March 4, 2013

Spring Cleaning for ILL

Have you looked at all your outstanding NHAIS ILL transactions through Request Inquiry lately?
You may be surprised to find some very old requests there. Every Friday, ILL transactions that have been in a terminal status (Completed, Unfilled, Cancelled, Expired, or Temporary) for at least 7 days are purged from the system. Once an item has been Shipped by the lender, it needs to be Received and Returned by the borrower, then Completed by the lender. If the borrower or lender neglected one of these steps, the transaction remains active and continues to display in Request Inquiry.

If everybody who participates in NHAIS ILL did the following steps as part of a spring cleaning effort, we could purge a lot of old transactions from the system!.

  • This week check in Request Inquiry for status Shipped (click the drop-down arrow to select a status) and Requests made BY your library (the middle radio button above the OK button). If you find an old request (you can tell by the number on the left--anything under 1245000 is more than 3 months old) that you know you've already received, go to the Staff Menu, click Receive Loans, and enter the request number. Then check in Request Inquiry for status Received/Requests made BY your library. If you find an old one that you know has been sent back to the lender, go to the Staff Menu, click Return Loans, and enter the request number.
  • Next week check in Request Inquiry for status Returned/Requests made TO your library. For any materials you know you've received, go to the Staff Menu, click Complete Loans, and enter the request number. At any of these steps, you may come across some old transactions that you're not sure about. Do your best to determine the correct status of the request: check your notes, check your shelves, ask the borrowing or lending libraries to check their shelves.
If you need help with any of these procedures, call the NHAIS Help Desk at 271-2141 weekdays between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m

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