Alma has a fairly complex implementation of item transit behavior that is important to understand.
Definition: when is an item in transit?
An item is considered in transit when it is moving between Alma circulation desks or Alma departments.
When an item is in transit, it lets you know that the item is not at its home location, and gives you information to help find the item if it can’t be located.
Example:
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An item from Perkins was requested by a patron for pickup at Bishop’s House. The item appears on a shelf pick list at Perkins. When the item is picked and then scanned in, it goes in transit to Bishop’s House.
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Introduction
This wiki page outlines important information to know
Definitions
Base status is an item attribute that describes whether an item is on the shelf at its home location, or not on the shelf at its home location. This is separate from the idea of process status. For example, an item that is on the shelf will have a base status of “Item in place”
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Transit is a process status on an item that indicates it is moving between two library circulation desks, or moving between a circulation desk/department and a library, or between a library and a circulation desk/department.
In Transit to Remote Storage is a process status that applies when an item is owned by an on-campus library and stored at a remote storage location. The Duke Libraries that this applies to are Medical Center, Ford, Goodson Law, Rubenstein, and University Archives. When an item from one of those libraries that is at remote storage is requested to campus, and then isreturned in Alma, it must first go to the owning library. When it is returned at the owning library, it goes to a status of In Transit to Remote Storage, indicating that the item needs to be sent to the LSC.
Note that In Transit to Remote Storage will not appear if the item’s holding location is in the LSC library. Those items will display as Transit when returning from campus to the LSC.
Transit behavior with new items just received
New items in Alma are received through standard workflows that take place at an Alma acquisitions department.
When an item is received, the acquisitions staff member can opt to keep the item at the acquisitions department for further processing, or choose to not keep the item for further processing (meaning it’s ready to be sent to the home location.)
When an item is not kept for further processing, the item goes to a Transit state to its home location.
Example: A new book is received at Smith Warehouse with a final location of Perkins Library. The item is shelf-ready, so it does not need to be retained for further processing. When the item is received in Alma, it goes in Transit to the Perkins circulation desk.
When does the transit status go away?
If an item has a status of Transit, it goes away when the item is scanned in at the circulation desk that supports its home location.
Scanning in the item can be done by fulfillment staff who are at the correct circulation desk. It can also be done by staff using the Bulk check-in cloud app (Alma Cloud Apps ).
If the item is not scanned at the home location, it will continue to have a Transit status.