This document outlines the different options school sites have when setting up holds for their students. The instructions in this document assume the site is working with a one branch system, not including any Book Rental branches, as items in those branches won’t be available for hold on OPAC in any case.
This also assumes your students have been set up with login information for the OPAC which is necessary for them to place holds from there.
Step 1 - Navigating to the fine and circulation rules
Go to Koha administration > Patrons and circulation > Circulation and fines rules
This will bring up a page with a table called Defining circulation and fine rules for all libraries.
This table is split into rules that determine which patron category can take out which item type and for how long. The above screenshot shows a small section of the table, as it is quite long. To see the full table, scroll to the right hand side.
The first thing to decide is if all students should be able to place holds on all items or if you want to prevent some combinations from placing a hold. This decision will determine which circulation rules to edit. For help with editing the specific rules on your site, please contact Interleaf Technology directly. Step 2 - Decide rules for holds
Scroll to the right hand side of the table and there will be five columns related to holds. Some will have to be filled out to enable holds while others are optional.
Holds allowed (total): Mandatory
Fill this box in with the amount of holds an individual student should be allowed. For example, if you put 5 in this box, the student will be able to place 5 holds and then won't be able to place any more holds until one of the holds is filled (checked out to the student) or the hold is cancelled. You or the student will be able to cancel the hold.
Holds allowed (daily): Optional
Fill this box in if you want to set a limit on how many holds a student can place in one day. For example, if you put 5 in the Holds allowed (Total) box and then 3 in the Holds allowed (Daily), the student will be able to place 5 holds overall, but if they try to place a four or more holds in one day, they won't be allowed.
Holds allowed per record (count): Optional
Fill this box in if you want to set a limit on how many holds a student can place on a record. If you set this to 1, the student will only be able to place one hold on a record. Some sites like to set this limit so students don't place multiple holds, thinking they can up their chances of getting an item first, or place holds on all copies of an item to prevent others from getting it.
On shelf holds allowed: Mandatory
This determines if students can place holds on items that are available in the library or if they can only place holds on items that are checked out.
Unlike the previous columns which have been boxes to fill with numbers, this is a dropdown menu.
The options in the menu are:
i. Yes
Students will be able to place holds on items that are available and items that are checked out.
ii. If any unavailable
Students will only be able to place holds on items that are available if other copies of it are checked out. If all copies of a title are available, students won't be able to place a hold.
iii. If all unavailable
Students will only be able to place holds if all copies of a title are checked out. If some or all copies are available, students won't be able to place a hold.
Item level holds
This determines if students can place a hold on a specific copy of an item or if they can only place a hold on the title and will need to take whichever copy the library selects to fill their hold.
Again, this is a dropdown menu and the options are:
i. Don't Allow
This will mean students can only place bibliographic level holds. They won't be able to place a hold on an individual copy.
ii. Allow
This will mean students can place both the bibliographic and item level holds.
iii. Force
This will mean students can place only item level holds. They will have to specify an individual copy to place the hold on.
Step 3 - Relevant system preferences
In addition to the rules set in the fine and circulation rules table, there are several system preferences that relate to how holds will function.
Please note, these system preferences have been selected based on the standard functionality of a Scooter site. This is not a complete list of system preferences that relate to holds, but the ones that are most likely to impact on how a Scooter site functions.
System preferences:
AllowHoldsOnDamagedItems
| Allow/Don’t Allow - hold requests to be placed on and filled by damaged items.
If items that have been flagged as Damaged can be allowed to fill a hold then this should be set to Allow.
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AllowHoldItemTypeSelection
| Allow/Don’t Allow - hold fulfillment to be limited by itemtype
When there are multiple items with different item types on a record, this system preference can be set to Allow so students can select which item type will fulfill their hold.
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AllowHoldsOnPatronsPossessions
| Allow/Don’t Allow - a patron to place a hold on a record where the patron already has one or more items attached to that record checked out
If a student should be able to place a hold on a record, when they already have an item from that record checked out then this system preference should be set to Allow.
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DecreaseLoanHighHolds
decreaseLoanHighHoldsDuration
decreaseLoanHighHoldsValue
decreaseLoanHighHoldsControl
decreaseLoanHighHoldsIgnoreStatuses
| Enable/Don’t enable the reduction of loan period to X days for high demand items with more than X holds on the record/over the number of holdable items on the record
This is a set of system preferences that work together to allow the loan period of an item that has more than a set amount of holds on it to be automatically reduced.
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ExpireReservesMaxPickUpDelay
| Options:
Allow/Don’t Allow - holds to expire automatically if they have not been picked by within the time period specified in ReservesMaxPickUpDelay
If libraries want holds to automatically expire if they have been confirmed but not picked up in a set number of days then this system preference should be set to Allow.
This works with the system preference ReservesMaxPickUpDelay
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Maxreserves
| Patrons can only have X holds at once
This system preference allows staff to put a maximum amount of holds a patron is able to have. This will be referenced if a maximum number of holds for a patron category and an item type has not been specified in the fine and circulation rules.
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OpacHoldNotes
| Allow/Don’t Allow - users to add a note when placing a hold.
If staff want to allow students to add a note for staff to see when they are placing a hold, this should be set to Allow.
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ReservesMaxPickUpDelay
| Mark a hold as problematic if it has been waiting for more than X days
This allows a hold to be flagged if it has been waiting longer than the time specified. Staff can run a report to see these holds and then decide to cancel them if appropriate.
It is also possible to use this system preference with another system preference called ExpireReservesMaxPickUpDelay if they wish for the hold to be cancelled automatically after a set amount of time.
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RequestOnOpac
| Allow/Don’t Allow - patrons to place holds on items from the OPAC
This enables the hold functionality overall. If this is not set to Allow, then regardless of how the rules have been set in the fine and circulation area, the function will not appear for students.
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SuspendHoldsOpac
| Allow/ Don’t Allow - holds to be suspended from the OPAC
If students should be able to suspend their holds for a period of time, without needing to delete them entirely, this system preference should be set to Allow.
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WaitingNotifyAtCheckin
| Notify/ Don’t notify - librarians of waiting holds for the patron whose items they are checking in
If this is set to Notify then when a staff member is checking an item in for a student who has a hold which has been put aside for them a message telling the staff member will appear.
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Version History
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Version
| Date
| Detail
| Author
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1.0
| 25/09/20
| Doc. created
| Holly Cooper
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1.2
| 28/09/20
| Small edits
| Holly Cooper
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1.3
| 07/05/21
| Adding screenshots
| Holly Cooper
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Retention Policy
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Permanent
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