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 whereby Library Open Workflows 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.
We also have a process in place to remove item policies for items that have been loaned outside the district via Interlibrary Loan. These items are often a bit late to return, but do almost always come back to us. If an item is lost, the process of recovering our fee from the borrower would not be done via Alma. Temporarily removing the item policy avoids unnecessary overdue notices and other redundant activity. When the item is returned, the process in described in the preceding paragraph will restore the item policy.
Steps that support the automated maintenance
In Analytics, the shared filters are located in our institution (LRCCD) folder in the following directory: Subject Area Contents/Physical Items. They are named according to the item policy code, e.g. Limit to long-term location codes. Open the filter and add the location code to the list. Please try to insert it in roughly alphabetical order.
Add the location code to the appropriate tab of the Google Sheet (access available only to certain library personnel).
If you delete a location or it otherwise becomes obsolete, you may reverse the above: remove it from the filter and the Google Sheet.