Hold shelf end date and notice to next requestor

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

Desired Outcome Goal:
[From Annie Chan, Open University of Hong Kong Library, via Global Aleph Users list:]
Configure Aleph to send out hold request notice to the next requester only when the hold shelf expired item has been transferred to the pickup library and scanned in at Circulation Counter. (Additonal problem description under Additional Information.)

Procedure:
[From Theo Engelman, Utrecht University:]

You can choose to use another mechanism to inform the patron about the availability of the item that has been requested.
Therefore we don’t use the hold_request_filled email, we always use the Return_Hold functions for that.

You will need to setup this up only for workstations (or Aleph profiles if you use the Aleph Networked GUI) that you use to check-in hold items, putting them on the hold-shelf after check-in.

These are the steps:
1. Take care to make a template hold-request-letter-XX that has all the information in it that you want to send to the patron to inform the item is ready for pickup.
2. Take care to make a template hold-request-slip-XX that has all the information it you want to have on the slip you want to put in the item that will be stocked on the hold-shelf.
3. Take care the XX in these templates correspond, they need to be exactly the same.
a. Using different numbers for hold-request-slip-XX enables you to differ between
i. the actual hold-request-slip your employees use for order-picking the item (if you use this function)
ii. the actual hold-request-slip your circulation desk wants to put into the hold item when putting in on the hold-shelf
We make this distinction for the hold-shelf is public accessible and we don’t want as many personal information on the slip in the item for privacy reasons
4. Take care you setup the ..\circ\tab\print.ini for circulation desks you use to check-in hold items having a line like this:
ReturnHold01 XX N M rethold.prn ‘PRINTER1’ ‘PRINTER2’
The ReturnHold01 function invokes two printouts:
a. The hold-request-letter to the patron, informing the item is ready for pickup
b. The hold-request-slip for the circulation desk to put into the item on the hold-shelf
• XX in column 2 determines which version of the templates I mention in my list above will be used
• Y/N in column 3 determines whether or not the printer device setup window should be displayed or not when using this function
• M/P/B in column 4 determines the output to be emailed. If a patron doesn’t have an email address, the output will be printed of course.
• ‘PRINTER1’ (and you should not use quotes and place this exactly under column 6.1 in the file) determines where the hold hold-request-letter would be handled. You can use a print ID to have it handled by a Print Daemon (which we do), leaving this column empty uses the Windows default printer
• ‘PRINTER2’ (and you should not use quotes and place this exactly under column 6.2 in the file) determines where the hold-request-slip would be handled, which is normally a slip printer in the neighborhood of or attached to the circulation desk workstation. Obviously you don’t want this to be emailed but printed, to be ready to put in the hold item on the hold-shelf.
As we use a Print Daemon to send all letters to patrons and Print Daemon handles the emailing or printing to patrons based on whether or not they have an email address in their Aleph address record, our print.ini looks like this:
ReturnHold01 01 N P rethold.prn centraal
!ReturnHold01 01 N P rethold.prn centraal NO-PRINT
The upper line is active on Aleph profiles (we you use the Aleph Networked GUI) we use to check-in hold items. ‘centraal’ is the Print ID we use for the Print Daemon that handles all letters to patrons, column 6.2 is empty, so the slip is printed on the Windows Default printer.
The second line (which is not active, therefore starting by an exclamation mark) is activated and (and then of course the first line should start with an exclamation mark) on all other Aleph profiles, where we do not want slips to be printed.

For further reference, more information is to be found inside the Aleph documentation.