Working with Item Statuses

Item statuses designate the circulation status of every item that has a corresponding item record in Horizon. (For example, a status of “i” means that an item is currently checked in. A status of “m” means that an item is missing from the library.) Horizon comes with several default status codes that can be automatically or manually assigned to items. You cannot delete these default codes, but you can modify their descriptions and define how they are used for requestable items and inventory. You can also create, edit, and delete new status codes of your own.

Horizon assigns item statuses in two ways:

Method

Description

Automatically

Horizon assigns an item status when specific system functions are performed.

For example, when an item is checked out, Horizon assigns the status “Checked Out.” When an item has held the status of “Lost” for a specified number of days, the status changes to “Missing.”

Manually

Staff can manually assign or change an item’s status in Circulation.

For example, staff can assign a status of “Lost” or “Claimed Returned.” (For more information, see “Placing a Claimed Returned or Lost Item Block” in the “Blocks” chapter or “Changing Item Statuses” in the “Borrower and Item Records” chapter of the Circulation Guide.)

Staff can also edit the item record in Cataloging to change the status. (For more information, see “Changing a Bib or Authority Record’s Status” in the “Control Records” chapter of the Cataloging Guide.)

Note: Do not use SQL to change an item status. This can corrupt your database. (For example, changing an item status from “o” to “i” leaves unlinked data in the circ table, rows in the recall table, and borrower blocks unresolved. It also ignores pending requests and bypasses any fine calculations.) If you change the status using the Item Group Editor or by editing the item record in the MARC Editor, Horizon checks to make sure that the status change you want to make has no negative results.

An item status also determines things such as whether the item can be requested or fill a request, whether the item can be placed on reserve, and whether remote borrowers can find the item during a search or place a hold on the item. You can set some item statuses to change automatically from one to another after a certain length of time. (For example, you can set a “Lost” status to change to “Missing” after 365 days.) You can also set up Horizon to automatically suppress the display of items with “Lost,” “Claimed Returned,” or “Missing” statuses so that the items display only in staff searching.

This section explains these topics:

 


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