Re: Paging slips with in transit status

[Donna Bacon <dbacon@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Michael, this has been a known and consistent problem with our system for
over a year.  We also occassionally get paging slips marked as ON HOLDSHELF
as well as IN TRANSIT.  We also get duplicate paging slips (the same one
prints twice) once in a while. There seems to be no reason for this.  Tori
Beyer at III worked on this for a long time with plenty of examples but no
resolution was ever found.  We now just throw them away.

Donna Bacon
Springfield-Greene County Library, Springfield MO
COOL (Consortium of Ozarks Libraries)

"McClellan Jr., Michael C." wrote:

> Does anyone have a simple explanation for why a branch would be getting
> paging slips for items with an in transit status?  I'm working from the
> initial assumption that the status line on the paging slip is showing
> the item's status at the moment the paging slips are being printed and
> not the item's status when the hold was originally placed.
>
> I can not figure out why the agency is getting slips for items in
> transit as the actions that put it in transit, i.e. checking the item in
> at another location, running the clear the hold shelf program, or
> manually changing the status which I have ruled out in these cases, all
> imply the item was not at the branch to begin with and should not have
> been paged.
>
> So then I wondered if their copy was checked out and another library can
> not find their copy, then there might be a window in which the transfer
> the page program sees the now returned copy (which is in transit back to
> it's home) and transfers the page to that particular copy.  However when
> I try testing this it does not show a in transit copy as being eligible
> for paging and the documentation says that only items with "-"
> (available) can be transferred.
>
> The other possibility would be running the clear the hold shelf program
> which puts the item in transit back to the owning agency.  So if there
> were no outstanding holds when that program is run, there again would be
> a window in which the item is in transit back home and a new patron
> places a hold.  But again the in transit status should block that copy
> from being paged.
>
> So you would be doing me a great favor and reducing the sizable headache
> this is causing by coming up with some explanation that I have missed.
>
> Mike McClellan
> Minneapolis Public Library
> 300 Nicollet Mall
> Minneapolis, MN   55401
> 612-630-6042
> mmcclellan@xxxxxxxxxx