Comment 2 for bug 1612807

We experimented with setting up the copy-hold ratio (and disabling the COPY_NEEDED_FOR_HOLD setting) and it worked great with normal items, but we ran into problems with age-protected items and A/V items (which we don't allow holds on outside of a system in our consortium).

Problem Scenario: Patron Jane Doe in library system X has a copy of a new book checked out that is age-protected. 20 other library systems have copies of the same book, and patrons at those other system have 30 outstanding holds, but there aren't any other patrons in System X that have outstanding holds. None of the outstanding holds are able to target Jane Doe's copy, but the copy-hold ratio setting only looks at the total copies and total holds, so it doesn't allow her to renew. (If COPY_NEEDED_FOR_HOLD is in use instead of the copy-hold ratio, then it DOES allow her to renew.)

(This is pretty much the same for our A/V materials - even if they aren't age restricted, they still only allow holds within a system.)

We ended up having to switch back to using the COPY_NEEDED_FOR_HOLD setting because staff were reporting so many problems with patrons not being able to renew their new books & DVDs when there weren't any outstanding holds that could target them.

If there were a way for the copy-hold ratio to look at the number of "permitted" holds rather than the total number of holds, then it would work perfectly. Or, if there were a way to use the copy-hold ratio circulation policy system-wide only on non-AV materials and non-age protected materials and then fall back to using an in-system copy-hold ratio policy for AV materials and age protected materials, then that would work. I haven't been able to figure out a way to make that work in the circulation policy interface, though.