Keywords: holds, requests, re-request
Under the new holds system, an item may have up to 1 hold on it waiting for the current user to return it. The rule of thumb is to only wait one week and if the item has not shown by then, then it is okay to cancel the hold with re-request. This probably means that you need some way of flagging a request to see if it has been waiting for a week or more. One way is to hold onto the original HOLD notice (looks like a paging slip but is really a hold) for the one week period and double check to see if the item comes back within that time frame and can be sent to the new patron. If not, you then can cancel the hold on the system (with re-request in case someone else's copy has been returned). This way the patron has a chance at another copy or at least gets notified that are none available within a reasonable time frame.
