Global Changes for multiple items linked to HOL record

• Article Type: General
• Product: Aleph
• Product Version: 20

Description:
We are on version 20. As part of an off-site storage shift, one of our staff members needs to move thousands of items from one location to another. These items are on many bib records. This means that the sublibrary, collection, and item statuses must be changed. These items are linked to HOL records, but not all the items linked to a specific HOL record will be moved to a different HOL record (only certain date ranges).

I understand that the Global Changes option will not work for items that are linked to HOL records. I also understand that we can manually unlink a single item from one HOL record and then re-link it to another. Finally, I've looked at the option "Edit Items Set Offline" but again, this only offers a "one-at-a-time" editing feature.

Is there any possible way to efficiently move linked items from one location (HOL) to another?

Resolution:
[From Mike Rogers, University of Tennessee at Knoxville, on the Global Aleph Users list:]

For Aleph v.20:

- Using the Global Changes button for multiple items linked to existing HOL records *does not* work
- Using the Bind/Changes button for multiple items linked to existing HOL records *does* work

Here are the steps I used (thanks to Sue Dresye for originally suggesting this method):

1) In the Items List of Cataloging, click one item that needs to be changed;
2) In the lower section of the screen, click on tab 6 (HOL Links);
3) Click the Bind/Changes button in the upper pane;
4) In the left side of the screen click and highlight all the items that need to be changed, then click the black right-arrow;
5) In the right side of the screen, make sure all the items are still highlighted. If not, click on them to highlight;
6) Click the Changes button;
7) Type in the HOL. Link number of the HOL record to change them to;
8) Also fill in the appropriate values such as sublibrary, collection, item status, etc. This step is important because the various statuses must be valid for the HOL record that the items are moving to (thanks to Jane Aitkens for pointing this out);
9) Once everything is filled in, click OK, then click Yes when asked "Are you sure you want to execute changes?"

Once these steps are completed, all the items are changed according to the values specified and appear instantly in the Items List with their new values.

This will be a huge time saver for our staff (and I'm guessing other sites too). I do find it strange that you can accomplish item global changes via the Bind/Changes button but not with the Global Changes button, but am just glad that there is a method to accomplish what we need :)

• Article last edited: 10/8/2013