OPAC: Not for Loan Descriptions

Not For Loan Status

Items in Koha can have a variety of "Not for Loan" statuses. The "Not for Loan" status set up can be found under the Administration module within the Authorized Values.

The NOT_LOAN category has values such as 'Ordered', 'Staff Collection', etc. Each value has a corresponding Authorized numeric value. This value will indicate to Koha whether this value can be placed on hold. A negative value on a 'Not for Loan' status means that the item can be placed on hold. If the value is a positive value, the item cannot be placed on hold.

Descriptions

Further clarification on the 'Not for Loan' status can be made through the Descriptions column in the setup. There is the ability to describe these statuses for both the staff interface and the OPAC.

Previously, the OPAC description given in the chart above would only be seen on the Item's full record, and not on the results screen. On the results screen, all positive 'not for loan' values were listed as 'Available for reference' and all negative 'not for loan' statuses were stated as 'On order'.

With this new feature in Koha 20.05, the description and further information will be displayed in the results of the OPAC.

What to Expect

Koha will now show positive value statuses on a separate line with the OPAC description showing.

All Not for Loan items now include call number and branch in a display of the results screen in the OPAC.

Both positive and negative 'not for loan' statuses with the same description are combined where branches match.

For further customization, there are new class spans that will allow libraries to alter what Koha provides in this view.

Here are two examples:

Further Customizations

In the enhancement documentation, some CSS has been provided to show the separate classes for each of these areas for the library to decide what to display and not display on the OPAC.

This is some CSS that can be added to the System preference: OPACuserCSS:

Add to OPACUserCSS:
 .ItemSummary .ItemBranch{
 display:none;
 }
 .unavailable .ItemSummary .CallNumber,.unavailable .ItemSummary .LabelCallNumber{
 display:none;
 }

This can hide things such as branch, call number, and description.

More 20.05 Resources

Koha: 20.05 Upgrade Notes

Specific OPAC features coming in 20.05:

Reporting a Problem Through the OPAC

Adding a Library Link to the OPAC

Monday Minutes: More OPAC system preferences move to New Feature

For a full list of 20.05 OPAC features and enhancements, see the full blog post:

20.05 OPAC and Public Services Updates

Read more by Kelly McElligott

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