Understanding the Retry option

If a request goes through a lender list without getting shipped, the system will check the lender list for locations to retry. There are several ways the system determines a location is worth retrying:

1) The lender changed the status from Pending to Retry, with the option to add a reason or condition:

2) The lender changed the status from Pending to Will Not Supply and additionally specified a reason/condition that the system considers "non-terminal," including In use/on loan, Not on shelf, On hold, On order, or On reserve:

The [Retry] or [Unfilled] next to each reason in the list tells you whether the system considers it worth another try if other lenders are unable to ship the request.

3) The lender was on vacation, in which case the request history will show a line similar to this: Notes: Lender NHHSXX closed - skipped. Try again after Nov 09.

4) The lender's catalog indicated the item was not currently available, in which case the request history will have a line like this: Notes: Item not available - lender NHHSXX skipped, retry later.

As a borrower, if your request goes to Retry status, you're given these choices:

1) Approved - Send: Your original request will again work its way through the lender string, ignoring locations that previously gave a "terminal" reason for not supplying. Be sure to check if you need to extend the Need By date before choosing this option. It's usually best to wait a bit before retrying a request. You might want to check the request history for any notes that might tell you, for example, that the book is due back on a certain date or the library is back from vacation on a certain date. If you approve your retry too soon after the request went into that status, you may find the same result because the item still isn't available at the locations previously checked.

2) Cancel: Your request will not be sent to potential lenders again. You may create a new request for the same item if you like but be aware it's likely to be sent to the same owning libraries as your previous request.

3) Delete: The request record will be removed from the system during overnight processing. Any statistics generated by the transaction will remain in the system.

If you do nothing, the status will change from Retry to Expired once the Need By date has passed.

[This post was updated May 13, 2021]