LINKcat News

Revised SCLS Guidelines for Registering Patrons

The revised SCLS Guidelines for Registering Patrons were approved by the Administrative Council in April 2025. Please review the changes to this document, Circulation Manual, Section V Patron Records and Registration, Part C.  The revisions are highlighted in green.

News Summary (4/1/2025-4/30/2025)

News (in case you missed it!)

• 4/23/2025 26,921 items and 3,113 bibliographic records (with only withdrawn items attached) were deleted in the monthly batch deletion of withdrawn items.
• 4/23/2025 8,038 bibliographic records were newly cataloged and/or updated in the database between 2/27/2025 and 4/22/2025.
• 4/23/2025 3,660 bibliographic records with no items attached (that were created before 1/1/25) were deleted from the database.
  4/8/2025 The minutes from the April 2, 2025, IC Meeting and the February/March 2025 ILS Report are available online.
• 4/2/2025 The monthly Bibliovation reports for March 2025 can be found online.

News Summary (3/1/2025-3/31/2025)

News (in case you missed it!)

• 3/28/2025 See the LINKcat News blog post for information about an additional problem found when adding an "Enter" character in the Discovery Layer Note in a patron's record.
• 3/26/2025 The minutes from the March 19 DIS Meeting are available online.
• 3/19/2025  The minutes from the March 12 CMS Meeting are available online.
• 3/19/2025 The minutes from the March 11 CSS Meeting are available online.
• 3/19/2025 11,551 items and 1,645 bibliographic records (with only withdrawn items attached) were deleted in the monthly batch deletion of withdrawn items.
• 3/5/2025 See the LINKcat News blog post for information about the moratorium on changes to existing bibliographic records, which starts Saturday, March 22.
• 3/4/2025 The monthly Bibliovation reports for February 2025 can be found online.
• 3/4/2025 The monthly LINKcat.info and LINKcat Mobile reports for February 2025 are posted.

Full cataloging moratorium COMPLETE

All updated records have been imported, and the full cataloging moratorium has been lifted. You can resume cataloging and creating BSEs!

Discovery Layer Note in Patron Records - additional problem with the Enter character.

ILS and IT staff have identified another problem that can happen when Library staff use the "Enter" character when adding new or additional notes in the Discovery Layer Note in a Patron record.  Here is the information you and your circulation co-workers need to be aware of:

Discovery Layer note. The Discovery Layer note is a free-text note that staff can create from the patron’s Edit screen.  This note displays to staff on the patron’s Details screen and in the patron’s Discovery Layer dashboard.  KNOWN PROBLEM: The (hidden) character produced by using the Enter key in this Note field has been known to cause self-check sessions to completely fail and will cause massive MyPC issues when that software encounters that character when interfacing with Bibliovation.

DO NOT USE THE ENTER KEY WHEN ADDING NEW NOTES OR ADDING ADDITIONAL NOTES TO THE DISCOVERY LAYER NOTE FIELD IN A PATRON RECORD.

This information has also been updated in the Circulation Manual, Section VI Circulation Alerts, Blocks and Notes, Part E Notes in the Patron Record.

Full cataloging moratorium starting TOMORROW, Saturday, March 29

We are continuing our work on the authority control project to update existing OCLC bibliographic records in our database with up-to-date author, subject, genre, and uniform title (series) headings.

LibLime will be importing and overlaying bibliographic and authority records. This means that there needs to be a full cataloging moratorium this weekend with no work done on bib records (including BSEs). This will start tomorrow, Saturday, March 29.

During this time, staff cannot:

1. Create, edit, or overlay records (BSE and MARC).
2. Use "Send to Catalog" from GetIt to create bib records.
3. Create new LOCAL or PERM records.
4. Delete or merge bib records.

During this time, staff can continue to:

1. Create, edit, withdraw, and delete item records for items owned by your library.
2. Use "Send to Catalog" from GetIt to create item records.
3. Work with Purchase orders in GetIt (as long as you don't send bibs to the catalog).
4. Work with Receiving and Invoicing in GetIt.
5. Update and create GEN records.
6. Do serials checkin in Serials.

This is planned to be completed for Monday, March 31. Once completed, cataloging and acquisitions staff will receive an email (should be early in the morning) when it is ok to resume creating new BSE records and sending to catalog from GetIt.

Moratorium on changes to existing bib records March 22 through around March 31

SCLS and the Madison catalogers are currently planning an authority control update project that will update all of the existing OCLC bibliographic records in our database with up-to-date author, subject, genre, and uniform title (series) headings. During this time, Madison cataloging staff cannot overlay or edit existing OCLC bibliographic records.

 What this means for you right now

Starting Saturday, March 22, if you submit changes to Madison on the following ILS Work Request forms:

Request to Add ISBNs or UPCs to Bibs

Report Problems with Bib Records

Report Duplicate Bib Records

those changes will be held by Madison until the next week or following week. The changes will be done after the project is completed the next week. Unfortunately, we don't have an exact end date at this time, but it should by the end of the next week.

 During this time, you can continue to:

• Create BSEs and link items
• "Send to catalog" from GetIt for both bib records and item records
• Create, edit, withdraw, and delete item records for items owned by your library
• Create LOCAL, PERM, or GEN records

What this means for you during the next week

Around March 29 and 30, there may be a day (or possibly two days) where we will ask you to refrain from creating BSEs and using "Send to Catalog" from GetIt to create new bib records while the updated bibliographic records are loaded into Bibliovation by LibLime. We will send an email out about this as soon as we have solid information. Unfortunately, we don't know exactly how long it will take for all of the updates to be made to the bib records and how long it will take LibLime to load the changed bibs back into Bibliovation.

News Summary (2/1/2025-2/28/2025)

News (in case you missed it!)

• 2/26/2025 18,698 items and 2,276 bibliographic records (with only withdrawn items attached) were deleted in the monthly batch deletion of withdrawn items.
• 2/26/2025 4,624 bibliographic records were newly cataloged and/or updated in the database between 1/30/2025 and 2/25/2025.
• 2/10/2025 The minutes from the February 5, 2025 IC Meeting and the December 2024/January 2025 ILS Report are available online.
• 2/7/2025 Three new Collection Codes are available in Bibliovation: BAEA, BAEJFI, and BAEJNF. See the LINKcat News blog post for more details.
• 2/6/2025 On 2/5/2025 the ILS Committee approved newly released DVD, 7 day loan materials to be eligible for Local Hold parameters.  Read the blog post for details.
• 2/5/2025 The monthly Bibliovation reports for January 2025 can be found online.
• 2/3/2025 The monthly LINKcat.info and LINKcat Mobile reports for January 2025 are posted.

New Collection Codes available in Bibliovation

New Collection Codes are now available in Bibliovation:

• BAEA - BOOK/AUDIO-ENABLED AD - Audio-Enabled Books
• BAEJFI - BOOK/AUDIO-ENABLED JU FIC - Audio-Enabled Books, Fiction
• BAEJNF - BOOK/AUDIO-ENABLED JU NFIC - Audio-Enabled Books, Non-Fiction

These Collection Codes were approved by the ILS Committee at its February 2025 meeting.

The Collection Codes can be used by any LINKcat library. For a full list of Collection Codes, see the ILS Support Codes page at https://www.scls.info/ils/codes.

If you would like SCLS staff to batch change a group of items from an existing Collection Code to one of the new codes, please fill out the Batch Change Collection Code/Shelving Location/Item Type Request form, available from the ILS Forms page.

Local Holds: additional format approved and new Item Type added

On February 5, 2025, the ILS Committee approved DVD7 materials as eligible for Local Hold Parameters.  The new  Item Type DVDLH7 was created for this use.

 

This new Local Hold Item Type,  "DVD, Local Hold, 7 day (DVDLH7)" will be used for Newly Released, 7 day DVDs. This code has been added to the list of Item Types in Bibliovation. 

• The Default Library Circulation Rule "LH 0.00 fines, 7 day loan, 0 renewals, home holds" was created for this new item type.
• If your library charges overdue fines for these materials at your library, you must submit a Circulation Rules Change Request form to create a library-specific circulation rule charging overdue fines.

A reminder to all libraries assigning Local Hold parameters to their materials: Use is limited to new items and the amount of time these parameters can be applied is a maximum of 60 days.  Follow the rules located in the Linking Manual, Appendix I Local Holds.