Summer 2023 Clean-up projects

Owned by Kara Young
Last updated: Apr 07, 2023
5 min read
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FUWG Project Name: Cleanup outstanding/stale items (formerly Care and maintenance of hold requests)

Page content contributors:

Kara Young

Contents:

 Brief description of project

Brief description of project

Review all workflow steps in Resource Request Monitoring. Determine what problems may exist and what actions might be recommended. Develop regular process of review for these workflow steps in future. 

 Information Gathering

Information gathering

Answer the following for each workflow step:

  • Can this be dealt with remotely, or do we need stacks access?
  • How often does this need to be reviewed?
  • Can a regular process be built?

Workflow Steps:

  • Request communicated to remote storage
  • Pickup from shelf
  • On hold shelf
  • Transit item
  • Undefined
  • Waiting for Remote Storage
  • In process

4/2/20 Updates

  • About half In Process–seem to be cataloging
  • About half In Transit–a large portion originated in Technical Services

4/17/20 Updates

  • 18,000 items in transit to off-site storage
  • 12,000 items in transit to RD
  • Collection management workflows from the last 6 months
    • Is this stuff sitting somewhere that hasn’t been sent and/or processed
  • What is the end product of this work?
    • Jackson Childs Recommendation of how each category should be reviewed going forward.
  • ReCAP data is now in Cognos
  • Send the list as a ticket and cross-compare to Cognos data
  • Is there stuff at Iron Mountain? Believe everything has been sent. But Amy can confirmed.
  • ReCAP is not staffed, so they aren’t accessioning
  • Patron physical item hold requests that were really old. Do they need review? Jackson: doesn’t seem to be a large number.  
  • 20,000 transit to reshelving seems to be originating from Tech Services. Is this part of their workflow? They could be on the shelves… are there outstanding work orders.

4/30/20 Updates

  • List of items in transit to offsite storage (18K items) sent 4/20/20 to LTS so they can run a batch check of items at depository. Awaiting response.
  • List of items in transit to Resource Sharing, Borrow Direct, and ILL (~10K items) given to Resource Sharing for review. Possibly most or all of these items can be deleted. Awaiting response to see is RS can batch check items that have been removed from their system.
  • Spreadsheet of workflow steps updated.
  • Undefined requests are being reviewed individually. 
  • Approximately 20K in transit requests appeared to have originated in Technical services unit. Many of these appear to have internal or temporary barcodes, suggesting the items were not in hand. We need to develop a communication strategy for collaborating with these units to reduce or move these requests. We should also consider creating a best practices document going forward that would exclude creating an "in transit" request before the item is actually in transit to the permanent location.

4/30/20 FuWG Meeting notes:

  • Jackson set some lists to LTS, made updates to the page, emailed a list to Jason for items in transit to RS
  • "Undefined requests" with 3,000 requests
    • Some are to pseudopatrons, some aren't
    • Most are on loan
    • Some of these items were lost in Aleph, but the status was different, and then they were no longer lost in Alma
    • Not much ExLibris documentation on these types of request, hoping to learn more
  • Option for resolution: if they are really old requests, we could probably delete them; apply the Absent Items workflow to these items
  • In Transit from Tech Services
    • Many have temporary barcodes
    • Suspect that the request status was being used in "not the best way" given that these requests haven't been cleared
    • From Jaime: The transit to reshelving charges would need to be reviewed, but many are probably on red trucks in Widener waiting to be checked in, in bins/pallets of bins at HD waiting to be accessioned, and/or in boxes at ReCAP from DTD workflows waiting to be scanned in.
  • Priorities for now:
    • End Goal: How often do these queues need to be reviewed for cleanup? What is the process for future cleanup?
    • Old patron requests
    • Waiting for Remote Storage

5/14/20 FuWG Meeting notes:

12/14/20 FWG Meeting action items:

  • Put copy fo Jackson's report onto the project page's wiki
  • Amy Boucher brings recommendations to ELT – particularly regular maintenance of "old" requests
  • Jason F.C. Clarke , or surrogate, should look at some of these "in transit RS" requests to make sure NCIP is working as expected
  • KY to cancel stale LOST requests; waiting on list
  • KY to cancel all requests older than 1 year (question) if possible? Waiting on list

4/8/21 FWG Meeting review

 Cleanup tasks

Cleanup tasks- Summer 2023

Type of RequestProposed cleanup measureDate CompletedNotes
Requests
General Hold request
  • Close
4/6/23Only one from a year ago
Move Perm
  • Determine date cut-off
    • 6 months
  • HD/RD items: check LAS status
    • If not found, mark item as missing
    • Follow standard missing item processing
  • Stacks items: mark as missing
    • search process

requestWrappersList-4.xlsx (4/6)

4/6/23

Fixed HD on shelf (LAW)

Older requests (over a year) cancelled

Remaining requests are HEL

Move Temp - does not include RS items
  • Determine date cut-off
    • 6 months
  • HD/RD items: check LAS status
    • If not found, mark as missing and move to stacks search process
  • Stacks items: mark as missing and proceed with search process
  • Need date to mark as missing

requestWrappersList-5.xlsx (4/6)


None are at repositories


Patron Phys item

Excludes hold shelves

Excludes RS items

  • Expired patron physical item requests: close out
    • Excludes on-hold shelf status items
  • For non-expired requests:
    • Determine date cut-off
      • 6 months
    • Cancel requests
      • Turn off cancel notifications when missing job is run
      • Check with Amy Spruill Harder
    • HD/RD items: check LAS status
      • If not found, move to stacks search process
    • Stacks items: mark missing, search process

PatronPhysRequests_20230407.xlsx


Some requests were stuck (pandemic era). 

Removed requests on items in at HD/RD

Restore

(usually result from a temp move request)

  • Determine date cut-off
  • HD/RD items: check LAS status
    • If not found, move to stacks search process
  • Stacks items: search process

RestoreRequests_20230406.xlsx



Fixed stuff in at HD 

Determine next steps (4/6/23)

Transit for reshelving

(not for workorder items)

NOTE: what about items in transit from Tech Services? these items might, in fact, not be missing.

  • Determine date cut-off
  • HD/RD items: check LAS status
    • If not found, move to stacks search process
  • Stacks items: search process

Transit_nonRS_20230406.xlsx ~25K



Lots of stuff is at HD but not coded for HD

Fixed stuff in at RD

Determine next steps (4/6/23)


In Process items (work orders)
ILL workorders (1100+ items)
  • Review any open work orders
  • Compare to ILLiad/BD status
  • Close any completed work orders


Reserves Scanning
  • Review any open work orders
  • Close any completed work orders






Other
Resource Sharing items

ResourceSharingCleanup_20230407.xlsx

Weird records that need to be deleted



Items with unusual barcodes


Recommended practice or policy

Recommend cleaning these up once a year (early summer/June). Reports can be generated from the "Monitor Requests & Item Processes" queue in Alma or reports can be created in Analytics.


Type of RequestSteps for Cleanup
Request Communicated to Storage
  1. Cross-check list with HD staff
Pickup from Shelf
  1. Determine cutoff date (6 months)

Patron Phys item

(excluding hold shelf)

  1. Determine cutoff date (6 months)
  2. Cancel requests on lost items
Transit Items
  1. Determine cutoff date (6 months)
  2. Exclude work orders
  3. Exclude items coming from tech service units
  4. Check LAS status for HD/RD items
    1. if items are marked "in" in those systems, update Alma status
    2. if items are marked "out" in those systems, mark missing in Alma
  5. Mark missing in Alma non-HD/RD items

ILL workorders (BD/ILL)

(lower priority)

  1. Review any open work orders
  2. Compare to ILLiad/BD status
  3. Close any completed work orders
Restore requestsAre these needed any longer?

Reserves Scanning workorder

(lower priority)

  1. Determine cutoff date (6 months)
  2. Close any completed work orders

Communication plan

Communicate to collection owners in advance that this process will begin. The initial batch will be large. 

Communicate to ITS/Langdell