LINKcat News

News Summary (11/1/2023-11/30/2023)

News (in case you missed it!)

• 11/29/2023 The ILS Report for October/November 2023 is available online.
• 11/28/2023 The minutes from the November 14 CSS Meeting are available online.
• 11/28/2023 26,488 items and 3,070 bibliographic records (with only withdrawn items attached) were deleted in the monthly batch deletion of withdrawn items.
• 11/28/2023 7,513 bibliographic records were newly cataloged and/or updated in the database between 9/18/2023 and 11/27/2023.
• 11/21/2023  The minutes from the November 15 DIS Meeting are available online.
• 11/15/2023  The minutes from the November 8 CMS Meeting are available online.
• 11/15/2023 The Lost and Paid at Another Library and the Damaged and Paid at Another Library reports for October 2023 have been posted to their pages.
• 11/10/2023 The Lost Over 6 Months and Paid report for October 2023 has been posted on that web page.
• 11/9/2023 The Annual Purge of Old Charges report has been posted for 2023. The deadline for review is 5:00PM on Monday, November 20.  Please read the information in the Circulation Manual, Section XII Circulation and Statistical Reports Part D Annual Purge of Old Charges for details about this annual process.
• 11/2/2023  The registration is open for the Linking User Group scheduled for December 14, 2023 from 10 - 11:30 am via Zoom.  Register online.
• 11/2/2023  The monthly Bibliovation reports for October 2023 can be found online.
• 11/1/2023 The monthly LINKcat.info and LINKcat Mobile reports for October 2023 are posted.
• 11/1/2023 The Serials Clones records for 2024 are complete. You can find the Serials Clones 2024 memo online.

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!

Full cataloging moratorium starting TOMORROW, Saturday, November 4

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, November 4.

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, November 6. 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.

News Summary (10/1/2023-10/31/2023)

News (in case you missed it!)

• 10/31/2023 Talpa is an experimental, "plain language" search that is available for LINKcat on a trial basis. See the LINKcat News blog post for details.
• 10/27/2023 LINKcat Online Payments will be down from approximately 1pm to 3pm on Tuesday, October 31 due to server maintenance.
• 10/25/2023 21,106 items and 3,615 bibliographic records (with only withdrawn items attached) were deleted in the monthly batch deletion of withdrawn items.
• 10/25/2023 2,442 bibliographic records with no items attached (that were created before 7/1/23) were deleted from the database.
• 10/17/2023 Bibliovation will be down on Monday, October 23, starting at 9:15pm. The downtime will last approximately 30 minutes. LibLime will be doing server maintenance during this time. Before using Bibliovation on Tuesday, Oct. 24, please clear your browser cache.
• 10/12/2023  The minutes from the October 4, 2023 ILS Committee meeting and the August and September ILS Reports are available online.
• 10/12/2023 The registration is open for the Circulation User Group scheduled for November 28, 2023 from 1 - 3 pm via Zoom.  Register online.
• 10/11/2023 See the LINKcat News blog post for information about the moratorium on changes to existing bibliographic records, which starts Saturday, October 28.
• 10/10/2023 The Patron Hold History Retention policy is posted on the ILS Policies/Circulation webpage.
• 10/3/2023 The monthly Bibliovation reports for September 2023 can be found online.
• 10/2/2023 The ILS Report for September 2023 is available online.

Talpa search available for LINKcat

Talpa is an experimental, AI-powered, "plain language" search that allows you to search LINKcat in ways that are different from traditional searching. We have access to Talpa through our enhanced content provider, Syndetics Unbound (enhanced content includes cover art, series information, reviews, about the author, etc.). Here are some examples of Talpa searches:

• astronaut stranded on mars
• time travel novel with blue cover

We are able to try out Talpa for one year but we don't know what will happen after the year is done. During this time, the vendor will be gathering information about how well Talpa is working, and may or may not continue the service.

The Talpa search link is available on the LINKcat Help page. From here, either patrons or staff can use Talpa. For more information on how the Talpa search works, go to https://www.talpa.ai/.

Moratorium on changes to existing bib records October 28 through around November 6

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, October 28, 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 first week of November.

 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 November 4 and 5, 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 (9/1/2023-9/30/2023)

News (in case you missed it!)

• 9/28/2023  The registration is open for the Discovery Layer User Group scheduled for December 5, 2023 from 1:30 - 3 pm via Zoom.  Register online.
• 9/28/2023 The registration is open for the GetIt Acquisitions User Group scheduled for November 29 from 10-11:30 am via Zoom.  Register online.
• 9/27/2023 The minutes from the September DIS Meeting are available online.
• 9/27/2023 39,407 items and 5,269 bibliographic records (with only withdrawn items attached) were deleted in the monthly batch deletion of withdrawn items.
  • This is higher than usual due to the annual deletion of Lost items.
• 9/27/2023 4,276 bibliographic records were newly cataloged and/or updated in the database between 8/24/2023 and 9/26/2023.
• 9/26/2023 The minutes from the September CSS Meeting are available online.
• 9/20/2023 The minutes from the September CMS Meeting are available online.
• 9/7/2023 A Bibliovation upgrade took place last night. Please clear your browser cache before using Bibliovation. See the Release notes for a full list of fixes.
• 9/5/2023  The monthly Bibliovation reports for August 2023 can be found online
• 9/5/2023 A Bibliovation upgrade is scheduled for Wednesday, September 6 at 9pm. Please see the Release notes for a full list of fixes.
• 9/5/2023 Registration is open for the Fall ILS Summit scheduled for October 11, 2023 from 9 am - 12 pm at the Waunakee Public Library.  We are offering an online option for those who can't join us in person.  Register online.   
• 9/5/2023 Registration is open for the Serials User Group on October 5 from 1:30-3:00 pm.  Register online.
• 9/1/2023 The August 2023 ILS report is available online.
• 9/1/2023 The monthly LINKcat.info and LINKcat Mobile reports for August 2023 are posted.

7.02.37 Bibliovation Upgrade, Wednesday, Sept. 6

We are pleased to announce that there will be an update to Bibliovation at 9pm on Wednesday, September 6, 2023. The upgrade does not require system downtime. This release (7.02.37) includes fixes to Circulation and the Staff client. See the Release Notes for a full list of issues addressed in this upgrade.

This upgrade includes fixes that have been tested by SCLS staff. To the best of everyone’s assessment, the fixes are working well and any bugs identified during testing have been fixed. However, as we learned with past upgrades and patches, we may experience unexpected results following the upgrade. We may also discover new problems. We will use the Known Problems page to document any post upgrade problems. After the upgrade, please clear your browser cache before using Bibliovation.

News Summary (8/1/2023-8/31/2023)

News (in case you missed it!)

• 8/23/2023 17,218 items and 2,524 bibliographic records (with only withdrawn items attached) were deleted in the monthly batch deletion of withdrawn items.
• 8/23/2023 3,723 bibliographic records were newly cataloged and/or updated in the database between 7/27/2023 and 8/22/2023.
• 8/9/2023  The minutes from the August 2, 2023 ILS Committee Meeting can be found online.
• 8/2/2023  The monthly Bibliovation reports for July 2023 can be found online
• 8/2/2023 A policy has been approved to formalize the settings for Patron Reading History retention, approved by the ILS Committee 8/2/2023.
• 8/2/2023 The Bibliovation upgrade took place last night. Please see the Release Notes for a full list of fixes. 
• 8/1/2023 The monthly LINKcat.info and LINKcat Mobile reports for July 2023 are posted.

Accessing the Reports Archive

We recently finished a clean-up of the SCLS website and removed any Bibliovation reports that were older than 2020.  Libraries may still access these reports from the SCLS Network.  We have written and posted documentation for libraries to access the reports archive easily.  You can find the documentation online.