OpenRS makes the determination if an item can be requested at the server level. Once login checks are passed the four criteria are:
- Patron Group: Is the patron allowed to request?
- Shelving Location: Is the shelving location visible in OpenRS?
- Item Type: Is the Item Type allowed to lend?
- Item Status: is the item status available, or on hold or checked out?
The local loan rule determiner in FOLIO is primarily allowing a hold or page to be placed on the item requested. Patron group, shelving location, and item type can be part of the loan rule but must not supersede the criteria on the OpenRS server. Other loan rule criteria can block the page/request but will make an error the patron or library may not be aware of. MCO staff only should edit these rules to make certain they agree with the OpenRS server.
There are three types of items that can be lent on OpenRS:
- Monographs, aka Books
- AV (Audiovisual items)
- Audiobooks, nominally AV items that circulate as if they were books
In FOLIO there will typically be five loan rules:
- Book Lend
- Book Borrow
- AV Lend
- Audiobook Lend
- AV Borrow
Lending or borrowing AV and Audiobooks are optional, libraries should at a minimum have a monograph collection they lend and monographs they borrow. Deciding on who should borrow
Deciding on who should borrow
To set up/update your OpenRS borrowing and lending, first decide which of your patrons should be able to borrow or request from OpenRS. These will be updated on OpenRS by MCO staff and then added to the Book Borrow and AV Borrow loan rules. A list of your allowed patrons can be supplied by MCO. Deciding on Books, AV, or Audiobooks
Deciding on Books, AV, or Audiobooks
Does your library want to only borrow and lend books, or do you want to borrow or lend AV and Audiobooks as well? Other than books, lending or borrowing can be decided separately. If you choose only to borrow and lend books the other three loan rules will be deleted and the OpenRS server updated as needed. If you chose all then all five loan rules will be used. Deciding on Item Types
Deciding on Item Types
Local item types are mapped up to a pair of central Item Types, that function the same on all servers:
- OpenRS Monograph
- OpenRS AV
Multiple local Item Types can be mapped up to these, so for example there can be Blu-Ray, CD-ROM and DVD which all map to OpenRS AV.
The “default” Item type mapping is as follows:
- Book: Monograph, Oversize to OpenRS Monograph
- AV: DVD, CD-ROM, Audio-CD, Blu-Ray, Music-CD to OpenRS AV
- Audiobook: Audiobook, Spoken-CD to OpenRS Monograph
More or fewer Item Types can be added or removed, as long as the intent is to loan the items per one of the three categories. Changes will be done locally by MCO Staff and added to the OpenRS server. A list of what Item Ttypes are lending via OpenRS can be supplied by MCO Displaying Shelving Locations
Displaying Shelving Locations
Locations in a library’s FOLIO tenant can be displayed in OpenRS. If the location is enabled all items using that location will show, while if not then none will show.
Whether items in a shelving location can circulate comes down to the Item Type as follows:
To display and allow requests
The location must be set to display and all attached items should be using one of the allowed item types as above. An example is a Stacks location with Monograph item types.
To display and not allow requests
The location must be set to display and all attached items must NOT be using one of the allowed item types. An example is a special collection with Archive item types. Typically these are items the library wants researchers to know they possess even if they can’t be lent.
Notes:
It is possible to use statuses other than available such as “Restricted” instead of item type, but these can be problematic to maintain, especially if an item circulates locally.
Loan Type is not recognized by OpenRS and should not be used to set loan criteria for OpenRS lending.
A shelving location of mixed item types or statuses can work to allow some items to circulate and some not to, it will be the library’s responsibility to maintain it.
Typically shelving locations are not added to the OpenRS loan rules, if requested so a library knows what is showing or not the circulating shelving locations can be added to the loan rules while the displaying but non-circulating ones will be added as a remark to the loan rules. Remember again that non-circulating is not determined at the FOLIO level but on OpenRS, so in the loan rules they mainly serve to let a library know what is showing in OpenRS or not.
