Creating Holds in Aleph
Although the majority of Holds are created online by the patron, there will be times when staff members are required to view/create Holds in Aleph. Every staff member should be able to discern the status of a Hold and/or be able to create a Hold in Aleph, in case a patron requires assistance.
The following procedure describes how library staff can create a Hold in Aleph:
From the ‘Item’ tab in Aleph:
- You will need to locate the exact item that the patron has requested, either through the Novanet Catalogue or by using the ‘Find’ tab in Aleph. If using the Novanet Catalogue, copy the item barcode and then paste it in the Barcode field in the Item tab.
From this screen, you can verify several things:
- You have the correct record, by viewing the title and barcode.
- The SMU item is currently out on loan, by viewing the ‘Due Date’ column in the highlighted section.
- There are currently no other requests for this item, by viewing the ‘Hold Request’ node or the ‘Request’ column in the highlighted section.
To be sure you are creating the Hold for the right item, highlight the ‘Item’ node, rather than working from the ‘List of Items’ node. Click on the ‘Hold Request’ button along the upper right hand side of the screen.
The ‘Enter patron Information’ window will pop up:
Enter the patron’s ID or barcode and click ‘OK’. The ‘Create Hold Request’ window will pop up.
From this screen, you can verify that you are creating the Hold for the right item and patron. As this is a SMU book, the ‘Pickup Location’ defaults to SMU (the owning library). The ‘Recall Type’ defaults to 03 (No Recall) and should stay as such for the purpose of a Hold.
The ‘Item Filter Information’ tab has one box that is checked by default: ‘Only Selected Item’. Maintain the default setting because, if this box is not checked, the system will place a Hold on every item in the Novanet system for that title. Return to the ‘Request Information’ tab and click ‘OK’.
Back to Holds and Recalls