Add "permanent location" field in item record and function to change to it
We have shelves for new materials, and item location codes for these ("new mysteries," "new fiction," "new DVDs," and lots more). Moving items from the new shelves to the regular shelves is a chore, both in handling materials and in knowing (and selecting) what location to change them to. It would be great if you could just get into a function in Sierra that would change the current item location (the "new" one in my example) to the permanent item location (a new field that would be added with this idea, which would catalogers would populate when the item was cataloged). Then, in this function, anyone could just scan a stack of items, one after the other, without having to look up what the "not-new" location was or choose it or anything. A "permanent location" field could be used in other ways, maybe for displays.
Phil Shirley
shared this idea
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Vanessa Walden
commented
I would love a date field that paused the transfer to the permanent location - set a date and checkins on or after that would move it to the "permanent" location. Would also like to run create lists against that date to find the materials on the shelf that should be moved.
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Shawn P. Farrell
commented
I like the idea of these temporary locations. Several years ago, NYPL was looking for the means to remedy something similar. Their flagship 5th Avenue location had a Scholar program, where select patrons doing longterm research/writing projects could basically have things pulled from the stacks on a longterm basis & sit in a special area for their ready access. They may not use them every day, & the potential existed that another patron might want to access them for in-library use only for a single day, before they go back to their temporary shelving status.
Will share this idea with them & see if they still might find this useful. It definitely has a lot of other ptoential use for display items, etc.
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Phil Shirley
commented
To use this "permanent location" field for displays, we would like to have another field in the item record, a checkbox for whether staff should be prompted to change the location to the permanent location at checkout/checkin. You might check this box if you were putting an item on a temporary display, but not if something was supposed to stay on the "new" shelf for three months or something.
Maybe we should call the new fields "temporary location" and "clear on checkin/checkout?", and just continue calling the existing field "location."
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Kristina Johnston
commented
We also do a lot of new shelves to permanent shelve shuffling. We would also use it for other temporary display location codes. This would be helpful.