Item transit behavior in Alma

Introduction

This wiki page outlines important information to know about Alma transit behavior.

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.”

Open

• 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. When viewing an item in a transit process status, clicking on the status will show information about where it is moving to/from.
  
  

Open

• 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 is returned 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 until it is scanned in at the home location.

This item is in a work order that is marked done, but it keeps going back in transit when I scan it. What’s going on?

Usually, this issue occurs when the work order was not actually completed, even though staff thought it was. So they send the item back to its home library, and the home library scans it in, and the item goes back in transit to the work order department.

The troubleshooting steps are:

• Go to Requests and search for the item (usually some combination of title and/or barcode works best)

• You will likely find a request still listed that is open, with a transit status.

• Cancel the request.

• Re-scan the item. It should go into reshelving.

How does transit to remote storage work for items at the LSC?

Transit behavior depends on whether the item’s location is part of the LSC library, or part of an on-campus library.

If an item’s location is in the LSC library, the item will use the Transit status both when coming to campus and going back to the LSC for refile.

If an item’s location is not in the LSC library, the item will use the Transit status coming to campus. When it’s discharged on campus to go back to the LSC, it will go to Transit to its owning library (if not already there.) Once at its owning library and scanned in, the item will go to In Transit to Remote Storage. When the item is scanned into CAIASoft and refiled, it will go from In Transit to Remote Storage, to Transit, and then the transit will clear and the item will be in place.

If an item was in transit in Aleph, how did it migrate to Alma?

Items in transit in Aleph would migrate to Alma as loans to a dummy user account, according to its destination library. Once the items complete transit and these accounts no longer have loans, we will delete them form Alma.

• Vesic Library for transfers

• Documents/Maps Department for transfers

• Divinity Library for transfers

• Chemistry Library for transfers

• BES Library for transfers

• University Archives for transfers

• Ford Library for transfers

• LAW Library for transfers

• Music Library for transfers

• Medical Center Library for transfers

• Marine Lab Library for transfers

• Lilly Library for transfers

• Special Collections Library for transfers

• Perkins Library for transfers

• Library Service Center for transfers

• Sanford School for Transfers

• Duke Kunshan Library for transfers