LINKcat News

Reporting Bibliovation Response Time Problems

SCLS staff are working with LibLime to determine areas of Bibliovation where intermittent and short-term slowdowns are a problem and we are looking for your help. If you experience response time problems with Bibliovation, please open a ticket using the SCLS Help Desk Portal or send an email to helpdesk@scls.info.

In order to provide the most specific information possible to LibLime about response time, please report any problems at the time that they occur, and with as many details as possible. For example, if there is a problem when checking out to a patron, please provide the patron’s barcode number, as well as information about whether the patron has a large number of items already checked out or is checking out a large number of items. If there is a problem when viewing a bibliographic and/or item record, please provide the bibliographic number and/or item barcode number and the specifics of the problem. It’s also important to provide the date and approximate time when the problem occurred.

If Bibliovation is unusable or seems to be having major problems, please contact the Help Desk immediately (use the After Hours Support Number during evenings and weekends).

Moratorium on changes to existing bib records May 28 through around June 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 next Saturday, May 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 first full week of June. 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 be done by the end of the first full week of June.

 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 during the next week

Around June 4 or 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.

NEW WORKFLOW for re-queuing a patron's hold at Checkin or from the hold shelf.

In order to re-queue a patron's hold for the following situations,

• Item in Transit to fill hold
• Staff pulls an item out of a delivery bin that is in poor shape or is missing a part and cannot fill the patron's hold.
• Item Waiting on hold shelf.
• Staff and patron can't find item on hold shelf or item is discovered to be defective before checkout.
• Item on hold shelf, patron requests a different pickup location
• Patron has an Unexpired hold on your hold shelf that they would like to be sent to a different pickup location.

the same, initial step is to CHECK IN THE ITEM AND CLICK THE IGNORE BUTTON.  Doing this will disengage the patron's hold from the item and re-place their hold at the top of the Holds list.

More information and detailed instructions for each situation are located in the Circulation Manual, Section VIII Problem Statuses and Workflows, Part K How to Re-queue a Patron's Hold and in Section IX Placing and Managing Holds, Part G Other Holds Procedures.

The Problem Item form has been updated to reflect this change in the workflow.  See this page for both the full and half-sheet forms

Bibliovation Staff URL Change May 31, 2022

The Bibliovation staff URL will be changing from scls.kohalibrary.com to scls.bibliovation.com during the day on May 31, 2022. LibLime will be doing a redirect from the old URL to the new URL until September 1, 2022. Because of the redirect, the change will happen behind the scenes and should not impact existing URLs right away. However, any links to the “old” URL will need to be updated to the “new” URL sometime between June 1, 2022 and September 1, 2022. Unfortunately, this is not something that can be done automatically by SCLS staff. No URL updates should be done prior to June 1, 2022.

Where are the staff URLs saved?
Please take some time between now and June 1 to think about where your library may have saved URLs to Bibliovation. Some places where URLs might be stored are:

• Bookmarks in browsers on staff computers
• Shortcuts on staff computers
• Internal library websites that are only used by library staff
• Documentation and instructions that your library created for staff
• Receipt printer shortcuts on staff PCs
• Spine label shortcuts on staff PCs

How do I update the URLs?
For browser bookmarks and shortcuts, you can edit the existing bookmark/shortcut and replace the old URL with the new URL. You can also delete the existing bookmark/shortcut and create a new bookmark/shortcut with the new URL. For internal documentation or websites, you can do a find and replace to update the URLs.

How do I update the URL in the receipt and/or spine label printer Firefox profile shortcuts?
There are special procedures for updating the receipt and spine label printer shortcuts. Instructions are posted on the ILS Support Manuals page.

Can I use my library's unique Bibliovation URL?
Yes! In Bibliovation, each library can use a unique URL for staff as well as for patrons. Your library's unique URL is <agency code>.scls.bibliovation.com. (For example, the URL for SCA will be sca.scls.bibliovation.com.) If you use your library's unique URL, then your library's items will display first on the "Detail" screen of the bib record, the "Edit items" screen of the bib record, and on the "Item status" screen of the bib record.

What about the LINKcat URL?
The generic URL for LINKcat is www.linkcat.info. The www.linkcat.info URL is not changing. Each library also has a unique LINKcat URL, which can be used for patrons. Your library's unique LINKcat URL is <agency code>.linkcat.info. (For example, the unique URL for SCLS is sca.linkcat.info.) Always use <agency code>.linkcat.info for any patron-facing information. Please do not use the scls.bibliovation.com URL for any patron materials or websites. If you are copying and pasting URLs into websites or other patron materials, be sure that you are using <agency code>.linkcat.info instead of scls.bibliovation.com.

What does this mean for patrons?
Patrons should not notice a change. Patrons will still be able to use www.linkcat.info to access LINKcat. Patron PCs in the library will continue to take patrons into the library's custom-branded LINKcat instance.

I need more help with this
If you need help with updating bookmarks, shortcuts, or anything else, you can contact the Help Desk. See the Get Help page for information on contacting the Help Desk.

Special note about GetIt Acquisitions
Libraries who are using GetIt Acquisitions must continue to use their library's unique URL in order to use GetIt. The library's unique URL is <agency code>.scls.bibliovation.com.

Change in procedure - no longer need to add "T1-" prefix to phone numbers for Hold Filled text messages.

Staff are no longer required to enter the "T1-" prefix in the patron's Phone (primary) field so that Bibliovation will deliver Hold Filled messages as text.  Since the Patron Messaging Preferences are now so granular, the system extracts phone numbers for messages  based on the PMP setting and not prefixes or extra characters in the phone number field(s).

 

Based on information provided by LibLime and testing done in our Production database, the script extracting phone numbers to deliver Hold Filled messages to the Talking Tech server, both phone and text, is extracting the phone number from the Phone (primary) phone field in the patron record and is not requiring the T1- prefix for text messages.

 

Please share this information with any staff that create and modify patron records so that they no longer add the "T1-" prefix to any phone number field in a patron's record. 

 

We are updating documentation and forms with this change.  We have also submitted a data clean-up ticket to LibLime to strip out the "T1-" prefix from all phone fields in our database, as well as the "*" asterisk used to prevent patrons from getting Telecirc phone messages (in Dynix and Koha).

News Summary (4/1/2022-4/30/2022)

News (in case you missed it!)

• 4/29/2022 The ILS Report for April 2022 is available online.
• 4/27/2022 4,525 bibliographic records were newly cataloged and/or updated in the database between 3/31/2022 and 4/26/2022.
• 4/27/2022 19,376 items and 3,365 bibliographic records (with only withdrawn items attached) were deleted in the monthly batch deletion of withdrawn items.
• 4/27/2022 2,342 bibliographic records with no items attached (that were created before 1/1/22) were deleted from the database.
• 4/12/2022 The minutes from the April 6, 2022, IC Meeting and the March and April ILS Reports are available online.
• 4/5/2022 Registration for the Circulation User Group scheduled for May 3 from 10 - 11:30 am is open.  Register online.
• 4/5/2022 Registration for the Linking User Group scheduled for May 24 from 1 - 2:30 pm is open.  Register online.
• 4/5/2022 Registration for the Serials User Group scheduled for May 18 from 1 - 2:30 pm is open.  Register online.
• 4/4/2022 The monthly Bibliovation reports for March 2022 can be found online
• 4/4/2022 The monthly LINKcat.info and LINKcat Mobile reports for March are posted.

News Summary (3/1/2022-3/31/2022)

News (in case you missed it!)

• 3/30/2022 5,151 bibliographic records were newly cataloged and/or updated in the database between 2/24/2022 and 3/29/2022.
• 3/30/2022 24,349 items and 3,723 bibliographic records (with only withdrawn items attached) were deleted in the monthly batch deletion of withdrawn items.
• 3/23/2022 Registration for the Discovery Layer User Group scheduled for May 4 from 1 - 2:30 pm is open.  Register online.
• 3/23/2022 Registration for the GetIt Acquisitions User Group scheduled for May 4 from 10 - 11:30 am is open.  Register online.
• 3/23/2022 The minutes from the March 16 DIS Meeting are available online.
• 3/17/2022 The minutes from the March 9 CMS Meeting are available online.
• 3/17/2022 The minutes from the March 8 CSS Meeting are available online.
• 3/2/2022 The monthly Bibliovation reports for February 2022 can be found online
• 3/1/2022 The monthly LINKcat.info and LINKcat Mobile reports for February are posted.

 

Linking Manual updated for large print audio-enabled books

Section VII: Sound Recordings of the Linking Manual has been updated to include information on large print audio-enabled books. 

The main changes include:

• Large print audio-enabled books should not be linked to records for regular print ones of the same title and vice versa.
• When creating a BSE record for large print audio-enabled books, "large print" should be put in the edition statement (250 field).

News Summary (2/1/2022-2/28/2022)

News (in case you missed it!)

• 3/30/2022 5,151 bibliographic records were newly cataloged and/or updated in the database between 2/24/2022 and 3/29/2022.
• 3/30/2022 24,349 items and 3,723 bibliographic records (with only withdrawn items attached) were deleted in the monthly batch deletion of withdrawn items.
• 3/23/2022 Registration for the Discovery Layer User Group scheduled for May 4 from 1 - 2:30 pm is open.  Register online.
• 3/23/2022 Registration for the GetIt Acquisitions User Group scheduled for May 4 from 10 - 11:30 am is open.  Register online.
• 3/23/2022 The minutes from the March 16 DIS Meeting are available online.
• 3/17/2022 The minutes from the March 9 CMS Meeting are available online.
• 3/17/2022 The minutes from the March 8 CSS Meeting are available online.
• 3/2/2022 The monthly Bibliovation reports for February 2022 can be found online
• 3/1/2022 The monthly LINKcat.info and LINKcat Mobile reports for February are posted.

New Collection Code available in Bibliovation

A new Collection Code is now available in Bibliovation:

• BKAFIUR - BOOKS AD FIC URBAN - Urban Fiction

This Collection Code and Shelving Location were approved by the ILS Committee at its February 2022 meeting.

The Collection Code and Shelving Location can be used by any LINKcat library. For a full list of Collection Codes and Shelving Locations, 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 or Shelving Location 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.