Claiming unreceived serial issues just got easier if you are an Innovative Interfaces, Inc. site and subscribe to your serials with William S. Hein & Co. or Fred B. Rothman & Co.

The initial procedures to create a claim on INNOPAC remain the same. There are three ways to produce the claim:

» In the Serials Check-in function you may claim any issue of any serial by choosing the options Maintenance mode, Modify a box, Write a claim letter;

» Also in the Serials Check-in function, you may be prompted by INNOPAC to claim any late issues for a title you are checking in;

» In the Claim Overdue Issues function you may systematically review, for claiming, overdue issues selected by INNOPAC from portions of the serials file that you specify.

After the claims are made, verified, etc., libraries either print the claims and mail them to the vendor or they phone them into the vendor. Printing the claims involves putting special forms in the "system printer," then stuffing them into envelopes, posting them, etc.

Now claims may be processed by hitting one key on the computer -- selecting the command E to "send via e-mail." This is a special option which Innovative makes available for a separate charge. Hein and Rothman each have a separate Internet mailbox capable of receiving mail from INNOPAC libraries. Innovative installs the Electronic Claiming module and enables the appropriate programs and menus. Each library that purchases this module puts certain information in the record of each vendor that is capable of receiving claims over the Internet -- for each vendor record CODE2 field should be s and NOTE2 field is for the vendor's Internet address. Rothman's NOTTE2 field is:

$EDI fCLAIMS@ROTHMAN.COM

Hein's NOTE2 field is:

$EDI fWSHCLAIM@CLASS>ORG

Each check-in record being claimed should have a vendor record number (insert f) in it. Most Innovative libraries will have this number already in their order record of each title and merely need to copy it into the check-in record. INNOPAC groups the claims by vendor into separate transmission files and sends them immediately upon command. Lynne Sitek at Hein and Kathy Ball at Rothman print the claims they receive each day, highlighting the vendor record number, title, and issues claimed. They both send feedback to the claiming library with the action each has taken. I learned at the AALL meetings in Indianapolis that Innovative is working on a method of getting feedback from the vendor directly into INNOPAC so that the claiming loop is completed electronically.