Purchase suggestions

If your library has the suggestion preference set to ‘Allow’, patrons will have the option to make purchase suggestions in several areas in the OPAC.

If you are allowing everyone to see the purchase suggestions made by others with the OPACViewOthersSuggestions preference, there will be a link at the top of your OPAC under the search box.

There will be a link when the patron finds nothing for their search.

There will be a ‘Suggest for purchase’ option in the detailed view of a bibliographic record.

And there will be a link in the Your purchase suggestions tab in the patron’s account.

Clicking any one of these links will open the purchase suggestion form.

The informational text at the top of the form can be replaced using the HTML customizations tool, display location OpacSuggestionInstructions.

From the form only the ‘Title’ is required by default.

Mandatory fields can be set using the OPACSuggestionMandatoryFields system preference.

The OPACSuggestionUnwantedFields system preference can be used to hide unnecessary fields.

The OPACSuggestionAutoFill system preference can be used to help patrons fill out the form using information from Google Books.

The item type list can be edited by editing the SUGGEST_FORMAT authorized value list.

The ‘Reason for suggestion’ list can be edited by editing the OPAC_SUG authorized value list.

If the item already exists in the catalog, the patron will see a message with what Koha thinks is the corresponding title. Matches are made on the title/ author, ISBN or ISSN. If the title isn’t what the patron is trying to suggest, they can click ‘Confirm your suggestion’, to suggest it anyway.

Once the form is submitted the purchase suggestion will appear in the acquisitions module for the librarians to manage.

If a purchase suggestion has been ordered through the acquisitions module, the patron’s purchase suggestion title will be clickable and bring the patron directly to the ordered record in the OPAC.