Koha Question of the Week: What Does 'Limit to Currently Available Items' in Search Facets Actually Mean?

by Hebah Amin-Headley on Apr 26, 2024

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 'Limit to Currently Available Items' in Search Facets Actually Mean?

Answer: Ask ten different libraries what "Available" means, and many will probably have differing answers. As far as Koha's searching is concerned, "Available" means that on a given record, there is at least one item that is not checked out. This is a fairly narrow definition of availability that does not touch things like not for loan statuses or being on hold and waiting for other patrons, which can be confusing to users. While a number of bugs in the Koha community seek to make that definition of "Available" more configurable, one small clarity change is coming in 23.11, relabeling that text to "Showing only records with available items," courtesy of Bug 34721.