What happens with Complete requests?

In the normal course of things, the statuses a request goes through are Awaiting Lenders (usually in this status for less than a minute), Pending, Shipped, Received, Returned, and Complete. At many libraries, this leads to a lot of Complete requests:

There's nothing you need to do about Complete requests. The system will automatically delete them after 365 days. If you want them to disappear sooner, you can click on Complete and, on the next screen, change the status of requests to Delete, either individually or (if you dare) as a batch. Remember to hit the Submit button after selecting Delete from the drop-down menu. Deletion happens during overnight processing. The system also allows you to change the status of a Complete request to Lost if applicable. Requests in Lost status are also automatically deleted after 365 days.

Ever wonder why Complete shows up on the Lender side under Items awaiting trading partner response? The Borrower created the request and only the Borrower can mark a Complete request for deletion, which will remove the request from both the Borrower and Lender sides.

Leaving Complete requests as is allows you to look up details on past transactions--either by finding the title in the Complete list or using options found on the ILL Admin menu of the Staff Dashboard for Request Number Search, Title Browse, or (for Borrowers only) Patron Browse. Once deleted, statistical data related to a request is retained but the details are no longer accessible.