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Circulation Manual

The official circulation manual for OPAL

Reserves

Create a Course Record

  • Select the Course Reserves function from the drop-down menu.
  • Click on the New icon.
  • Select Course default or your location's template.
  • Click Select.
  • Enter the information as prompted and click Next.
  • Note: You can click on the box to open a calendar or list of choices to fill in some of the categories.

Prompts are for:

  • Begin Date
  • End Date
  • Location
  • Professor Name
  • Course (2 screens)
  • Course Note

Once all of the prompts have been filled, save the record by clicking on the Save icon. The course can be edited and items can be added. To edit, click on the Edit icon in the top menu and make changes. Save the record.

Adding Items to Course

 

Within the course record, click on the Add Items button. 

You can search by title, author, call number, barcode, etc.

 

Find and select the item(s) to add to the course. 

Click the Add Selected Item(s) button.

 

Fill in the information on the popup screen: Location, Item Type (the ITYPE for Reserve), Display course name as call number (optional), Item Status. 

 

Location and Item Type boxes can be opened to select from a list by using the drop down or double clicking in the box.

 

Click OK. Item will be on the Course Reserve screen. Continue this process until all items are added to the course.

Creating a New Item Record

It is important that the 245 field is used in order for results to display in the catalog

There are limitations to the display in the WebPAC if using Non-MARC records in regards to the title field. A MARC 245 tag is required for all title entries if it is intended for the title to display in a keyword search. If the 245 is not present, a keyword search will retrieve results, but no hyper-linked title will display to allow for navigation to the full bibliographic record. Instead, a blank entry will appear.

To remedy, when creating course reserve records, remember to include the 245 in the title field for the item. Course reserve record templates have been updated to accommodate this change, but when creating a new course record without using a template as a reference, a 245 must be added to the TITLE field.

To do so, within the New record form, click on INSERT and choose t TITLE from the drop down menu. A 245 tag will automatically populate. You will want to add a “1” in the first indicator field and a “0” in the second indicator field in order to ensure proper format.

Removing Items from Reserve

Follow these steps:

  • Open the course record
  • Check the box for any item you wish to remove
  • Select Remove Items
  • Click Yes to the prompt

The course record can be deleted once there are no more items on reserve.

Note that setting an "inactive" date for items on reserve, doesn't automatically remove them from the course. It just changes the status of the item. 

Generating a List of Items on Reserve

To obtain a list of all the items associated with course reserves, take the following steps:

  • Go to Create Lists and choose and empty slot in your range
  • Click on Search Records
  • Name the list so you can identify it
  • Ensure that Store Record Type is Course.
  • Use the following search criteria, using your institution's codes:

    Course     Location     Between     xx and xxzzz

  • Click Search
  • View the resulting list

You can work on this list by opening the course record and then clicking on “Summary”. This will take you to the item in the list.

Identifying Records Whose Status Should Change

Generate a list of records whose reserve status should change (active/inactive until date has passed) by following the following steps:

  • Create a review file of course records
  • Choose Course Reserves from the function list
  • Chose Options > Records whose status should change
  • Under the Current Item Status option, select Active to view records currently on active reserve or Inactive to view records currently on inactive reserve
  • Under the Records whose status should change option, use the After and Before boxes to specify the earliest and latest possible Active Until dates you want to change. To specify a single day, enter the same date in both boxes. While you should be able to enter "b" for blank in the date fields, that option is currently resulting in an error. As a workaround enter a date for each field.
  • Click Search
  • For the displayed records you can view the selected records, print a table, or change the status of the selected records