Automatic Back-Issues

If your patron doesn't get their weekly serial one week because they are at cutoff, should they get both issues the next week? If a patron is on hold or at cutoff for longer, how far back do you want to go? This setting is called retention, and you can set it to your preference for each serial. 

Here's a great explainer on the topic from Nancy:
In the serials module, each of the serials are listed in a tree view on the left side of the screen.  Let's use "The Week" as an example.  Find and expand the node for the magazine in question, by clicking on the plus sign next to SDS-TWK3.
   
Then click on the listing that says "[Library ID]- SHELF - 1"  This is the holding record.  On the right side of the screen, you'll see the retention.  The Gen Retention should be set to Retained, and below that is the Spec Retention.  With weekly magazines, like the Week or People, we recommend that you set that retention to 4 (Note from Katy: even if you don't want to go that high, I'd at least set the weeklies to 2).  Monthly magazines are probably less likely to have an issue, but you could certainly up the retention if you'd care to.
 
The retention is used in two ways.  For new subscribers, it indicates how many back issues the patron should be eligible for when they first sign up.  And for current subscribers, it indicates how far back the system should attempt to serve the patron.  For the weeklies, you need to account for vagaries in getting the files - maybe the file is late one week, and on time the next .  If the retention is set to one, that situation would give only the most recent magazine, rather than both of the new issues.  Your patron's situation with being ineligible to receive magazines one week would also be caught here.
 
This retention would not send the same magazine to the patron multiple times.  If they've already received one issue, they won't get it again unless they specifically ask to receive it.
 
To change the retention, use the update button (ctrl-o) on the bottom left of the screen, change the Spec Retention to the desired number and then save (ctrl-s).  

Hi, thank you Katy for keeping us on track! When we started doing the NLS magazines, I remember (maybe imperfectly) inputting one setting for everything. Should we review each title individually, or is there a default for all the monthly magazines, or all the weekly?

Great question! When you got started duplicating the NLS magazines, my batch programs would have set everything up with the same Retention as a starting point. Unless you've gone through to increase the Retention for your weeklies, you are likely to have the same Retention on everything.