This is a living document that is being edited as new options and information are available. Thank you for your patience.
Notifying Customers About Limited Services | Preventing New Loan Requests | Bulk Processing Existing Loan Requests | System Addons | Disabling Overdue Notices | Options for Disabling Lending
Notifying Customers About Limited Services
Editing Status Lines
If you are allowing users to place requests, you can edit the status line for when it is received to say that some items may take longer to fill or not be available. The Customization Key to change is SLRequestReceived under Web Interface .. Status Lines. You can expand on the default wording.
Creating Web Alerts
You can add a Web Alert to your web pages that notify all users about limited options for processing ILL. They can be system level, user status, or NVTGC specific messages and have a future date when the alert no longer displays. Web Alerts are set up under the System tab in the client under Web Alerts.
Preventing New Loan Requests
Editing OpenURLMapping
Instead of sending Book and Journal requests to the LoanRequest.html page, you can edit the OpenURLMapping table to send those requests to the BookChapterRequest.html form. That will prevent loan requests from your OpenURL sources from coming into the LoanRequest.html form. Remember to change both Substitute:genre and Substitute:rft.genre. The ILLiadValue would change to: Article:Book Chapter:BookChapterRequest.html
You may also want to add a note at the top of your BookChapterRequest.html form to indicate that this is only for a particular chapter versus the entire book and if you require the entire book, to indicate in the notes field.
This may be confusing for customers who submit requests regularly through OpenURL and get a request form they are not expecting. The more information you can provide on the web form, the better if you choose this option.
Editing Web Pages
You can edit any of your loan request forms (Video, Thesis, Multimedia, Book, etc.) to hide the request portion and replace it with a message saying that returnables are no longer accepted during these limited staff hours. This will prevent a user from submitting a request, expecting it to be filled, only to find out it was cancelled later.
Below is an example of how to comment out everything in the <fieldset> section of the request form for ILLiad 9.0 pages and replace it with text. Note you have to close the comments at the bottom of the HTML page.
And this is what the new page would look like:
Bulk Processing Existing Loan Requests
Bulk Email for Requests
For any loans that are already in Awaiting Request Processing that you'd like to move to another queue to save for later, you can create a custom email template and entry in EmailRouting and then select the requests from the list to send an email for all of them at once.
You will need to create an entry in EmailRouting.
Then, you need to create the corresponding LoanTemplate in Notification Templates.
In the client, you can then select one or more requests from a queue and send an email to all of them plus route them. It will ask you to confirm that action and then send the notifications and route them.
You can see the tracking and email copies in the request history.
System Addons
Atlas is actively developing these system addons. Updates will be posted to this page as they are completed.
Automatic Routing and Notification Addon
This will allow you to have requests that enter a certain status send a notification and then be automatically route the request to a new queue without staff intervention. The addon page has specifics on how to configure it.
Once you have installed the addon, you will need to make sure you have created routing rules for the MonitorQueues.
For example, a loan request would normally go to Awaiting Request Processing, but you only want this addon to affect loans, so you need a routing rule to move everything with t.RequestType = 'Loan' (and any other criteria) to a new queue that this addon would affect.
The queue you route the requests to after sending the email would also need to be added in CustomQueues.
Because this would use a new email template, you need to create that in Notification Templates and have the name match the EmailName in the addon settings.
Here is an example of a request being submitted by the faculty member Emily P Kitterson and its routing and outgoing email.
Automatic Cancellation and Notification Addon
This will allow you to have requests that enter a certain status automatically cancelled (with the appropriate email and cancellation reason) based on criteria. The addon page has specifics on how to configure it.
Once you have installed the addon, you will need to make sure you have created routing rules for the MonitorQueues.
For example, a loan request would normally go to Awaiting Request Processing, but you only want this addon to affect loans, so you need a routing rule to move everything with t.RequestType = 'Loan' (and any other criteria) to a new queue that this addon would affect.
You need to choose a cancellation reason, but the requests will go to Cancelled by ILL Staff.
Here is an example of a loan request placed by the undergraduate Cash Stryker that was automatically cancelled for the reason "COVID-19 related delays".
ILLiad AutoRenewals Server Addon
This allows staff to enable Borrowing and Lending renewal requests to be automatically approved. There is a setting to choose the number of days to add to the lending due date as well as which user NVTGC values it applies to (blank means it will apply to all).
Disabling Overdue Notices
Both Borrowing and Lending have the option to disable overdue notices. The due date will remain the same, but overdue notices will not go out to your borrowing patrons or requesting libraries. You can change this value in the Customization Manager. There are two customization keys: BorrowingOverdueNoticesActive and LendingOverdueNoticesActive.
Options for Disabling Lending
Add a ReasonForCancellation specific to COVID-19
Within the LendingReasonsForCancellation table, you can ensure that you have an entry for OCLC reason #24 which is PreferredDeliveryTimeNotPossible with user friendly text associated with it. That reason is not included in the table by default. You would need to add an entry in the Customization Manager with an OCLCCode of "24" and a DoclineCode of "other" or "NCR" for non-circulating.
Details on how to edit the OCLC Reasons for No are available here: OCLC Reasons for No
Disable Loans But Allow Electronic/Article Lending
- For OCLC Requests: You can add a deflection policy in the OCLC Policies Directory to cancel Loan requests and limit to just Copy to Electronic Holdings requests.
- Note: Results will vary when limiting to your electronic holdings via the Policies Deflection depending upon on how your journals/serials have been linked in WorldCat.
- Documentation for the Policies Directory is here: https://help.oclc.org/Librarian_Toolbox/Policies_Directory_guide
- For RAPID-R Requests: Contact RAPID directly to disable service temporarily. As of Wednesday, March 18, RAPID now has a way to set RapidILL libraries to electronic resource lending-only mode (no requests for scans in their print collections).
- For DOCLINE, it doesn't seem possible to limit to just your electronic holdings without sending a new holdings load to SERHOLD.
Disable All Lending
- For OCLC lending, rather than add a Deflection Policy, change your OCLC supplier status on the main record from Yes to No.
- For RAPID lending, schedule your lending to be offline via the Rapid Lending Off page. This requires an “off time” and “back on” date/time. Contact RAPID directly if you want to go offline indefinitely.
- For DOCLINE lending, change your Library Schedule in the Libraries tab --> Manage Libraries option.
Creating Deflection Policy
Click play on the video below to see instructions on how to create a deflection policy for institutions wanting to deflect loan requests.