Koha Question of the Week: What does "Older Item Types in Serials" mean?

by Kelly McElligott on Oct 21, 2022

Each Friday, we will bring you a new Koha Question of the Week. We will select real questions that we receive and share the answers with you!

Question: What does "Older Item Types in Serials" mean?

For new serial users, some of the fields and functionality need more explanation! This particular field is found when a new serial is being created, Item Type: and Item Type for Older Serials:

These options when creating a serial work with a system preference called, MakePreviousSerialAvailable.

Once set to 'Make', the previous serial is automatically available when receiving a new serial issue. The previous issue can also be set to another item type when receiving a new one.

This is a fantastic option for those libraries that do not lend out their current issue of a serial, but once a newer issue is received, they would like the older one to be checked out. The change is streamlined with this process, where a library can choose the item type the issue is when it is new, and then what the item type will be when it is considered not new.

If a library is considering this, they will need to create another item type and make that item type a 'not for loan'.

Note:

To use this system preference, the item-level_itypes system preference must be set to a specific item rather than bilbiographic record.

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