Walkin and Local holds
With permission, I am reprinting an explanation the Mickey wrote for one of our libraries about the differences and uses of the new Walkin and Local Holds item types:
WALKIN item types only restrict holdability. WALKIN items check out according to circulation rules assigned by the owning library, but they cannot be placed ON HOLD by any cardholder.
First, a little background. When Basehor Library entered our consortium a couple of years ago, the director there, Carla Kaiser, decided that she wanted walk-in patrons to have a nice selection of items to choose from. Her concern was that all of the “good stuff,” i.e., recently released books and movies, would be on loan to other patrons or to other libraries, and that walk-in patrons might leave the library thinking, “Gee, they don’t anything at that library that I want.”
Her solution, which is one used by several other libraries around the country, including Kansas City (MO) Public Library, is to have certain items designated for walk-in selection and checkout only. Patrons can’t place online HOLDS on these items, and they aren’t made available to other libraries. They can only be checked out by patrons who walk in, see the item on the shelf, and physically pick it up. That ensures a reasonable quantity of desirable items will be on the shelves at any given time. That said, any NExpress cardholder can walk in and check out the item. If I see an item on the shelves at Basehor that I want, I can check it out, even though I am not a Basehor cardholder. WALKIN item types only restrict holdability.
Walk-in items are a small percentage of a total collection, but they encompass new or newer items, currently desirable (“hot”) titles, high demand or high value items. This might include:
New feature movies on DVD
Bestseller fiction
Bestseller non-fiction
Audiobooks or Playaway digital audio
Music CDs
Diet books, politicalcs
Test prep books (GED, ASVAB, TOEFL)
Current YA and Children’s books (Harry Potter, Newbery books, popular series titles)
Unique local history books or documents (Yearbooks, clipping books, bound newspaper volumes)
Antique or collectible books
WALKIN item types only restrict holdability. WALKIN items check out according to circulation rules assigned by the owning library, but they cannot be placed ON HOLD by any cardholder.
In some smaller libraries, a recently-begun DVD movie or music collection might be designated Walk-in to publicize the collection to local patrons for a while; some libraries may see current issues of magazines such as Time, Newsweek and People as Walk-in items (if they catalog individual serial issues); and some libraries may restrict circulation of game cartridges or software to walk-in patrons. These are all legitimate use of the Walk-in Item Type.
I want to emphasize that the use of this Item Type in Koha is strictly optional and voluntary. No library is obligated to use it. LOCAL HOLD is a slightly less restrictive variation on the WALKIN item type, allowing local cardholders only to place holds on items so designated. Neither item type is recommended, or not recommended. They are there to add flexibility to local circulation policies in our shared catalog.
The WALKIN and LOCAL item types are generally intended to be used for a discrete period of time. After a few months, items that were once new, desirable, or in high-demand can be converted to standard item types such as BOOK or MOVIE or MEDIA COLLECTION. This puts them back in the pool of holdable and loanable items, for all libraries and patrons.
The only questionable use of the WALKIN or LOCAL HOLD item types, in my opinion, is one in which ALL new, desirable or high-demand acquisitions are so designated for the purpose of keeping them in the home collection. This contradicts the spirit of resource sharing that is the backbone of our shared catalog, and of the NExpress project.
I hope this wasn’t too much. I wanted to be sure I answered your questions in some detail, in writing.
By the way, the Koha enhancement enabling the new Item Types will be installed on our catalog tonight, January 30. It should be active and in place as of Saturday, January 31.
