Duplicate OCLC Requests
This is a brief OCLC update.
Since the latest build (on Januaray 19), URSA has found a new way to submit duplicate requests to OCLC. I’ll summarize it below. The good news is that SirsiDynix has found the cause of the problem, created a solution, and has fixed it on the RSS server. But you may find some duplicate requests on OCLC right now, if we have OCLC listed as your LOLR in your URSA setup. Here’s how the error happens.
If OCLC is your LOLR, URSA will automatically send a request to OCLC, if it can find no available copies locally. An URSA-to-OCLC request goes through several servers: URSA to Gateway to RSS to OCLC, then back to RSS to Gateway to URSA. Each one sends a message to the next one and waits for 45 seconds for an acknowledgement response. If it does not get a response in that time, it assumes the message did not go through.
In this case, the message got all the way to OCLC, but the response did not get all the way back. One of the inter-server delays exceeded 45 seconds. So, OCLC got the request automatically. But URSA did not know OCLC had the request, so it left the request in your Mediate Borrowing work space. Some of you manually sent some of those requests on to OCLC. That’s how the duplicates got there.
The timing problem occurred in the RSS server and was fixed about 4:45 today.