Controlling Loan and Reservation Length

There are a few ways to control or limit the length of loans and reservations. The best way is to use:

Settings > Inventory > Item Default Values

to set the following fields:

• Maximum Reservation Length: You can set a maximum reservation length for "All Items" (upper right corner on the Item Type Defaults page) or set different values for different types of items by selecting the Item Type then continue at the bottom of the page. Scroll to the Maximum Reservation Length field and enter the maximum number of days an item can be reserved and be sure to save. Information about this option and more can be found at Enabling & Configuring Reservations.  
  • The Maximum Reservation Length must be set using Item Default Values. This is because all items in a grouping (e.g. the "same item") must have the same maximum reservation length so they can be used interchangeably.
  • Important: we strongly recommend the Maximum Reservation Length be greater than or equal to the Default Loan Length.
• Default Loan Length: this truly is a default loan length that is used in a few places:
  • Ad-hoc check out and renewal: when an admin checks items out to users without a reservation, this will be used to set the Due Date for each item.
  • Default to/return date on reservations: when using the option to set the Reservation setting to automatically set the due date based on default loan length
  • Self-renew: it is used as one of the fields to limit how long a self-renewal of a loan can be
  • Note: the default loan length can also be overridden or set on each item by editing a specific item.
• Loan Length by Membership Type: we don't recommend using this option unless you have to, but you can also set the default loan length based on membership type (but not the maximum reservation length). We plan to also limit the maximum reservation length for items using this option to the default in May of 2022 and add a new option to always (and only) use these settings if they are configured rather than needing to specify by item which ones should use the system vs membership based. Learn more.