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    Availability Information in the PNX

    This information is not applicable to Primo VE environments. For more details on Primo VE configuration, see Primo VE.

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    During the normalization process, Primo maps the availability information from the source to the Library Level Availability field (also know as availlibrary) in the Display section of the PNX record. This field contains the following data elements structured as subfields, which include both location and availability information:

    • $$I – (required) Primo institution code

    • $$L – (required) Primo library code

    • $$1 – sub-location

    • $$2 – call number

    • $$S – (required) availability status: available, unavailable, or check_holdings

    • $$3 – number of items

    • $$4 – number of unavailable items

    • $$5 – multi-volume flag: Y or N

    • $$6 – number of loans (for ranking purposes)

    For example:
    $$INORTH$$LNMUSI$$1Closed Stacks (Compact Discs)
    $$2(CD-6380)$$Savailable$$31$$40$$5N$$60

    For OvP environments, this field can contain the following data elements structured as subfields:

    • $$X – the source institution code

    • $$Y – the source library code

    • $$Z – the source sub-location (location for Voyager and collection for Aleph)

    • $$P – the priority used to determine the best location when there are multiple locations

    • $$H – the holdings record ID (optional - used for Aleph only)

    For more details about availability in OvP environments, see Basic Setup in Primo.

    Additional subfields are used in association with each Ex Libris ILS (Aleph, Voyager, and Alma). For more information, refer to the relevant normalization rules template under Mapping to the Normalized Record.

    A single PNX record may have one or more Library Level Availability fields from the same or different Primo institutions. This field is important mainly for physical items and may not be present at all in PNX records that represent online resources.

    The calculated availability uses $$S and merges all of the fields for the same institution into a single status. For information on how this is done, refer to the availlibrary field in the Display section of the PNX (see Display Section).

    The display of location and availability in the full record and middle GetIt! tab uses subfields I, L, 1, 2 and S. Currently, the other subfields are not in use by the system.

    It should be emphasized that Primo has not been designed to display complete holdings (all volumes and copies). The display in the full record is a summary availability status per location – that is, the library level or at most, the sub-location level. Since multi-volume records may include volume information in the call number, the Library Level Availability field should not be created per call number.