Item Statuses in migration to Alma

Pre-migration to Alma

In Alma, there are only two types of item statuses: either "On Shelf" or "Not on Shelf".  There is a nice quick article on this here.

In Millennium and Sierra, the Item Status can be used for a variety of different purposes, and can often take on multiple roles within one library system.  For instance, you may have the Item Status "On Exhibit", that means that an item is temporarily shelved within an exhibit case.  You might also have the item status "Bindery", which means that the item is temporarily getting bound by bindery staff.

During migration, the item status will be placed into a note in the item record and the item will gain the temporary status "technical migration".  In order for this to happen, you must mark every item status (aside from '-' and 'o') as "0 = not on shelf" in the Item Status tab on the Millennium and Sierra (III) Migration form.

In order to retain the information that is maintained in your Item Status field, you will likely want to consider two additional options that will make mapping item statuses to Alma more seamless.

These options are (1) map an item status to a location or a temporary location, or (2) map an item status to a process type. 

There are certain item statuses that represent a physical location and can naturally be mapped to a temporary location.  For instance, in Millennium you may have had an item status "On Exhibit", but no branch related to exhibits.  In Alma, you may want to create a new item location "On Exhibit" that will serve as a temporary location when you place items on exhibit.  This method can also serve you well for statuses that fall into the following categories: "New Book Shelf", "Holiday Storage", "Evidence", etc.

There is a second group of item statuses that doesn't fall into the location category quite as seamlessly.  These item statuses might be “Bindery", “Repair", “On search", or “Damaged".  In this case, it may be a better fit to map these item statuses to a process type instead of a temporary location. If you are interested in mapping these item statuses to a process type, you will define these statuses as process types in the configuration form under the WorkOrders tab.  For instance, you could add a Bindery, Repair, On Search and Damaged work order type that would serve to handle these old Millennium/Sierra item statuses.  Work Orders can have multiple individual statuses in Alma.  You can combine multiple item statuses under one work order, but note that the "Work Order Type Name" is what displays in Primo. 

Once you decide for every item status whether it will become a temporary location or a process type, and the items are in Alma with the temporary status "Technical Migration", you can move on to updating the items to the appropriate temporary location/process type. 

Post-migration to Alma

We will need to run a job in Alma for each different item status in order to update the items to the correct temporary location or process type.  Let's say that you have made the following Item Status decisions: 

You will perform the following steps for each group of items with a particular item status in order to update all items to their correct Alma representation.

For a new Work Order type

1. Navigate to Manage Sets.  Under My Sets select Add Sets | Logical 
2. Name your set something informative (All "In Repair" items) and select the Set content type of Physical Items and select Next.
3. Find Physical Items where Internal Note 1 contains "In Repair" and select Go.  Select Save and save the set of items that had the item status "In Repair" in Millennium/Sierra. 
4. Per these Ex Libris instructions, navigate to Run a Job and select the job "Change Physical Items". Flag the items as Missing and run the job.  Run this job again to remove the Missing flag (select the checkbox next to "Missing Status" and leave the value box empty).  The items should now be in place.
   
5. Navigate back to Run a Job under Manage Jobs.
6. Select the job Create physical item work orders and select Next.  Select the set that you just created 'All "In Repair" Items' and select Next.
7. Select the appropriate Work Order Type, for instance "In Repair" 
   
   

For a temporary location

1. Navigate to Manage Sets.  Under My Sets select Add Sets | Logical 
2. Name your set something informative (All "On Exhibit" items) and select the Set content type of Physical Items and select Next.
3. Find Physical Items where Internal Note 1 contains “On Exhibit" and select Go.  Select Save and save the set of items that had the item status “On Exhibit" in Millennium/Sierra.  
4. Navigate to Manage Sets.  Under My Sets select Add Sets | Logical  
5. Navigate to Run a Job under Manage Jobs.
6. Select the job Change Physical Items and select Next.  Select the set that you just created 'All “On Exhibit" Items' and select Next.
7. Select the Change Type Temporary.  Select a New Library and New Location that fit the item status "On Exhibit", for instance "exhibits". 
   
   

For Library Use Only status

1. Navigate to Manage Sets.  Under My Sets select Add Sets | Logical 
2. Name your set something informative (All “LIB USE ONLY" items) and select the Set content type of Physical Items and select Next.
3. Find Physical Items where Internal Note 1 contains “LIB USE ONLY" and select Go.  Select Save and save the set of items that had the item status “LIB USE ONLY" in Millennium/Sierra.  
4. Navigate to Manage Sets.  Under My Sets select Add Sets | Logical  
5. Navigate to Run a Job under Manage Jobs.
6. Select the job Change Physical Items and select Next.  Select the set that you just created 'All "LIB USE ONLY" Items' and select Next.
7. Select the Change Type Permanent.  Select the Item Policy of NON-Circulating, or whatever you have labeled your non-circulating item policy.  
   
   

For On Holdshelf items

1. No action is necessary.  Items that have the status '!', On Holdshelf were included in your list of items that are currently on the holdshelf. 
2. You may want to verify that all items with the status '!' migrated correctly by going to Repository Search | Advanced Search and Add Condition where Internal Note 1 contains "Holdshelf".  Verify that the number of items retrieved matches the number of items with the Process Type Equals Hold Shelf.