level holds to item-level holds if any items are available to satisfy that hold. If more than one available item can satisfy the hold, Sierra uses the Locations Served table, PCODE, ICODE, and AGENCY types specified by your library, and the optional Library Priority table to determine which item will fulfill the hold.
If your library has acquired the Agency Holds product, the system uses the agency values in the Hold Pickup Locations table to determine the next hold to fill.
Regional holds apply to patron-placed holds in WebPAC and staff-placed holds in Sierra.
Multiple Title-Level Holds
If the Holds: Allow multiple title-level holds circulation option is set to "YES," you can place multiple title-level holds on one bibliographic record under one patron's name. However, since the use of the multiple title-level holds feature would limit the system's ability to automatically convert title-level holds to item-level holds, this option must be set to "NO" at any library that uses Regional Holds.
Compatibility with Other Features
The Regional Holds feature is not compatible with the following features:
- Page Pickup Location First
- The Regional Holds feature overrides the Page Pickup Location First feature.
- Title Priority Paging
- The Regional Holds feature is not compatible with the Title Priority Paging feature.
Setup: Selecting ICODE, PCODE, and AGENCY Fields
Sierra uses pairs of PCODE and ICODE or AGENCY fixed-length fields to determine whether patrons and items belong to the same region. A patron record belongs to the same region as an item record if the designated PCODE fixed-length field from the patron record matches the designated ICODE or AGENCY fixed-length field from the item record. Before Innovative can set up this feature, you must specify which PCODE, ICODE and AGENCY fixed-length fields you want to associate with each other (e.g., PCODE3 and AGENCY) and use for the region code. Compatible PCODE and ICODE fields are as follows:
| Code | Associates With |
|---|---|
| PCODE1 | ICODE2 |
| PCODE2 | ICODE2 |
| PCODE3 | AGENCY |
Once you have identified the PCODE and ICODE fixed-length fields you want to associate, contact the Help Desk.
Placing Title-level Holds
With this feature enabled, Sierra takes the following steps when you place a title-level hold:
- Determines whether any available items can fill the hold. Sierra considers an item "available" if it meets all the following conditions:
- has a status of '-' (i.e., available)
- is not checked out
- does not already have other item-level holds
- is holdable by the patron (determined by loan rules)
- does not have a value of '0' in its Library entry in the Library Priority table
- If there are no available items, Sierra places a title-level hold. If only one item is available, Sierra places an item-level hold on that item and prompts you to print a paging slip. If more than one item is available, Sierra determines whether any of those items belong to the specified pickup location. If only one item belongs to the pickup location, Sierra places an item-level hold on it. If more than one available item belongs to the specified pickup location, Sierra randomly places an item-level hold on one of those item records and prompts you to print a paging slip.
- If none of the available items belongs to the specified pickup location, Sierra determines whether any of the available items belong to the same region as the patron. To belong to the same region, the value in the designated PCODE field from the patron record must match the value in the designated ICODE field from the item record.
- Beginning with item records that belong to the same region as the patron record, Sierra places an item-level hold on the item record whose location is given the highest priority according to the Library Priority table. If all the items within that region have the same priority in the Library Priority table, Sierra randomly places an item-level hold on one of those item records and prompts you to print a paging slip.
- If none of the available items belongs to the same region as the patron, Sierra places an item-level hold on the item record whose location is given the highest priority according to the Library Priority table. If necessary, Sierra randomly selects from the item records that share the highest priority and prompts you to print a paging slip.
- If there are no settings in the Library Priority table and none of the available items belong to the same region as the patron, Sierra randomly selects an available item to receive the item-level hold. After placing the item-level hold, Sierra prompts you to print a paging slip.
Automated Transfer of Paged Items
If your library has the Automated Transfer of Paged Items feature enabled, the system automatically transfers pages to the next available attached item when the time specified in the Pageslips: Number of hours before page can be transferred circulation options passes. The system updates the Automatic Transfer of Paged Items log with information about each hold that it transfers.
This feature is available only to libraries that have acquired the Consortium Management Extensions product. To have this feature enabled at your library, contact Innovative.