Autofill remote storage form on the OPAC holdings page

A big part of our library collections are located in a remote storage which is about 12 km from its managing library. Until recently, the only way to request a volume was by filling in a paper form at a library desk. The form was then faxed to the remote storage whose staff treated the request and delivered the ordered item to the pickup library. This workflow forced patrons to go to the library desk, no remote request was allowed. In order to modernize the workflow, we wanted to implement Aleph remote storage functionalities. We found it not so easy to set up and were faced moreover with two additional problems: we wanted to allow patrons to request (1) some items which are not in a remote storage and (2) serial issues from older collections which had never been itemized and so could not be requested through the traditional Aleph functionalities. Therefore, we set up a PHP form that any registered patron can call from the OPAC holding page (item-global) and that automatically contains patron information, bibliographic information and item details (location, call number, description, status, barcode). The patron just needs to select the appropriate pickup library before the form is sent by e-mail to the remote storage. That form can be used for any location (not necessarily for volumes located in a remote storage) and for serial holdings with few itemized volumes (a Z30 is not required to make a request).