Location hierarchy in the circulation rules

The location hierarchy are：Institution - Campus - Library - Collection - Location in the circulation components.

There are 4 location levels in current circulation rules:
a - institution
b - campus
c - library
s - location

but s is the only location level than is implemented in the circulation rules engine yet.

Would you mind tell me when Folio will implement other location levels? How can we design the circulation rules for a consortium in the Folio?

Any help would be appreciated！ Thanks!

Regards

Alex

Hi, Alex - my understanding (and hopefully someone who knows better will correct me if I’m wrong) is that circulation rules will always be defined at the location (s) level. So, if you had two “locations” at one “library” you would have at least two circulation rules - even if those rules are exactly the same.

For a consortium, the design of circulation rules is dependent on the implementation model: (1) cross-tenant or (2) shared tenant. In a shared tenant (where all libraries in the consortium are in one tenant), the consortium would be the institution (a). I think you would basically have a three-level hierarchy for each member library rather than four levels. For the cross-tenant model (i.e. each library in its own tenant), each library would have the freedom to design its own hierarchy and circulation rules as it chooses.

How circulation across libraries in a consortium works is still a work-in-progress. The Consortia SIG has discussed this at some of our recent meetings. You can see some notes from those discussions on this Jira issue: https://issues.folio.org/browse/UXPROD-795.

Hi, David

Thank you so much for your information, but it may be bad news if the circulation rules work only at the location level, because we can define more complex circ rules in a consortium if the institution, campus, library will be used .

On the other hand , I cannot find any circulation details in the Consortia SIG. Is there any road map in this function? Thanks!

Regards

Alex

Hi, Alex - I’d be interested in some more detail about the types of complex circ rules you have in mind. In one respect, the other levels of the hierarchy are used in so much as if you have two “Stacks” locations, the other levels of the hierarchy are necessary to distinguish the two locations.

There isn’t anything I would call a roadmap at this point. It doesn’t seem like there will be just one roadmap for consortial circulation (a.k.a. resource sharing) in FOLIO. You may be interested in Project ReShare which should be one way to handle this in an all-FOLIO consortium or a consortium with different ILSes. Another possibility is to implement a shared tenant model where each member library operates much like a branch. It’s possible FOLIO could also have some cross-tenant borrowing functionality built in. And, of course, any consortium could build their own solution to fit their needs.

Hi, David

We are evaluating the possibility of Folio implementing a consortium architecture, with about 10 branches, each of which may have dozens of circulation points.

The borrower can checkout or checkin in all branches and circulation points , but each branch may have its own circulation policy for specific borrower and specific items.

If we use the multi-tenant mode in the consortium, how can we implement cross-tenant borrowing functionality? Thanks!

Regards

Alex

Hi, Alex - At this point I don’t think there’s an answer to your question since a solution for cross-tenant borrowing hasn’t been designed/developed yet. It’s one of the topics that we’re talking through right now. In the end, I suspect there will be multiple ways to achieve this. You’re welcome to join our Consortia SIG calls to discuss this and other consortia-related topics: https://wiki.folio.org/display/CONSORT/Consortia+SIG+Meetings+and+Notes. ~David