Billed
Billed items are automatically assigned to the Lost process in Alma. A billed item will stay on the account of the user who was billed for the item as a Lost loan until the item is returned or the loan is deleted. Loans can manually be removed from borrower’s accounts by a staff member using Delete Loan, or “closed” (deleted from Alma but not Analytics) via a bulk job.
Lost
In Alma, severely overdue loans are automatically considered “lost” and assigned to the Lost process type. In rare cases in which manual billing is necessary, staff may mark a loan as Lost from a patron’s loan list.
The term “lost” refers to the state of a loan, not the location of an item. Lost locations, if available, are legacy locations for items that were considered lost in Sirsi Workflows. Staff should never move an item to a legacy Lost location.
Lost loans are still active loans, so that replacement fees can be automatically refunded if an item is returned.
Lost loans are viewable by the patron who was billed for the item when signed into their account. Students who have paid for Lost items through Student Accounts may ask for those items to be removed from their account. To remove “paid for” Lost loans, use Delete Loan.
When it is deemed likely that items in the Lost process will not be returned, Lost loans should be released from user accounts by using Delete Loan or by “closing” the Lost loan via a bulk job. Using Delete Loan, or closing Lost loans, will assign items to the Missing process, where circulation staff can make sure the item’s return wasn’t missed before referring the item to collection development staff for possible replacement or withdrawal.
Missing
Items in the Missing process should be located, replaced or withdrawn. Items are placed in the Missing process by using Toggle Missing Status.
Missing locations are legacy locations for items that were missing in Sirsi Workflows. Staff should never move an item to an Alma Missing location.
When an item in the Missing process is scanned, it is routed back to item’s active Temporary location or Permanent Location.
Assigning/Toggling Missing Status
To assign Missing status to a physical item, you must have the Physical Inventory Operator or Physical Inventory Operator Extended role.
Perform a Physical Item search, then click on the ellipsis to the right of the item entry (Ex Libris sometimes refers to this as the “row actions list”) and select Items.
Toggle Missing Status will be available from the row actions list at the end of that item’s row unless the item is on loan or in another process that would make it unavailable for circulation.
Items that are loaned or in another Alma Process (Lost, Technical – Migration, Transit, etc.) must first be removed from that process before they can be toggled to Missing. To toggle a loaned item to Missing, you’ll need to delete the loan first.
Managing the Lost and Missing Processes
There are several reasons why inventory should be removed from the Lost or Missing processes:
- Patrons are typically confused when they encounter a Lost or Missing item in the catalog.
- Both the Lost and Missing processes can quickly become unmanageable if not regularly addressed. There were tens of thousands of items in Lost or Missing Sirsi locations when Heard Libraries migrated to Alma. What would it take to check shelves for thousands of items? What would an effort to replace thousands of missing volumes entail?
- Even when an item is physically unavailable, the bibliographic, holding, item and loan data associated with the item still needs to be managed.
- Any item that is active in the catalog will show as held by Heard Libraries in WorldCat and may be requested for interlibrary loan.
Lost Items
To view a list of Lost items, use the Lost Loans tool under Missing and Lost Items tab of the Fulfillment Dashboard, or perform a Physical Item Process Type Advanced Search in Alma.
It’s always possible that the return of an item was mishandled. Lists of Lost items should be shelf-checked regularly.
To keep the Lost process/list of Lost items manageable, circulation staff should periodically “close” Lost Loans to transfer items to the Missing process, where they can be considered for replacement or withdrawal. “Closing” or “Deleting” a Lost loan will disassociate the Loan from a patron’s account in Alma but will retain any associated unpaid bills. Should the item be withdrawn and/or returned later, staff can still make the connection between the withdrawn item and the active bill in Alma Analytics.
Knowing when to close Lost loans can be difficult. Choose a range of time after items have been billed that your library is comfortable with. Closing a Lost loan removes Alma’s ability to automatically refund billed amounts once an item is returned. However, you can still find returned Lost loans using the Found Items report under the Missing and Lost Items tab of the Fulfillment Dashboard, and items can be recharged/fines can be waived manually as appropriate.
Active bills associated with withdrawn or Missing items can be found using the Find Bills Related to Withdrawn or Previously Missing Inventory report under Missing and Lost Items or Withdrawn Inventory tabs. When considering refunds, keep in mind that the returned item may have already been replaced, and that our current policies do not guarantee unconditional refunds after any length of time.
Deleting or Closing Lost Loans
To manually close a Lost loan select Delete Loan from a Lost item entry in a patron’s Loan List. Deleting the loan will remove the loan from a patron’s account, transfer the item to the Missing process, and allow for the withdrawal of an item.
To request that a list of loans be closed, provide a list of barcodes in an Inform so that a Close Lost Loans job can be run. You can create a list from criteria that you provide by using the Lost Loans report tool under the Missing and Lost Items tab of the Fulfillment dashboard. Be aware that there is not an “undo” feature for the Close Lost Loans job.
Missing Items
To view a list of Missing items, use the Missing Items tool under Missing and Lost Items tab of the Fulfillment Dashboard or perform a Physical Item Process Type Advanced Search in Alma.
Missing items should be found, replaced, or withdrawn. Lists of missing items should be shelf-checked regularly.
To keep the Missing process/list of missing items manageable, circulation staff should regularly consult collection development staff when they’ve determined that Missing items cannot be located at their library or their library’s Annex locations. Lists can be generated using the Missing Item Fulfillment report or the Materials for Replacement or Withdrawal Acquisitions report.