Request This Item icon explained

Earlier this week it was noted that the Request this Item icon was available for some but not all items in the search results view. This, it turns out, is normal. It has to do with the number of underlying records.

Requests need to be created from a specific bibliographic record but on the search results page you're often seeing a clustered or merged view that combines similar records. When you click through by selecting a format you'll see the separate records listed and the icons to create your request.

For the first title (the audiobook) in the example above, there were two records from two different catalogs found even though only one of those records had a holding attached--information revealed by clicking on the format link. The second and third titles each represent only one record found in one catalog. The fourth represents three different records, each with a single holding, in three different catalogs.

The default grouping for search results in the NHAIS ILL System is clustered, which combines results with a matching title and author. The merged grouping breaks things down further by adding publisher and date into consideration. "No grouping" is also an option, in which case you should see the Request this Item icon on all titles listed. If you hover over the question mark next to "Group By" (in the upper right of the search results screen) you'll see how the options work.

Here's a clustered view of search results where only the last format listed, large print, represents a single record and thus displays the Request this Item icon:

Switching to merged view on the same search results breaks things down further and shows more Request this Item icons:

Note this is only a partial view of the results--one would need to scroll up or down to see all the records that contributed to the clustered view.