Does anyone know if this is functionally any different from the preferred borrowers option? In my tests, it seems to behave the same, but maybe I’m missing something.
I believe the distinction is that the others were based on where the PATRON account was registered.
So, preferred would say, “As long as your account was registered at one of these locations, then you could put this item on hold.”
I think the intent with the NEW feature is to allow ANY patron so long as they’re willing to pick it up at the branch/library system specified in the item record.
Thanks for the documentation link. My guess is then there are locations that could have a different set of preferred borrowers than they do library/branch system set up.
Restricted pick-up branches for holds has been something our libraries have been chasing for a long time. @wesochuck was on the right track when he mentioned other hold restrictions following the patron’s registered branch and not the pickup, but he was thinking of the “Patrons from this library and branches” and “Patrons from this branch only” flags instead of the “Preferred borrowers” flag. Until 8.1, every ILS I’ve worked with (admittedly only 3) only allowed you to restrict a holds using branch data from the patron account. If you can reliably expect the patron’s library to match their selected pick-up branch, this works fine, but if you’ve got patrons that registered at one location (because Google Maps sent them to your central library) who regularly use another branch, you start running into situations where items that were supposed to stay at that branch are being shipped to the other branch to fill holds. This is the first time I’ve encountered a hold restriction that truly allows you to restrict holds to a specific pick-up branch (or library) without the need to set up some other supporting material types or patron codes.
As for preferred borrowers, you could have those set up in a way that mimics this behavior, but we’re making the same sort of assumptions about the connection between patron accountdata and patron behaviors. As soon as someone makes a pick-up selection that deviates from your assumptions, you’re going to end up with an item being routed to a branch you didn’t intend. To my mind, the preferred borrowers was always better suited for prioritizing staff or faculty, where the restriction has more to do with who is allowed to place a hold on an item and less to do with where the hold should be picked up… but you could have conceivably stretched the functionality to get somewhere close to the new “Pickup at” selection.
Now, there are still some things I dislike about the current “Pickup at” restriction, namely the need to include all branches of a Library in the system configuration in order to get the the Library level restriction to surface in the dropdown selection. Not only does this look silly, but it makes no sense when you consider the implications:
Outside of some incredibly niche circumstances involving remote collection sites configured as Branches, I can’t think of any reason you would want to restrict hold pickup to a Branch other than the Item’s Assigned Branch… If these selections were flags, sure, maybe you only want these three branches to be considered Pickup Branches for the Item, but with the selection limited to just one option this is just ridiculous. And I’m sure no one has ever encountered an Item where the wrong selection was made in a drop-down menu, right? Still, being able to surface the Library as an option here is genuinely helpful, if you need to restrict things to that group, but all the other branches? Not so much.
I think this was a way for them to rollout the feature without having it totally break the desktop client or have to do a major refactor of the desktop client which they’re 100% avoiding at all cost these days.
would know.