Dos and Don’ts of Changing the Hold Pickup Location

You can change the pickup location of a customer's hold, but only in certain circumstances...otherwise the hold will never be filled.

Scenario: your customer has moved and wants to pick up all their outstanding requests at the branch closest to their new home. It is okay to change the hold pickup location for a customer’s hold as follows:

• The old and new pickup location must be within the same library jurisdiction. So you can change it from Clovis to Fig Garden. But never Beale Library (Kern County) to Fig Garden (Fresno County).*
•  You can change the pickup location anytime before an item is attached to the request or if the status of the request / item = transit hold / transit request. If it's already on the hold shelf or expired, no dice. 

*Do NOT Change Pickup Locations from One Jurisdiction to Another Jurisdiction

Why? Because this method circumvents the holds rules in place for each jurisdiction so there's a good chance the hold will never be filled because the item will never appear on the pull list of an owning library. 

Yes, Horizon will let you change the pickup location from Beale Library (Kern County) to Fig Garden (Fresno County), but the request will never be filled. Even your customer is #1 in the queue, all the other requests will just jump over it as they are filled first. 

Some staff have tried to 'help' their customers who have been blocked from placing a hold on a title by making the request through say Kern County’s ValleyCat page (or in Horizon under a Kern County Location). After the request is made with a Kern County pickup location, they manually change it to one of Fresno's pick up locations. This 'work around' does not help the customer. In fact, it pretty much ensures they will never get the item - even if Fresno buys their own copies. 

The customer should wait and place a hold on that title when there are requestable copies available. Chances are that will occur shortly if it's a new popular title. If not, staff or the customer can make a Request for Purchase or an ILL as appropriate. 


rev. 5/2018

Find Out Location of "Hold Shelf" Item

Here's two ways to find out the location of an item with a status of "hold shelf". Neither is very convenient, but they work.

Method 1

• F2 - Search for the item by title or barcode.
• Click Show Copies
• Click on the copy with the "hold shelf" status
• Send it to Copy/Item List (F10)
• Click Edit to open the item record, go down to where it says "Out to Borrower No."
• Look up the borrower# in circ and find out where the item is being held from their Blocks screen.

Method 2 (more cumbersome if there's a lot of copies with Hold Shelf status)

• F2 - Search for the item by title or barcode.
• Go to Request - View Title Request List
• Click on an item with "hold shelf" status
• Click Borrower Requests
• Look to see if that item matches the specific item barcode you're looking for.
• If not, go to another "hold shelf" item in the list and check that one's Borrower Requests.

How Holds are Filled

Here's an overview of how items are selected to fill holds within Fresno County. Horizon has a series of "priorities" it uses to select an item to fill a hold with a Fresno County pickup location.

BTW...nothing in the borrower's registration record affects how a hold is filled - not location, btype or bstat. It's all based on 1. pickup location and 2. where hold was placed (whose catalog was used or what location Horizon was logged into to place the hold). Also see Dos and Don’ts of Changing the Hold Pickup Location. 

• When a hold is placed with a Fresno pickup location, Horizon first checks to see if any Fresno items are available (checked in) to fill it.
• If there is an available Fresno copy and there is more than one copy checked in, Horizon will select the copy that has been sitting on the shelf the longest.
• If there are Fresno copies, all holds with a FCPL pick up location will be filled first before holds at other jurisdictions. That is how a Fresno customer can be #10 in the list and receive their copy before #1-#9 who have pick up locations outside of Fresno's jurisdiction.
• Note: Horizon is not so finely tuned it can select the geographically closest item to the pickup location. So don't expect Horizon to look at only metro items to fill metro pickup locations first, then go further afield to the east and west side locations. That degree of fine tuning is not possible.
• In some instances when everything else is equal, the time of day the pull list report is run can factor into which Fresno copy fills the hold.
• Also, as soon as an item is returned and checked in, it may go to fill a hold regardless of who has it showing on their pull list at that moment. That is why you may check in an item from your pull list only to discover it is not needed any longer to fill a hold.
• If there is no Fresno copy available, Horizon will look for an available copy at another jurisdiction to fill the Fresno hold.
• There are some Fresno items that will only fill holds within Fresno County: video games (FVIN) and reference (FRE). These items are not available to fill holds outside Fresno County.
• This link (https://www.sjvls.org/services/special_loan_rules) shows the loan policies by format for each SJVLS jurisdiction. This tells you what items are allowed to fill holds from one jurisdiction to another.

Similar priorities apply to every jurisdiction. Horizon will always look to see if there's a copy of the item in the same jurisdiction as the pick up location before looking further away.


rev. 2/2020

Pickup Location Defaults to Horizon Login Location

If you use Horizon to place a request, the patron's pick up location will default to the location of the Horizon user's 3+4 login. It does not default to the location set in the patron's record. This change occurred as a result of an upgrade. Horizon assumes the location you are logged into is also the probably pickup location.

*Note: in ValleyCat, the pickup location still defaults to the location set in the patron's record.

rev. 1/2018

Select Pickup Location Outside FCPL

Some patrons want to place a hold at an FCPL location, but pick it up at a location outside of Fresno County. All ValleyCat access via the Fresno homepage and Fresno Horizon logins will only display FCPL locations. Therefore, you'll need to do one of the following in order to select a non-FCPL location:

• In ValleyCat: Go to http://www.sjvls.org and from the drop-down on the right side select the ValleyCat catalog for the jurisdiction where the patron wants to pick up the hold. Find the item, place the request and select the pickup location for that jurisdiction. Both patrons and staff can use this method.
• In Horizon: Go to File - Change Location. Select the location where the patron wants to pick up the hold. Search for the item, place the request and select from the list of pickup locations available for that jurisdiction. When you are finished, don’t forget to change location back to your own branch. This method is only available to staff.

Note: Just in case you're wondering, you cannot simply change the pickup location of an existing request to a non FCPL location via the borrower's record. Why? Because this method circumvents the holds rules in place for each jurisdiction and more importantly, the item will never appear on the pull list of the owning library. So it will look like you’ve placed the hold, but the item will never show up. So use one of the methods listed above instead.

rev. 8/2017