“Call Slip Item Required:” Preventing Requests for Titles that Have No Items Attached
BACKGROUND
Voyager 6.1 includes a change in the behavior of the “Call Slip Item Required” parameter in System Administration. This option is intended to allow a library to specify whether call slip requests may or may not be placed on records that do not have items attached.
When our consortium first implemented Voyager, the recommendation was made to leave this option unchecked. Testing in the latest copy of Version 6.1 reveals that leaving this option unchecked COULD allow call slip requests to be placed on materials that are configured to be “non-callslippable”—e.g. patron group/item type combinations that have the Call Slip box unchecked in the matrix; items that are LOST or MISSING; etc. In effect, if you leave the "Call Slip Item Required" parameter unchecked almost any item could be requested from the local OPAC, because it makes the request active at the title level—it doesn’t require an item record to be attached to the title in order for the request to be placed.
OTHER ISSUES
Does your library want your “On Order” records to display in the OPAC, but not want to have them requested? Do you receive requests for titles that you can’t fill because there are no items attached to the bibliographic record? Then checking the “Call Slip Item Required” option is probably right for your library. If checked, "Call Slip Item Required" will prevent requests from falling on materials with no item records attached to them.
When "Call Slip Item Required" is checked, the call slip form that users see in WebVoyage is simplified: the extra row that allows users to "specify an item not listed above" disappears.
If you have serial titles in your database that don’t have associated item records, the “Call Slip Item Required” setting would affect requests on those titles. If “Call Slip Item Required” is checked, requests would not land on serial titles without item records. This could be either a good or a bad thing for your library, depending on your record-creation workflow and circulation policies.
RECOMMENDATION
Unless you really need to support call slip requests on "itemless" titles like serials, check the "Call Slip Item Required" option found in System Administration-->OPAC Configuration-->Miscellaneous. This can be done immediately or after the upgrade.
If you have any questions regarding this matter, please contact the CARLI Office.