Hold Shelves

Overview

Alma Fulfillment has two hold shelf options: Expired Hold Shelf and Active Hold Shelf.

Most work will be done on the Expired Hold Shelf (to move materials on to their next destination), but you may have reasons to check the Active Hold Shelf periodically to confirm what materials should be there.

Expired Hold Shelf

The Expired Hold Shelf lists items on the hold shelf haven’t been picked up by the person who originally requested them.

Alma sorts items on the Expired Hold Shelf into four tabs:

• Reshelve
• Send to Circulation Desk (at the same library)
• Send to Library
• Activate Next (request at this Circulation Desk)

General Procedure

1. Use local procedures to determine which items on the Expired Hold Shelf are genuinely expired (e.g., checking the date on the hold request slip)
2. Go to Fulfillment >> Expired Hold Shelf
3. Go through each tab (listed below), check all items you wish to perform the action to, and then click the link to the specified action (e.g., Activate Next) on the right side
   1. Best Practice: For the sake of accuracy it is better to only check books on this screen that are in hand
4. Physically route all items based on their destination

Reshelve

Displays all expired requests for items belonging to the current circulation desk and for which there is no other request in the queue.

• To reshelve an item, click the Reshelve button to the right
• To reshelve multiple items, select the check boxes of the relevant items and click Reshelve above

Send to Circulation Desk

Lists all requests for items belonging to a different circulation desk in the same library, or that are requested for pickup at another desk within the same library. 

• To send an item to another circulation desk, click the Transit button to the right
• To send multiple items, select the check boxes of the relevant items and click Transit above
• The Ful Transit Slip letter (letter code: FulTransitSlipLetter) is printed and the item is put In Transit

Send to Library

Lists all requests for items belonging to a different library, or that are requested for pickup at another library. 

• Same instructions as Send to Circulation Desk above

Activate Next

Activates the next request in the queue, which cancels the first request and makes the item available to the next requester

• This contains items that are currently on the hold shelf but have expired
• Best Practice: for the sake of accuracy, only check in books on this screen that are in hand
• Use Return Items to check in books. This will route them and remove them from the expired hold shelf
• Physically route all items based on their destination

Active Hold Shelf

This lists all items currently on a location's hold shelf. You can delete requests and update Hold Shelf expiration dates from this screen.

To work with this list:

1. Go to Fulfillment >> Active Hold Shelf
2. If needed, use the Sort by feature to change the order of the list to more easily find what you're looking for (such as by Title, by Requester Name, or by Call Number)
3. Find the request(s) you're looking for
4. Use the row action items on the right to Cancel request, Update the expiry date of the request, or Mark as missing
5. Click on the title of the item on hold to edit the request for that item
6. Click on the number next to Place in Queue to see the full request queue for that item
7. Use the Export function (if needed) to export the full request list to an Excel spreadsheet