When a student places a request and there are items in different libraries or locations, how does Alma decide which item to request?
Answer
Most items shown in OneSearch must be requested at the title level, meaning users place a request for any item, not a specific one. We also do not allow users to select their loan period when placing the request. (We used to allow this selection and found that it sometimes led to serious access problems.)
When a request is made for a title, Alma applies an algorithm to select which item will fulfill it. Here are the important factors:
Limitations on delivery. Some of our locations are not allowed to be transferred to other libraries. This is true of the requestable reserve locations (full-semester, 1-week, etc.). So when looking at the rest of the factors, remember this will be a limitation. If ARC only has the item as a full-semester reserve, and the student wants the item delivered to SCC, the ARC item will not be considered at all.
Availability. Let's say ARC and CRC both hold a requested title in locations that allow requests. But ARC's items are not available; they are all either checked out, lost, missing, on the hold shelf, or in a work order e.g. mending. (In Alma we'd say the items are in process.) But some of CRC's copies are available. In this case, the request will go out to one of CRC's items.
Library. When a title is requested, the request designates a pickup location. Alma will select an available item closest to the pickup location. So if the item is to be picked up at SCC, and SCC has available items for that title, the request will go to SCC. If the item is available at other libraries but not the destination library, Alma will first look at campuses, a part of our configuration that groups certain libraries together. The campus grouping will ensure that, for instance, requests that selected FLC's locker pickup will prefer items held in FLC library locations.
I seem to recall that Alma can also use information it has in its configuration, such as IP addresses, to select the closest library. So this would mean that if the destination is CRC, and both ARC and SCC have available items, SCC would be selected, since it is closer to CRC. But I'm not seeing this piece in documentation, and we have not actually tested this behavior; probably it doesn't matter much, given that we are all fairly close to each other.
Location within Library. What if the closest library has items in more than one location? For example, we might have semester-loan and 7-day reserves, both of which permit requests. By default Alma doesn't have a good way of preferring one to the other. So to smooth the path, we configure transit time rules. Essentially, we tell Alma that certain locations are quicker to supply their copies than others. This isn't necessarily true, but the outcome is that if we say that full-semester locations are quicker than 7-day ones, Alma will prefer them when assigning requests to items.