How do we use item policies?
Answer
Item policies are used to group items that circulate in similar ways for the purpose of sending overdue notifications, adding patron blocks and changing overdue items to Lost status.
Current item policies distinguish between short-term reserve items that do not allow requests, short-term reserve items that allow requests, and long-term loans.
- Short-term - No Requests (example: 2-hour)
- Short-term - Requests Allowed (example: 7-day)
- Long-term (example: Circulating, 1-semester)
- In Process - No Requests (used in cases where we have put a work order on an item and want to temporarily block requests)
The first three item policies in this list do not have any effect on the request or loan fulfillment rules, but are used to define the Overdue and Lost Loan profiles. If none of those three item policies are applied, borrowers will not receive overdue notifications, and overdue loans will not be changed to Lost.
For further explanation of the way item policies impact Overdue and Lost Loan profiles, see Overdue and Lost Loan Configuration.
Add item policy to new items
When receiving or creating a new physical item, choose the appropriate item policy from the dropdown menu.
Note that libraries should decide which item policy to apply to new reserve locations based on whether the items can be requested or not.
Changing item locations
When items are moved to new locations, either permanently or temporarily, we should ensure that the desired item policy is set. For example, if a 2-hour item is moved to a circulating location, the Item Policy should be changed to Long-term.
If the item is actively in a temporary location, you may use the temporary item policy. This is helpful when, for instance, scanning an item in to a temporary location. If the temporary item policy field is blank, the regular item policy field will be active for the item, even if it is in a temporary location.
Automated maintenance
We have a process in place that checks Analytics reports nightly to find items with missing item policies or with policies that are not properly mapped to their location. The process uses Alma APIs to double-check the situation and then, if appropriate, add or change the item policy.