Fulfillment Networks
- Walk-in loans
- Direct requesting
- Return anywhere in the network
- Pickup anywhere in the network
- A network patron card in Primo
A fulfillment network has the following additional attributes:
- Limited patron information is shared between the institutions in the network.
- The inventory of each fulfillment network member institution is discoverable by patrons of all fulfillment network members.
For information on configuring a fulfillment network or Pickup Anywhere/Return Anywhere, see Configuring Fulfillment Networks.
Fulfillment relationships define the services that one library is able to perform for another library within the same institution. For more information see Configuring Fulfillment Services Between Libraries Within an Institution.
Viewing Network Activity
Pickup Anywhere Workflow
Requesting an Item for Pickup Anywhere in the Network
Get It at Other Institutions
Network inventory display may be based on a shared Network Zone in which all institutions take part, or based on a discovery network that is not utilizing a Network Zone. See Overview of Collaborative Networks with Primo VE for more information on the shared discovery options.
When the institution is part of a network, Primo will expose the discovered record’s inventory at the patron’s institution, as well as at other institutions of the network. The home institution’s inventory and the network institutions’ inventory are displayed in separate sections, as shown below.
Other institutions’ inventory may be displayed without allowing the patron to directly request the other institutions’ resources. For example, if the institution implements a resource sharing or automated fulfillment network, network requests are placed via the resource sharing link.
Alternatively, the institution may allow the patrons to navigate into the other network members’ inventory information and directly place a request.
Below are some of the service types an institution may set up for network requesting.
Expose other institutions’ availability only
In this model the home institution may decide to expose only information about which institution holds available copies of the discovered resource. The institution may decide not to allow the patrons to further navigate into every institution’s holdings information. This has the benefit of allowing less navigation in the full view page, minimizing the potential confusion that multiple options may cause. With this setup the patrons will only see that institutions do or do not own available copies, and will always use the same Resource Sharing Request link for requesting. The link for the Available in institution text can be deactivated. Please consult Primo configuration guides for achieving this type of set up.
Expose other institutions’ holdings
In this model the home institution may decide to expose, in addition to information about which institution holds available copies of the discovered resource, also where the inventory is found, but not allow directly requesting the remote institutions’ items. This would be a classic setup where the institutions allow patrons of one another to walk into each other’s library and use the on shelf items, but require that the requesting be done only using the Resource Sharing option from the local inventory display.
As is shown below, in this setup the Available in institution text does allow navigating into the network institutions’ inventory, but the remote institution’s Get It information is shown without the patron being automatically logged into that institution. This causes the following:
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The remote Get It has no request options.
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The loanability information is either loanable or not loanable, and is calculated using the same procedures that are used for determining potential loanability when the patron is not logged in.
This is achieved by setting the uresolver_remote_register parameter to None in the Configuration Menu > Fulfillment > Other Settings page. Note that this parameter takes affect for the remote institution (i.e. not the patron's home institution).
Allow directly requesting other institutions’ holdings
The institutions may decide to expose not only which institution holds available copies of the discovered resource and where the inventory is found, but also allow directly placing a request on the remote item. This would be a standard setup when the institutions do not utilize a resource sharing or an automatic fulfillment network based rota, but rather allow the patrons to directly find items of other institutions and directly request them.
Require manual linked account registration
It is possible to set Alma so that when the patron chooses to display a remote institution’s Get It information, the default view will be as for a non-logged user. Alma will not automatically create a linked account at the remote institution, and will therefore not display detailed terms of use and will not show a request option. A ‘Register’ option will allow the patron to explicitly request to create a linked account.
This type of set up may be done in order to make sure that linked accounts are only created when the patron explicitly requests to create them. This may serve privacy considerations, as well as prevent multiple linked accounts from being created unless the patron really wants to create a local request.
Using the ‘Register’ option creates the linked account and reloads the remote Get It information with detailed terms of use and with request options, after having created the linked account.
To do this, set the uresolver_remote_register parameter to Manual in the Configuration Menu > Fulfillment > Other Settings page. Note that this parameter takes affect the remote institution (i.e. not the patron home institution).
Allow automatic linked account registration
Set the uresolver_remote_register parameter to Auto to skip the Register step and always automatically create the linked account at the remote institution. This setup streamlines the request process and skips the need to manually register before getting request options, but may result in multiple linked accounts created at every institution which the patrons has navigated into for viewing request options.