Koha Question of the Week: What Does Marking a Library Location as Public Do?

by Hebah Amin-Headley on Jun 28, 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 Marking a Library Location as Public Do?

Answer: Marking a library branch as Public in Administration -> Libraries makes a library's information visible on the OPAC libraries page and makes it a search option for advanced searching. Some libraries that use a hold locker or window as a branch for hold pickup locations may choose to leave these special-use locations as non-Public branches to be less confusing for their patrons.

Marking a library as non-Public does not, however, hide the items held by that library in the OPAC from appearing in records or search result facets. For libraries that want to completely hide a library and its holdings for a period of time, many use the OPACHiddenItems system preference. There are a handful of bugs around items hidden from the OPAC still showing up in places like search facets, so many libraries customizing their OPAC via the Galadriel plugin will hide branches from search facets that way.

The non-public library location, if still marked as a hold location, will still be selectable when patrons place holds unless deselected as a pickup location or otherwise limited by hold policies and system settings.

Additional Resources

Koha Question of the Week: How to Close a Branch in Koha