Stack requests for VHL stack books not working and other new SOLO bugs

It’s come to our attention that stack requests aren’t working on the new system for books kept in the VHL stack.  I’ve reported it and it is being investigated, but in the meantime the only way to call up our stack books is the old-fashioned manual way.  If you would like to see a book kept in our stack, then please come into the library or give us a ring/send us an email to give us the details so that we can go down and fetch it for you.

I’m afraid this does mean that we are not able to send VHL stack books elsewhere in the Bodleian Libraries for consultation until the problem is fixed, so if you do want a book from our stack you will need to come into the VHL to read it.

It also looks as if VHL stack books are not displaying their location on SOLO (which may be the reason the requests aren’t working!).  As a general rule, anything published pre-1920 will be in the stack, but do ask if you’re not sure – we can see the location on the staff side.

There are various other bugs currently causing problems on SOLO as well – summary as follows:

  • Renewals: It’s currently not possible to renew your loans or your stack requests via SOLO. Staff can do so on your behalf, so please ask the relevant library.  Fines are generally being waived across the system while everything settles down, and no stack requests are going back to the stacks until at least Monday 1st August.
  • Stack requests for multiple volumes of the same work (books and journals): If you try to request more than one volume of a work, you will get a message saying you already have a request and won’t be able to request subsequent volumes. Again staff can get round this, so please ask us to place the requests on your behalf.
  • e-shelf: e-shelf data has still not been migrated. Don’t worry, your saved records have not been lost, it’s just taking them longer than we thought to transfer the data.
  • Visibility of stack books already called up to reading rooms: SOLO is not displaying properly when stack books are already out from the stack, which means it’s hard to know when you place a request either whether it’s available or not, or if it’s already in a reading room, where it is so that you can go and consult it there.
  • Estimated delivery times: SOLO does not tell you when you place a request when to expect it at the reading room. The idea was that you would be emailed when your books arrived, but this is not working properly yet either. You can always check the status of your request by logging in to SOLO and looking at your account.  As a general rule, books take 24-48 hours to arrive in the reading room from the stack.

All of these are known about by our systems people and by the software developers, who are working to fix the bugs as soon as possible. If you are having problems with any aspect of SOLO and the new system, please do report it either to library staff or via the feedback link on SOLO (top right, next to ‘help’).

Comments are closed.