The Available Hold Location feature is used by Demand Management to determine whether a location is considered for fulfilling holds with onshelf, available items.
The Available Hold Location feature addresses the following holds scenario.
| • | The library does not allow holds to be placed on on-shelf, available items. |
| • | The location is holdable. |
| • | However, the library does not want the location to be considered “available” to fill holds. |
| • | The user is trying to place a Title level hold. (Copy level holds are not affected by this feature.) |
The following examples explain how this feature affects user holds.
Example of Closed Stacks locations:
Your library may have a special location that is not available to the public, such as a Closed Stacks location, but is a holdable location. If your system is configured not to allow holds on available items, holds would not be allowed on items at this location because the system would consider the items to be “available” even though technically they are not available to the public.
Example of Display locations:
The Conner Library does not allow holds for onshelf, available items. All locations in the library are holdable. The library has a special location called “Display” for a monthly book display. The book display is not directly available for patrons to access. However, items at this location can be circulated.
The Conner Library has three copies of The Story of My Life by Helen Keller. One copy is in the book display and has a location of Display. The other two copies are currently checked out. In previous versions of SirsiDynix Symphony, if a patron tried to place a Title level hold on The Story of My Life in the Conner Library, Demand Management would check each of the three copies of the title to see if the hold could be placed. When Demand Management checked the copy with the Display location, it considered that copy to be an onshelf, available item. Since the library policies do not allow holds to be placed for onshelf, available items, the user was not permitted to place the Title level hold.
With the Available attribute in the Location policy, the Conner Library can clear the Available check box to prevent copies with that Location policy from being considered as “available” when a hold is placed. If the patron places a hold on The Story of My Life, Demand Management will still check each of the three copies of the title to see if the hold can be placed. This time, Demand Management will find that two copies are checked out, and the one remaining copy on the display table is not considered to be an onshelf, available item. Since no copies of the title are available, the hold will be placed.
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