Hide specific org units from staff catalog search results

[Josh Stompro]

EG 3.3.4

Hello, I was looking into how I could hide ILL records from staff search results since for our use our staff never need to see ILL records when searching. It is just another set of records that they have to weed out, and occasionally someone doesn't notice and places a hold on those records.

The normal methods work fine for hiding ILL records in the public catalog view, but staff are allowed to see everything.

So I just hard coded the two org units into the QueryParser.pm to always remove them from the circ_lib visibility test for staff searches, except when staff are searching that org unit specifically. So ILL staff can still search through ILL titles by choosing that search scope.

I'm wondering if anyone else would find such a feature useful. The list of org units to exclude could be stored in a org unit setting to make it easily configurable.

I'm trying to think of a use case outside of how we handle ILL records. Maybe if equipment was cataloged, but you only wanted the equipment to come up when staff were specifically searching the equipment OU.

I also tried to find an existing feature that would cover this, but I wasn't able to find anything.

Josh

[Josh Stompro (u-launchpad-stompro-org)]

I put my example changes at user/stompro/lp1849497_hide_ou_staff_search
https://git.evergreen-ils.org/?p=working/Evergreen.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/user/stompro/lp1849497_hide_ou_staff_search

[Elaine Hardy (ehardy)]

We use precats for ILL records. Those don't show up in a catalog search, even for staff.

Just curious, but what do you use for ILL records?

[Josh Stompro (u-launchpad-stompro-org)]

Elaine, we create brief bib records and item records for our ILLs. Do you handle ILL's centrally, or at a specific branch? We handle ILL's centrally, so we need to place holds for customers and send the items to the branch where they will be picked up. I'm only familiar with creating pre-cats at checkout, is there another spot where pre-cats can be created? Does using pre-cats work with checkout history, so customers can see the correct title/author for ILL titles they have checked out?
Josh

[Elaine Hardy (ehardy)]

Each PINES library handle's ILLs at their headquarters library.

ILL staff create the precat for each item. Current instructions are at:

https://pines.georgialibraries.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=cat:creating_and_processing_precats_for_ill_items

Key point is that the item should be checked out to the patron with the due date for processing back to the lending library and that it should be renewed so that the patron cannot renew it by ILL staff.

We may be creating an ILL circ mod with no renewals.

I am also planning on looking at the precat process for ILLs with the goal of a wishlist report of a better method, but that is really in the future.

[Elaine Hardy (ehardy)]

At one time, many, many versions ago, records that were not visible in the public OPAC had a visual cue in the staff opac -- they were highlighted in light grey on a search list. Staff was alerted that they record/title wasn't visible and was likely not holdable. Is that something that would work rather than having it not display at all to another org unit?

(I will be submitting this as a wish list item for the angular catalog soon. Hopefully tomorrow)

[Josh Stompro (u-launchpad-stompro-org)]

I can see the value of indicating to staff the the titles that are not visible in the public catalog. But I don't think that really solves this issues for us. When staff are presented with 10 results, and 5 of them are ILL records that are completely useless to them, it adds a lot of clutter for them to weed through. We already have a huge unique material type icon for these items, so they are easy to identify.

Josh

[Terran McCanna (tmccanna)]

Another use case that comes to mind for us would be for the ability to hide search results in the staff client for libraries that are closed for extended periods (due to remodeling or repairs, for example).