LINKcat News

Best Practices for creating WEB Use ONLY patron accounts for temporary use of digital resources.

Request this information from the patrons:

Last and first name (required)

Street address (required)

City, State, Zipcode (required)

Date of birth (optional)

Email address (optional)

Phone number (optional)

Before entering a new patron record into the system, search the database for both name and address to confirm that the patron does not already have a record.

• If they already have a record in our database, they do not need a separate WEB Use ONLY card to access digital materials.

Use your library for the patron’s Home Library.

Enter a PSTAT (sort1 field) based on the street address provided.

Assign the WEB Use ONLY patron category:

• The patron category defaults to a 12 month expiration period. You can select a shorter period of time.  Tell the patron the expiration date and that they can convert the “digital” card into a full service card after the library re-opens.  They will need to provide a photo ID and proof of address.
• This patron category does not allow the patron to place holds in LINKcat or check out physical materials. They will be able to access any SCLS databases, locally (your library) subscribed databases, Overdrive and other digital resources.

If you are interested in providing an application form through your website, you can check out the forms that patrons can access on the Middleton, McMillan, McFarland, and Stevens Point websites and see some examples.  These forms are not interactive with Bibliovation.

If the patron lives outside of SCLS, inform them that they should request access to digital materials through their own library or library system.

Moratorium on changes to existing bib records March 30 through around April 4

SCLS and the Madison catalogers are currently doing 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 next Monday, March 30, 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 in April. Unfortunately, we don't have an exact end date at this time, but it should be the week of April 6.

 During this time, you can continue to:

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

What this means for you in April

At the beginning of April, 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.

Creating Fast BIB Adds in Bibliovation - known BUG

When you or your co-workers are creating Fast BIB Adds in Bibliovation, please make certain to set the HOME LOCATION and HOLDING LOCATION fields to your library.

The BUG in Bibliovation causes the data in those fields to default to the first library alphabetically in the list.  If you don't make the change and save the record, you will not be able to access the record to modify those fields.

More details and screen shots can be located in the Bibliovation Circulation Manual, Section II, CHECKOUT, Part G Fast Bib Add.

Please share this with all of your co-workers.  Thank you for your attention.

News Summary (2/1/2020-2/29/2020)

News (in case you missed it!)

• 2/25/2020 ILS Staff are trying to get a better idea of what libraries have for training spaces to help us plan future training sessions. Please fill out the online survey for your library by March 13, 2020.
• 2/25/2020 A Bibliovation point release (6.00.20) was added to production last night. Details are posted in the Release Notes.
• 2/25/2020 4,977 bibliographic records were newly cataloged and/or updated in the database between 1/29/20 and 2/24/20.
• 2/25/2020 17,936 items and 1,710 bibliographic records (with only withdrawn items attached) were deleted in the monthly batch deletion of withdrawn items.
• 2/21/2020 The minutes from the February CSS meeting are available online.
• 2/19/2020 The minutes from the February ILS Committee meeting are available online.
• 2/18/2020 Replacement for Crystal reports for on-demand reports is available. Read about it here. 
• 2/4/2020 The monthly Koha reports for January 2020 can be found online.
• 2/3/2020 The monthly LINKcat.info and LINKcat Mobile reports for January are posted.

Replacement for Crystal Reports

We will be using Bibliovation’s built in reports instead of Crystal Reports for on demand reports. The reports module was updated with Bibliovation and now we can use it to recreate the reports that had only been possible through Crystal Reports in Koha. This is good timing as our Crystal Reports server needed to be upgraded and we would have had to buy an updated version of Crystal Reports as well, so we are saving money as well. 

The Reports link should now be showing on the main Bibliovation page.  If it isn’t showing on your page, please let us know.

 

There are some things that will be different in the reports. In general, you may need to do more formatting work with your report when you open it in Excel. Barcodes will need to be formatted and so might call number fields.  Depending on the report, you may also have to use Excel to create any subtotal columns that might have been in the old report. Other changes are listed in the documentation for the report.

 

Directions for running the reports can be found on the main page for the report. Click on the report name in the On Demand section of the main ILS Reports web page (https://www.scls.info/ils/reports). The directions include a section on making the formatting changes for the reports.  There is also a link to a Bibliovation Reports FAQ.  

News Summary (1/1/2020-1/31/2020)

News (in case you missed it!)

• 1/28/2020 11,639 bibliographic records were added and/or updated in the database between 10/30/19 and 1/27/20.
• 1/28/2020 1,514 bibliographic records with no items attached (that were created before 10/1/19) were deleted from the database.
• 1/28/2020 19,325 items and 2,213 bibliographic records (with only withdrawn items attached) were deleted in the monthly batch deletion of withdrawn items.
• 1/22/2020 There is Bibliovation a point release being added to production tonight after 10 pm. Details are posted in the Release Notes. 
• 1/22/2020 The minutes from the January CSS Meeting are available online.
• 1/22/2020 The minutes from the January DIS Meeting are available online.
• 1/16/2020 The minutes from the January CMS Meeting are available online.
• 1/9/2020 Two new Collection Codes are available in Bibliovation: BKYFIWL and BKYNFWL. See the LINKcat News blog post for more details.
• 1/3/2020 The monthly LINKcat.info and LINKcat Mobile reports for December are posted.
• 1/3/2020 The monthly Koha reports for December 2019 can be found online.  ILS Staff are still working on the messages report.  When it is available we will notify libraries by email.

New Collection Codes for YA World Languages Books available in Bibliovation

Two new Collection Codes are now available in Bibliovation:

• BKYFIWL (BOOKS YA FIC WORLD LANG)
• BKYNFWL (BOOKS YA NFIC WORLD LANG)

These Collection Codes were approved by the ILS Committee at its December 2019 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.

News Summary (12/1/2019-12/31/2019)

News (in case you missed it!)

 

• 12/18/2019 10,748 items and 1,418 bibliographic records (with only withdrawn items attached) were deleted in the monthly batch deletion of withdrawn items.
• 12/3/2019 The LINKcat Launcher Script will be discontinued when we migrate to Bibliovation. See the LINKcat News blog post for more details.
• 12/2/2019 The monthly Koha reports for November 2019 can be found online.
• 12/2/2019 The monthly LINKcat.info and LINKcat Mobile reports for November are posted.

 

 

Monticello goes LIVE on 12/16/2019

Monticello Public Library will officially join the LINKcat libraries on Monday, December 16th.  They still have some remaining materials to add to the catalog but overall are ready to go.  

Migration Tips #5

Go Live!

Today is the day when most libraries will be going live on Bibliovation. Pay attention to email and the SCLS Technology Status wiki to stay on top of any known problems, issues with services and service rollouts. We will be starting with checkout and uploading Offline Circulation and progress to bringing up additional functions throughout the day. In the morning you will receive an email with the information that you need for the day.

Known Problems

There are some problems that were not resolved prior to the migration. They are minor and not data corrupting, but library staff will want to be aware of them. The Known Problems database has been updated and this is a good place to check before reporting a problem that you encounter. We plan to resolve these problems post go live. 

Preparing To Help Patrons

When LINKcat goes live for patrons, there will be some changes and some patrons may need assistance. 

• After LINKcat is available, the https://help.linkcat.info/ will be updated with revised versions of all of the topical help. 
• Each library has printed versions to distribute to patrons who prefer printed help
• There is a "crosswalk" available for staff that covers the differences between Koha and Bibliovation 
• There are also brief tutorials available for staff that demonstrate different Discovery Layer features

Help Yourself

We are rolling out services slowly, starting with circulation. If you get stuck, the Bibliovation Training Information page has Crosswalks that cover the differences between Koha and Bibliovation. This is a good place to check when you help with the "how do I do that" type situations.