March 13, 2013

Phantom titles on Set to Not Available list

While most screens in NHU-PAC's ILL program require you to enter a 7-digit number to change the status of a request, the Set to Not Available screen gives you the option of selecting titles from a list.  Every now and then you may notice a title that wasn't on your Incoming Requests screen.  Where did it come from?

This happens when borrowers request items which have no holdings in the NHU-PAC.  Borrowers should notice that there's nothing listed where the holding libraries would normally be displayed:

Depending on your computer's configuration, you may see the following helpful message (circled in red for visibility here) when landing on items without holdings:
In such cases, there's no point in placing the request in the system.  Try a message to the NHAIS-ILL e-mail list instead.  If you do click the request button, you'll see the following when selecting lenders:
Or you might see this:
In either case, you should click the Cancel Request button and try a message to the NHAIS-ILL list.  If you do select "NHAIS Services NHU-PAC" as a lender and submit the request, all users will see the title listed at the bottom of their Requested Title list on the Set to Not Available screen:
These requests are usually cleaned out each morning by NHAIS Services.  The NHU-PAC has thousands of bibliographic records with no holdings.  Sometimes they're newer titles which will soon have holdings added; sometimes they're older titles which have been deaccessioned by the original holding libraries but which another library just might acquire someday and come looking in the NHU-PAC for a matching record.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments on this blog are welcome, but they are moderated. Signed comments that we feel make a positive contribution to the discussion will be posted.