Placing Holds
Whenever possible, the best procedure is to show guests how to place the hold
themselves, so that they can place a Hold in the future without staff assistance.
1) Holds Placed in OPAC - Holds should always be placed in the Online Public
Access Catalog (OPAC).
a) Holds placed via the OPAC follow strict rules that block users from placing Holds
on items or Bibliographic Records that have no items that are requestable.
b) Holds placed via the OPAC should always page correctly when staff run notices.
Holds placed in Millennium will NOT page in some situations.
2) Holds Duration - When placing a Hold, the request will have a default 120-day life.
a) Holds duration can be modified (lengthened or shortened) in Millennium by
accessing the guest’s record, viewing Holds, selecting the Hold, and Modifying
the Hold.
b) Once the Hold is filled, the Hold will remain on the Holdshelf for the default
number of days, regardless of whether or not the Hold’s life has expired or not.
c) There is no way to extend how long a Hold stays on the Holdshelf once it arrives.
If a guest cannot pick an item up before the Hold expires, the guest or staff will
need to place another Hold for the guest.
d) If an item is not found within the 120 days a Holds Cancellation Notice will be
generated
3) Bibliographic Level Hold - Unless a Hold is being placed on a serial title with
multiple issues on one Bibliographic Record, the Hold should be placed as
Bibliographic Level Hold. The OPAC will not give a choice of Hold and should only
place an Item Specific Hold in the case of a serial (i.e., magazines).
4) Item Specific Holds – These are normally used only on serial titles, but can also be
used in Millennium if a particular item is needed. Staff can use Item Specific Holds if
they are attempting to retrieve an item that may have a problem with it.
5) Holds Placed in Millennium
a) When Millennium is used to place a Hold, the system “assumes” that if the item is
at your location you have already looked for it and can’t locate it. This results in
the item will NOT showing up on a paging list.
b) Placing Item Specific Holds can prevent a Hold from being filled. This happens if
the particular item can be located, effectively blocking the Hold from being filled.
Priority Paging effectively tries to get items at the owning library to the guest at
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the same location. Also, and Item Specific Hold does not take any priority over
any other Holds.
c) Millennium will also allow staff to place a Hold on a Bibliographic Record even if
there are no items on the record that can be requested (i.e., withdrawn,
paperbacks, and reference materials). These Holds will not be filled and will
eventually cancel at the end of the duration.
d) Millennium also allows staff to place restrictions on which items are requested.
These options should be used with care, and only in certain situations.
NOTE: Regular Bibliographic level Holds placed in Millennium will act the same as a Hold place in the
OPAC, providing staff placing the Hold have made sure that none of the above situations occurs.
Holds placed on the current best seller that has a waiting list will not act any differently.)
6) Broken Holds – Broken Holds are Holds that may Page correctly but Millennium will
not correctly route the Hold when the item is Checked-In.
a) With a Broken Hold the Hold does NOT show up on the Bibliographic Record, yet
if you try and create another Hold for the same guest Millennium will stop you
since the guest already has a Hold. If you view the guest’s record the Hold WILL
show up, but the Hold cannot be modified or cancelled.
b) Broken Holds should be reported to the Digital Services Manager as soon as
possible, giving the guest’s barcode and name, the book barcode and title, and
whether or not another Hold should be created or just have the original Hold
deleted.
c) Alternatively, you may try accessing the guest’s account in the OPAC (w/o PIN)
and deleting the request there.
7) Reporting Problems – If a problem arises while placing Holds, it is best that you
contact someone from the Access Services Committee or the Digital Services
Manager. All single items require an Item Hold when Hold is created in Millennium.
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