SIP2 Integration Issue / Holds / Sacramento

At Sac State we have discovered an odd issue with the Illiad-Alma integration that we should all be aware of. The basic issue it this:

When items are received in Illiad, the NCIP add-on in Illiad creates borrowing requests in Alma that are associated with a patron. These requests are stub requests and need to be checked in from Alma before putting on the hold shelf. This will create an Alma notice that will tell the patron they have an item on hold in the library. Once the patron checks out the resource, the request is removed from their account an active loan in placed on their account. When the patron returns the load, the item is routed back to the resources sharing library and the request then moves into a pending status until manually completed in Alma. While these requests are not associated with a specific patron, they do clog up the system until processed. I am checking with Ex Libris if a delete process for completed borrowing requests can be automated. I will let you know what they say.

Now for the real issue. Requests of any type, (ILL or Hold) associated with a patron,may cause an issue for SIP2 communication to self-checkout machines. we use SIP2 to communicate with several public access computers in the library. The computers run a software called Cybrarian and use the SIP2 protocol to validate patrons authorization against Alma. During the transaction calls for SIP2, the request items are sent in the response commands. These requests (even if there is only one) cause an out of bounds error in the SIP2 communication and prevent our patrons from being authorized to use the computers.

We have traced it down to the SIP2 63 command send from our Cybrarian software that includes a control character that requests holds to be sent in the response. Even though these items may not be checked out to patrons, their presence on a patrons record in Alma creates an error in the SIP2 response 64 (what comes back from the 63 command call). 

We have a workaround for this here at Sac State, but it would be really nice for someone with a self-checkout machine to determine if the presence of the additional holds information breaks the self-checkout functions. We do not have any self checkout machines.