[IUG] Frozen Holds - Don't Go Away?

["Pruntel,Alison" <Alison dot Pruntel at fauquiercounty dot gov>]

Hi all,

Our circulation manager has not been a fan of patrons freezing holds via the WebPAC, because patrons freeze and forget and staff have to explain that the patron has to unfreeze via their Millennium account. Today she noticed that a patron had 3 frozen holds "Not Wanted Before 12/4/08," so I guess they've been frozen now for over a year. She asked me why they didn't just go away at that point, since the 255 days had passed. She happens to have a book that this patron has on hold and she was deterred from attempting to renew because you cannot renew an item with holds on it. I checked the manual, which states, "When a patron freezes a request, the system changes the patron's "not wanted before" date to 255 days (a system-specific maximum value) from the hold's creation date. The 255 setting is a system setting that indicates that a request is being skipped over until reactivated. Patrons can reactivate the hold via the WebPAC. However, library staff do not have the ability to change the Not Needed By (NNB) date when the system sets it to 255. A skipped over record remains in the queue until the patron reactivates the hold, even if the hold extends beyond the actual date calculated by the NNB date." So it sounds like it will stay on that patron's record indefinitely until they uncheck the Freeze checkbox and update their record? Anyone else have a problem with long frozen items showing that they have holds, and thus might deter someone from renewing (someone who realized that items with holds cannot be renewed)? We've had this feature in place a little over a year now, which is why we're now noticing. Should we be concerned about this?

Thanks,


Alison Pruntel
Electronic Resources Librarian
Fauquier County Public Library
11 Winchester Street
Warrenton, VA 20186
540-349-2770 (voice)
540-349-3278 (fax)
http://library.fauquiercounty.gov
http://fcpleresources.blogspot.com
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