Monographic Order Cancellations

Owned by Heather Baker
Last updated: Oct 04, 2022
2 min read

Scope: When and how to cancel monographic orders in Aleph

Contact: Sara Biondi

Unit: Monograph Acquisitions

Date last reviewed: 09/27/2019

Date of next review:

Monographic Order Cancellations

Why cancel an order?

  • Inadvertent duplicate order
  • Material lost in transit that will not be re-supplied by vendor (for free)
  • Vendor unable to supply
  • Order created and/or encumbered in error
  • Etc.

The origin of a cancellation could be the vendor, a subject librarian, or other sources.

Example note from vendor that requires a cancellation in Aleph:

Purchase order no. [number / approval\\] of [date]:
Rossiisko-izrail`skie otnosheniia: istoriia i sovremennost` : Po materialam mezhdunarodnoi konferentsii "Rossiia - Izrail`: 20 let vosstanovleniia diplomaticheskikh otnoshenii". Rossiia, g. Moskva, 24-25 oktiabria 2011 g.
M.: Institut vostokovedeniia RAN, 2012, ISBN 9785932733653, 279 p.
$31.00 (Item no. M52954)
Information: *the book sold out, please cancel this order we will not be able to supply it*

The basic steps are:

  • Find the order with PO # or ISBN. Close the order. In the case of claim replies (as the examples below from MIPP) the correct setting will probably be "VC – Vendor Cancelled." Sometimes you'll also see (and perhaps use) "LC – Library Cancelled." This will depend on who chose to cancel the order, us or them.
  • Put a message in the order's library note to that effect. I like to mention the vendor, in case we decide to re-vend the order in future. "MIPP unable to supply." or "MIPP cannot supply." is enough. It can be helpful to provide a who – "Order cancelled per JPT" or "Cancelled per JEK for budget compression"

  • Put the same note in the order log. It looks like this before:


and it looks like this after:

  • Go to the cataloging side. Suppress the catalog record so library users don't think we really got the title. There may be a macro for the function (which is usually Alt+Q). 

If not, add that line by hand (use the F6 key for "create line", type in "STA" instead of a line number, add "SUPPRESSED", and re-save the record with Ctrl-L) – but be sure to spell SUPPRESSED correctly!


If you have the necessary permissions in Aleph, you can also…

  • Remove the item. First find the item, then double-click that to access it.


As usual, make sure that it is not a "live-on-a-book" item (that it's not a "D-" barcode) and that it's really referring to the cancelled title.
Then delete it,

and confirm the deletion.

Afterwards your catalog record will have no items

(and neither will your order.)



















Robin LaPasha – April 2014