Setting Your OCLC Supplier Status
When your library cannot fill lending requests — a holiday, a vacation week, a collection move, a renovation — setting your OCLC supplier status to No keeps borrowing libraries from adding you to new lender strings, so the requests stop arriving instead of piling up in your queues to be cancelled by hand.
You can change it immediately, or schedule it ahead for a closure you already know about. Both are done in the OCLC Policies Directory.
What It Does and Does Not Stop
Non-supplier status affects a borrowing library's ability to add you to the lender string at the point a request is created. That leaves two gaps worth knowing about:
- Requests already in a lender string can still reach you. If your library is not first in the string, a request can move to you on a day you are set as a non-supplier and appear in your queue without being deflected. A closure does not guarantee an empty queue.
- Conditional requests can return to the queue during a closure.
Supplier status governs whether you lend through OCLC. It has no effect on requests your own patrons place as a borrower.
Operating Hours on the Schedule tab is informational only. It tells your partners when your department is open; it does not set you to non-supplier outside those hours, and it does not need to.
Opening the Policies Directory
Supplier status lives in the OCLC Policies Directory, which is a separate OCLC web application rather than part of ILLiad. The client links out to it: from the System ribbon on the client's Main page, click Policies Directory and it opens in your browser. Sign in with your OCLC credentials if you are not already signed in. The same link appears on the Borrowing Processing ribbon of a request form.
See Accessing OCLC from Various Client Locations for the client's other OCLC entry points, and OCLC's Policies Directory guide for signing in.
Changing It Now
- Go to the Profile tab.
- If OCLC Supplier is set to Yes, click Edit.
- In the Edit Profile window, select No.
- Click Save.
The change takes effect immediately, and your site stays a non-supplier until someone sets OCLC Supplier back to Yes and saves. Nothing reverts it on its own.
Scheduling It for a Closure
Use the Closures section for anything you know about ahead of time — holiday breaks, staff vacations, a moving project. It sets you to non-supplier and back again on the dates you define.
- Go to the Schedule tab.
- In the Closures section, click Add.
- Give the closure a name, such as Thanksgiving.
- Select a Type from the drop-down.
- Enter the Start and End Dates.
- Set OCLC Supplier to No. This is your status for the duration of the closure.
- Add notes if you need them, then click Save.
When the closure ends, the status goes back to supplier on its own.
OCLC recommends setting your supplier status to No four days before your closing date, which keeps conditional requests from returning to your queue during the closure.
The end date is not included. A closure runs from 00:00 on the start date to 00:00 on the end date, in your institution's time zone. A closure dated October 1 to October 3 covers October 1 and 2, and requests submitted after 00:00 on October 3 come through. To cover all of October 3, set the end date to October 4.
Yes on a closure means you are closed but still accepting ILL requests. No means you are closed and not accepting them. A closure left at Yes is the usual reason requests keep arriving while staff are away.
When the Profile and Schedule Disagree
Changing supplier status on the Profile tab overrides a status set on the Schedule tab — but not indefinitely. During a closure period OCLC checks the Schedule tab hourly, and if the two disagree, the Profile status is changed to match the Schedule. So a manual change made during an active closure does not hold.
A closure period is the only time the two can conflict.
Deleting an active closure does not restore your supplier status. If a closure runs January 1 to January 10 and you delete it on January 7, your status stays No until January 10 unless you set it back to Yes on the Profile tab yourself.
Supplier Status and Deflection
Supplier status is the broadest control OCLC gives you, and the first thing it evaluates when a request reaches your symbol — ahead of local holdings policies and every Policies Directory deflection policy. Use it when you cannot fill anything; use deflection when you cannot fill particular material. See Deflecting Requests for Specific Materials or Collections.
Supplier status applies to OCLC only. RAPID and DOCLINE lending are turned off separately — see Managing ILLiad During Library Closures or Service Disruptions for those and for the other adjustments a closure usually needs.
OCLC Documentation
OCLC covers this in Change Supplier Status, with the Schedule tab and closure timing in Collections, Schedule and Contacts.