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    When the reading room workflow fails

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

    Problem Symptoms:
    In some cases the sublibrary of a reading room loan is not set back to its original value after returning it from the reading room.

    Long description: When an item is loaned to a reading room, a new field is added to the ADM record. This field is called R30 (Z30 until version 18, see also Tips & Advice no. 69) and contains the original item values including the sublibrary so that these values can be restored after returning the item from the reading room. When the item is returned the R30 field should be deleted, and the original sublibrary is restored in the item record. In some very rare cases this process does not work: No R30 field is created, and so the reading room library remains forever in the item record; this is of course highly undesirable.

    Cause:
    Whenever a record is changed, a CAT field is added to the record. This happens for BIB records as well as for HOL and ADM records. So whenever the ADM record is changed, a new CAT field is added. If an item is highly requested in a reading room, the R30 field is constantly added and removed, resulting in hundreds of CAT fields. The records grow to its maximum size, when no further field can be added anymore. From that moment on no R30 field can be added anymore, and the reading room workflow fails.

    Resolution:
    Solution 1: You should run manage-13 on a regular basis in order to delete the CAT fields. You find this service in your Cataloging module. Remember that it needs to run in the ADM library in order to get rid of the above-described problem. (Nonetheless it may make sense to run it in other libraries as well.)

    Solution 2: From version 21 on, there will be a new tab100 parameter, CREATE-CAT-FIELD. Its values are Y (default) or N. When it is set to N, no CAT fields are created in the library's records. You may define this parameter in any library, for example you may define CREATE-CAT-FIELD=N in your ADM library and CREATE-CAT-FIELD=Y in your BIB library. If you don't want to make use of this variable, the above-mentioned solution 1 is available in Aleph 21 as well.

    Category: Circulation (500)

    Subject: Reading room

    • Article last edited: 10/8/2013