Booking Requests ALEPH 500 Version 18

Booking Requests ALEPH 500 Version 18
Presenter: Yoel Kortick

Types of Booking Requests
ALEPH supports two types of booking requests: Rolling booking requests Advance booking requests

Types of Booking Requests - Rolling
Rolling booking requests – These booking requests are not confined to predefined slots. The patron may define any start and end time for the booking request, according to the patron’s needs. This type of booking request is usually referred to simply as a ‘booking request’.

Types of Booking Requests - Advanced
Advance booking requests – These booking requests may be created only within the frame of predefined reservation slots (tab43). The start and end times that are available for creating booking request have been previously defined by the system librarian, depending on the item’s type and sublibrary. This type of booking is usually referred to as an ‘advance booking request’

Types of Booking Requests
We will first discuss “rolling booking”, and then “advanced booking”. As we will see, there is much in common between both types of requests. Booking requests differ from standard hold requests. There is no assumption of a “booking shelf” or status “on booking shelf”, as there is a “hold shelf” and status “on hold shelf” for regular requests. It is intended that a patron will, by himself, go to the library stacks and take the item which he has booked, bring it to the circulation desk, and loan it.

Rolling Booking Requests – Creation via GUI
Rolling Booking requests can be placed either by a patron from the Web OPAC, or by a staff user in the Circulation GUI. STEP ONE: To create a booking request via the GUI select menu “Requests -> Booking Requests -> Create Booking Requests”

STEP TWO: The following dialog box will open.

STEP TWO (continued): This dialog box lets you enter the barcode of the requested item and the ID or barcode of the patron for whom the request will be created. You can search for an Item and Patron by clicking the relevant button. The search for an item is library-configured, and usually enables searching by BIB or ADM system number, or any one of, or a combination of, ISBN, ISSN, Author words, Title words, Year of publication. Search for patron displays the List of Patrons.

Here we have entered the desired data

The Create Booking Request form is displayed, letting you insert the request parameters: This gets added automatically from the item description

You can also open the booking form by clicking the Booking Req. button in the Items List.

STEP THREE: Fill in the form and click OK. This submits the request and runs the library-defined checks on the requested booking, stopping the process if any patron or item blocks are found to be relevant for the requested booking.

Fill in the form and click OK.

Details on each field of the Booking Request Patron ID: This is the patron's ID number. Name: This is the name of the patron requesting the booking request. Description: This is the description of the item that is being requested for booking. Note1 and 2: Optional: add a note for the library staff about the booking request.

From Date/To Date: Enter the period of time during which the patron is interested in receiving the material. The system default period depends on your system's setup but you can change the dates when creating the booking request. Delivery/Return Needed: If you select this option, the Pickup Location drop-down list will only include delivery locations. If you clear this option, the Pickup Location drop-down list will only include pickup locations. Similarly, selecting this option allows you to choose a return location. The drop-down list will contain either pickup or delivery locations, depending on whether pickup or delivery is required.

Pickup and Return Location: Choose the location where the patron will receive the material and where the patron will return the material. The options can include a specific sublibrary or any other library-defined pickup location, according to the patron's permissions. Pickup and Return Sub Location: Type in the sublocation where the patron will receive the material and where the patron will return the material. The field is a free text field, allowing any information to be typed in.

Head Time: You can override the system's default head time by typing in any other information. The field format is [M/H/D]nnn, where 'M' means minutes, 'H' means hours and 'D' means days. nnn is a three-digit number that is the amount of time required. Tail Time: You can override the system's default tail time by typing in any other information. The field format is [M/H/D]nnn, where 'M' means minutes, 'H' means hours and 'D' means days. nnn is a three-digit number that is the amount of time required.

Delivery Time: You can override the system's default delivery time by typing in any other information. The field format is [M/H/D]nnn, where 'M' means minutes, 'H' means hours and 'D' means days. nnn is a three-digit number that is the amount of time required. Release Time: You can override the system's default release time by typing in any other information. The field format is [M/H/D]nnn, where 'M' means minutes, 'H' means hours and 'D' means days. nnn is a three-digit number that is the amount of time required.

Delivery Method: Choose from a predefined list of delivery methods. Only Selected Item: If you want the booking request to be filled only by the specific copy, select this option.

Rolling Booking Requests – Creation via Web
A patron who has identified himself with username and password in web OPAC may perform booking via the web (provided this has been defined by library) From the items list the patron clicks “Booking”

The patron then fills in the desired date and time of when he wants to book the item, and then clicks “Go”. He will receive a message that the Booking has been registered. We will later see that this differs from advanced booking. In advanced booking the patron needs to choose from predefined slots.

The booking request will then appear in the readers card

Viewing a Booking Request
You can view booking requests in two ways from GUI: from the Items Tab and the Patrons Tab from the Administration tab.

View booking requests from the Items tab and patrons tab Items tab Patrons tab

In either case, the upper right pane shows a list of the relevant booking requests

The lower right pane shows the details of the request highlighted in the upper pane:

Viewing booking requests from the Administration tab The Administration Tab lets you retrieve booking requests of different patrons and different items by using various filters, as shown here. An item in the list of booking requests can then be delivered, loaned out or deleted, as described in the Updating and Deleting a Booking Request and the Fulfilling a Booking Request sections.

Viewing booking requests from the Administration tab

Click Filters, located at the upper right pane on the screen.

The following form appears:

This form lets you fill in a list of filters which will be used to retrieve booking requests of various items and patrons. Filling the required filters and clicking on OK will retrieve the list of booking requests, which will be displayed in the upper pane, with the details of the highlighted request in the lower pane.

Here we are searching for all booking requests from start date 21 Nov to end date 21 Nov. 2006, from start hour 17:00 to end hour 19:00. We are searching only for those opened on 21 Nov After filling in the parameters we click OK

And we receive the list of booking requests which meets our criteria

Updating and Deleting a Booking Request
The booking request list contains a Delete button. Clicking on this button deletes the selected booking request and creates a delete notice to be sent to the relevant patron. to be made. The booking request may de deleted from the list which is arrived to from the items tab, patrons tab, or administration tab filter

To update a booking request’s parameters: Select a request by highlighting. Change the request’s parameters in the lower pane and click Update (the button is located in the lower pane). Note that when a request is updated the changes are checked for validity, so that changing the booking time to a time that is not available will be blocked. Also note that if a request time is changed to a time that is not available and the conflicting request can be re-allocated to another item, the conflicting request will be moved, allowing the change to be made.

Here we changed the “Booking date From” and “Booking Date to” fields from 21/11/2006 to 22/11/ We must then click “Update” to save our changes.

Fulfilling a Booking Request
You can fulfill a booking request in one of two ways: Loaning the item to the requesting patron Delivering the item to the requested delivery location.

Loaning the item to the requesting patron Loaning a booked item can be done by clicking the Loan button that is located in the booking request list in the Patron Tab, the Item Tab and the Administration Tab. You retrieve the required request by clicking the Filters button, as described in the Viewing a Booking Request section, selecting the relevant item from the Booking List, and clicking on the Loan button.

Loaning the item to the requesting patron

After clicking “Loan” the item is loaned … And removed from the booking list

You can also loan a booked item by using the Loan Tab just as non-booked items are loaned. If the calculated loan period of the issued item is found to include a booking request that was made by the loaning patron, the loan will be considered as a fulfillment of the booking request.

Here we have a booking request for item barcode to patron barcode for 18:00 to 18:30 on 21 Nov. 2006 Loan the item

The due date was later than the “Booking date to” and “Booking Hour to”. Therefore: The Due date changes to the “Booking date to” and “Booking Hour to”. The booking request gets deleted

If the loan period falls after the start time of a booking request that was made by the loaning patron, but before the end time of the request, the following options will be displayed for the staff to choose from: Fulfill the booking request, meaning that the loan due date will be the booking request’s end date. The loan will be considered a booking request fulfillment, meaning that it cannot be recalled and that the booking request will cease to exist as a request and will be transformed to a booked loan. Cancel the booking request, meaning that the booking request will be removed and the loan will be processed like a regular loan using the system defined loan period for setting the due date

Item barcode is of an item status which is defined to have to return at 16:30 on 21/11/2006. Patron barcode has a booking request for it from 21/11/2006 at 16:00 to 21/11/2006 at 17:00

When we loan the item we get this message: We chose “Yes”

And the loan is until 17:00 o’clock (end of booking period) Instead of 16:30 (end of loan period)

Booking Request Services
The following services can be used to manage booking requests Service Function Call Slips for Requests (cir-12) Produces call slips for booking requests Requests Report (cir-07) Produces a list of the requests placed for library material Booking Reminders (cir-33) Prints letters to send to patrons notifying them about their upcoming booking requests Risk Analysis Report (cir-35) Creates a report of upcoming booking requests that are at risk of not being filled Report / Delete Expired Booking Request (cir-34) Enables you to report / delete old booking requests which did not culminate in a loan from the database

Advanced Booking Requests
An advance booking request is different from other booking requests only in the fact that it is confined to predefined slots. After the booking request is created it is managed like regular booking requests (previously investigated in this presentation).

Advanced Booking Requests
We will now review the following steps used for Advanced Booking. Define "Reserve" Item Status Assign Item to "Reserve" Status Define Time Slots for Reserve Schedule Open (Activate) Schedule (cir-60) Request Item (Advanced Booking is placed) Print Report (optional, cir-09) Loan Item Delete Old Schedules

Advanced Booking Request
Brief Background Many libraries maintain a reserve collection from which patrons may borrow items on a short-term basis (for example, for one or two hours). The library sets up a booking schedule. A patron requests to borrow an item during one of the time slots available in the schedule through the Web OPAC interface. Librarians can place Advance Bookings using the GUI. The patron borrows the requested item from the Circulation desk of the Reserve Item collection when his time slot arrives.

Define item status for reserve item collection The first step in advance booking is to define an item status for the reserve item collection. This status must be uniquely used for reserved items. To do so, your System Librarian must edit tab15 appropriately. 15H 03 ## L Regular loan (may be booked) Y Y Y N Y Y N Y Y 00 Y A

Assign item to “Reserve” status To assign an item to one of the reserve item collections, you may use either the Items function or the Circulation GUI. In the Items function, fill in the Item Form. In the Item Status field of the form, enter one of the "reserve" item statuses. In the Circulation GUI, go to the Items menu and choose Change Item Information. Use the sequence of forms that pop up.

Here we assign item barcode a “Reserve” (bookable) status 15H 03 ## L Regular loan (may be booked) Y Y Y N Y Y N Y Y 00 Y A More on tab15.lng later

Define Time Slots for Reserve Schedule In order for a patron to be able to request reserve items, you must set up the advance booking schedule, including the time slots during which patrons may loan items. To do so, your System Librarian must edit tab43 appropriately.

! !-!!!!!-!!-!!!!!!!!-!!-!!!!-!!-!!!! P MED tab43 example for 5 3-hour time slots each day for item status 03 in sub library MED. More on tab43 later

By using the Reserve Items function in the Circulation module (select Circulation / Reserve Items from the main menu), the librarian can choose to view all reserve items requested by a particular patron, or only the items requested for the current time slot.

The librarian might want to view the upcoming time slot. For example, the time may be 11:30 and the upcoming time slot is 12:00-14:00. In order to enable the librarian to view the upcoming time slot at 11:30, you can define a preview period of 30 minutes. During this preview period, the librarian can also loan an item to a patron if the item is available, even though it is before the end of the current time slot. The item will then be loaned to the patron for the upcoming time slot. If an item is available during a slot period (but before the preview period), it is possible to loan the item to a patron immediately (during the current slot) with no need to place a reservation beforehand.

Note that if the patron does not have permission to place multiple hold requests on the same item, then he will not be able to reserve more than one slot per day for the same item. Similarly, the patron will not be able to request the same material for two days in a row if one slot is defined to be 24 hours long. Permission to place multiple hold requests on the same item is governed by the Multiple Hold Requests privilege setting. This definition is per sublibrary. To change the setting for an individual patron, select the appropriate Multiple Hold Requests radio button from the Patron Registration / Local Patron Information / Local Privileges tab.

Advanced Booking Request – open schedule
Open (activate) the schedule The schedule which was defined in tab43 must be “opened”. Once you have defined an advance booking schedule, the next step is to open, or activate, the schedule so that it may be accessed through the Web OPAC by patrons and through the Circulation GUI by the Circulation librarian. You can open schedules manually, or you can set up the system to periodically open schedules automatically.

To open schedules, select Open Advance Booking Schedule (cir-60) from the Services / Advance Booking menu. This service enables you to open all schedules up to and including a particular date. Note that schedules may be open for a total of 50 days, which includes days that the library is closed. The schedule can be built for any number of days ahead of time.

This job may also be put in the job_list

When a new item is added with an Advance Booking item status from the Items function of the Cataloging module or from the Course Reading Web module, an advance booking schedule is automatically created. The same happens when the item's status is changed to an advance booking item status. When an item is deleted (through the Items function in the Cataloging module), or if the item status is changed, the advance booking schedule is automatically deleted. The number of available items on the schedule grid will be reduced accordingly. If there was only one item (the one that you deleted), then the schedule grid will be deleted automatically.

Advance booking slots are opened to the end of the week in which the "to-date" falls. There are cases, such as holidays and other blocks of days during which the library is closed, where you might want to remove slots that have already been created. To do this, run the service Delete Advance Booking Slots (cir-65).

Advanced Booking Request – displaying the schedule
After you have opened the schedules, you can determine the number of days from the available schedule that will be displayed in the Web OPAC and in the Circulation GUI. For example, you have opened schedules for the next two months, but in the Web OPAC you want to display only the upcoming two weeks. This way the Web OPAC patrons can only request items up to two weeks in advance.

In the GUI you can display the whole period for the Circulation Librarian. Go to the Items tab and retrieve an item that has an Advance Booking / Short Loan status. Click Hold to place an Advance Booking. This opens a window with a schedule for this item. You can place an Advance Booking for any slot that is not fully booked yet. The column Requests displays the number of current bookings for each slot and the number of items that are offered by the library for this title.

Item which is bookable in items list of circulation module Click this

Receive this: These are the slots made in tab43 and opened via cir-60

To determine the number of days that will be displayed in the Web OPAC, edit the www_server.conf file in the ./alephe directory. The parameter www_item_schedule determines the preview in the Web OPAC. For example: setenv www_item_schedule To determine the number of days that will be displayed in the GUI, edit the pc_server_defaults file in the ./alephe directory. The parameter pc_item_schedule determines the preview in the GUI. For example: setenv pc_item_schedule

Viewing Advanced Booking Requests
Advance booking requests can be viewed in the Items tab or in the Patrons tab, by looking at the 'Bookings' node. The requests can be loaned or deleted from the 'Bookings' node as described previously in this presentation.

Viewing Advanced Booking Requests
Advance booking requests in the Patrons tab

Creating Advanced Booking Requests in Web
After logging in to web OPASC a patron will see the following for items which are bookable via “Advanced Booking”: Patron clicks the “Booking” link…

And sees this: These are the slots defined in tab43 and opened via cir-60

When we earlier made booking request for an item which was not “advanced booking” but rather “rolling booking” we did not get a schedule. For rolling booking the patron enters the times by himself. There was no status of the item in tab43 and thus no time slots.

After clicking the “Requests” link for a specific slot the user then receives this message (provided there are no blocks):

Viewing Advanced Booking Requests in Web
Then if the user clicks “My Library Card”…

He will have a link top his booking requests

After clicking the link the user sees details of each of his booking requests

Creating Advanced Booking Requests in GUI
When the librarian places a request on a reserve item for a particular time slot through the GUI in the name of the patron, an entry will be made in the schedule for that patron. The item will be reserved for him for the requested time slot. (If a preview period has been set, the patron may receive the item from the Circulation desk during the preview period provided the item is available.)

Go to the Items tab and open an item with an Advance Booking / Short Loan status. Click Hold Request to place an Advance Booking. A window with a schedule for this item opens. You can place an Advance Booking for any slot that is not fully booked. The column Requests displays the number of current bookings for each slot and the number of items that are offered by the library for this title.

Go to the Items tab and open an item with an Advance Booking / Short Loan status. Click Hold Request to place an Advance Booking.

A window with a schedule for this item opens. You can place an Advance Booking for any slot that is not fully booked. Enter the Patron ID and click OK to book the slot. Now we are creating a booking request for patron This is the booking request we created via the web The column Requests displays the number of current bookings for each slot and the number of items that are offered by the library for this title.

Now if we click hold request from the item list of the circulation module we see both booking requests”

Advanced Booking Requests Report
You can periodically print a report of the current day's advance booking schedule. The report lists information about the items that have been requested (such as title and call number), the time slots for which the items were requested, and the patrons requesting the items. This may be done by running the service "Advance Booking Schedule Report (cir-09)."

Run from the service menu

Here we retrieve all items for the current day which have a booking request between 06:00 and 22:00 and are in the Medicine sub library.

Here is the job in the batch log

Here is the report

Deleting old schedules
Old schedules should be periodically removed from the system to ensure that the Advance Booking function works quickly. To delete old schedules manually, select Services / Delete Reserve Item Schedule (cir-61). You can delete all schedules up to and including the date you enter in the form. Note, however, that the current day's schedule and those of the two preceding days cannot be deleted. This job may be added to the job list to run on a regular basis.

Item Booking related tables
We will discuss five tables related to item booking ADM $data_tab/tab15.lng ADM $data_tab/tab16 ADM $data_tab/tab43 ADM $data_tab/tab_booking ADM $data_tab/tab100 tab14 [not “exactly” related to item booking but let’s include it anyway]

Item Booking related tables – tab15.lng
The columns of tab15.lng which are related to item booking are columns 16 and 17. ! COL ; ALPHA {Y,N,C}, UPPER; ; ! Booking permission; ! Y - Booking is possible ! N - Booking is not possible ! C - Booking permission is conditional on the patron's local booking ! permission (Z305-BOOKING-PERMISSION); ! COL ; ALPHA {A,O,C}, UPPER; ; ! Booking hours; ! A - Booking is possible at all times (both open and closed hours) ! O - Booking is possible only during open hours ! C - Booking is possible only during closed hours; Note: Col. 17 is really only relevant for rolling booking and not for advanced booking. It is not relevant for advanced booking because in any case with advanced booking the booking times are predefined.

Item Booking related tables – tab15.lng
In the case below status 01 may be booked, while status 03 may not be booked ! ! !!!!!-!!-!!-!-!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!!-!-! 15H 01 ## L Regular loan Y Y Y N Y Y N Y Y 00 N A 15H 03 ## L Regular loan (may be booked) Y Y Y N Y Y N Y Y 00 Y A Status 03 may be booked at all times, both open and closed hours (A in col. 17)

Item Booking related tables – tab16
The column of tab16 which is related to item booking is columns 26. ! COL 26. 3; NUM; ; ! Max no. booking requests; ! Max number of booking requests ! The maximum number of booking requests a patron is allowed ! to have. ! We use 999 to indicate unlimited number of requests.;

Below item status 03 may have an unlimited number of booking requests ! !!!!!-!!-!!-!!-!-!!!!!!!!-!!-!-!!!!-!!!!-!!!!!-!!!-!!!-!-!-!!!!!!!!-!-!!!!-!!!-!!!-!!-!!!!-!!!!!!!!!!-!!!!!!!!!!-!!!!!!!!!!-!!!-! MED 03 ## ## A D A

tab43 is used to define the schedule for Advanced booking. It is not relevant for rolling booking. Here is an example, (see also the table header) Here we state that item status 03 in sub library MED may be booked (advanced booking) 0n Monday – Wednesday in the following time slots: 06:00 – 08:00 09:00 – 11:00 12:00 – 14:00 15:00 – 17:00 18:00 – 20:00 ! !-!!!!!-!!-!!!!!!!!-!!-!!!!-!!-!!!! P MED

After running cir-61 to open the time slots, and having tab43 as in the previous slide, we have this in the GUI: The same time slots as in tab43

Item Booking related tables – tab_booking
tab_booking is used to define the head and tail times for item booking. For each combination of sub library, item status and item material type the following parameters are defined (on next two slides):

Head Time: This is the time that will be added at the beginning of a request. Tail Time: This is the time that will be added at the end of a request. Release Time: This is the time that has to pass from a request start time until the item becomes available to other patrons (when the original patron does not come to take it). Delete Interval: This is the amount of time before a request start time in which the patron can still delete the request.

Max advanced starting-date: Limits how far into the future bookings can be made. check_booking_request_l (of tab_hold_request) refers to this variable. Preview Period: Determines how much time in advance a booking can be executed, e.g. if the booking period is between 12:00 and 18:00, and this column is set to 5 minutes, the patron can execute the booking starting from 11:55.

If we have this defined in tab_booking: ! !!!!!-!!-!!!!!-!!!!-!!!!-!!!!-!!!!-!!!!-!!!! MED 03 ##### M020 M035 M030 M025 M010 M010 Then we get these defaults when making advanced booking request

First booking parameter in tab100 !# BOOKING-DELIVERY-TIME !# Values: Default: M000 !# Type: Text; Max Length: 04 !# tab100 of library: Yes; tab100_<server_type>: No. ! ! Defines the delivery time that will be added to a ! booking request that is required for delivery. The value ! is a three digit number that can express minutes, hours, days ! or weeks, depending on the variable prefix.

Second booking parameter in tab100 !# OVERLAP-BOOKING !# Values: Default: 01 !# Type: Text; Max Length: 02 !# tab100 of library: Yes; tab100_<server_type>: No. ! ! booking period ++++ ! | | ! | |------| | ! 8: :00 13: :00 ! | | ! desired loan period ++ ! = Extend loan until end of Booking Period (default). ! = Delete booking request; execute loan regularly (accept system- ! suggested due date). ! = GUI functionality: Allow staff to choose between options 01 and ! ! Self check and X-Server: the same as option 01. ! = GUI functionality: the same as option 03 (for GUI). ! Self check and X-Server: the same as option 02.

At the beginning of this presentation we stated that booking requests differ from standard hold requests. There is no assumption of a “booking shelf” or status “on booking shelf”, as there is a “hold shelf” and status “on hold shelf” for regular requests. It is intended that a patron will, by himself, go to the library stacks and take the item which he has booked, bring it to the circulation desk, and loan it.

Therefore, it is important that if an item is loaned to patron A for a period before which it is booked by patron B, it will be returned and in library stacks (shelves) in time for patron B to come to library, get it, and loan it for the time he booked it. This is done by making the “head time” in tab_booking greater than the reshelving time in tab14.

Example: Item is booked by Patron A for Jan :00 – 22:00. The booking has a head time of M030 (30 minutes) and thus it can not be loaned up to or including 19:30. If it comes back at 19:29 (or 19:30) it must be reshelved in 31 (or 30) minutes. It must be reshelved in less time than the head time. Thus the reshelving time must always be less than the head time. The head time must always be greater then the reshelving time.

Booking Requests ALEPH 500 Version 18

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