Expired/cancelled holds need to be moved along as quickly as possible because usually there is another patron waiting for the item. It is not fair to keep a hold longer for one of your patrons when someone else’s patron is waiting for that item.

Be aware that we have set up the Expire Holds report so that it gives at least one day’s grace anyway. 

Clean Holds Report:
Your library gets this report only on days there is something that needs to be pulled. It produces a list of holds that have expired after being available on the holds shelf for more than 8 days, or that have cancelled by the patron before the expiration date, and puts the item INTRANSIT to the next location.  These items need to be pulled from the hold shelf and scanned with Check Item Status to see what needs to be done with them.

The produced lists are NOT cumulative—each received list needs to be handled by the library.  Libraries need to check for lists on both their open and closed days.

If the user tries to check out the item after it has appeared on the clean-holds report, staff need to do an override.

Things which may appear strange, but are actually normal:

• The Current location is CHECKEDOUT.  This means the hold was cancelled by the patron, but he/she checked it out anyway before staff got to clearing the shelf.

• Items appear on the list before their expiration date.  This means the patron cancelled the hold.

Step-by-Step Instructions: Clean Holds 

Let Karla Smith know if there is anything else strange with your list. 

What to do when an item is on your Clean Holds List but not on your holds shelf
Please refer to the Tracking Missing Holds document.

When copies of a book are needed for a reading club the simplest solution is to place a hold for each member of the club.

If you need to wait for all books to come in before distributing them to patrons, here is the recommended procedure:

1. Create a Yourlibrary Book Club card with a profile of LIBRARYUSE.
   There are multiple ways of doing this: Last Name “BOOKCLUB” First Name: Person running the club, or Last Name: LIBRARY First Name: BOOKCLUB, etc.  Decide whose address to use, whose email to get the hold notices, etc
   *** The main point is to use a profile of LIBRARYUSE instead of PUBLIC. ***
2. Place holds on all the copies you need using this card.
3. As items arrive (or are about to expire), check them out to the GL Book Club card.
4. As patrons arrive asking for the books, re-check them out to each individual. It will require an override, but that's OK.

This means that the copies have a Current Location of Checkedout so they don't appear Available, and you have a nice long window of opportunity to wait for the readers to come in and pick them up.

Using the Profile of LIBRARYUSE means there won’t be extra padded circ for checking the item out twice.

Since the book club titles will be out of the owning library for a longer period of time, titles should selected that have enough copies and are don’t have more than a few holds.

How to add a note to a hold to identify what to do with an item when it gets trapped (ex: whether patron needs to be called that their hold is available for not).

Step by step instructions, with screen shots, are available here: Adding Hold Notes.

When placing the hold in WorkFlows, after entering Patron ID and Item ID, look farther down the screen; underneith the Pickup location is the Comments field. Text entered into this field will display in the popup hold alert when an item is discharged or sanned in Check Item Status.