LINKcat News

Hosting in the Amazon Cloud

Guest post by Martha Van Pelt.

We've received some questions recently related to security, privacy, and LINKcat being hosted in the Amazon Cloud. 

The SCLS contract with LibLime for our ILS includes LibLime's hosting service, which makes use of the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) from Amazon Web Services (AWS).

The SCLS contract with LibLime assures that:

• our data is secure,
• they will not use the data for any purpose other than to deliver the services for which we have contracted, and
• they will not sell our data to any third party. 

AWS also has assurances that our data is secure, and its services are in accordance with security best practices and appropriate security features.  Some of AWS’s other customers include the US Departments of the Treasury, State and Agriculture.  Our contract with Liblime was written by a local attorney with Axley Brynelson who has a MLS in addition to his law degree for double insight into our contract requirements.

An update on selfchecks

Guest post by Kerri.

As you may know, we had been having problems with the selfchecks since Go-Live (sometimes intermittent, and at times almost constant!). What you may not know is that intermittent problems are the worst kind to diagnose (give me something that just flat-out doesn't work any day!).  This makes us extra glad to report that we think the issues have been resolved!

LibLime created and implemented a patch late Tuesday and ITG sent documentation (for additional local-to-the-self-check tweaks) to all self check libraries.  Libraries with ITG selfchecks need to either apply the ITG settings changes themselves, or contact ITG for assistance.

Vicki has been sending out periodic updates to the link-selfcheck email list, and Pat sent out details about "the fix" to the list.  If your library has a selfcheck and you are interested in the issues and updates related to selfchecks, please subscribe!

If you weren't on the list and need information about "the fix", please contact the Tech Help Desk.

What we like about the new LINKcat

Guest post by Kerri.

Lots of comments have been flying around the link-announce email list.  While there are still many things in need of fixing, the "What I Like About the New LINKcat"  thread has highlighted some of the nice new features that aren't driving us crazy. 

Some features mentioned for patrons...

• Slightly overdue books are in "red" and have the renew option already checked for the patron to renew if they want.
• Also, how it is obvious to patrons that something can't be renewed because there is already another hold on it.
• I like that, even though sometimes I do what appears to be a perfectly fine search and get less than stellar results, there are other times when I'll make a typo and what I want shows up in the results list anyway.
• Just had customer report in on what she loved: making lists, ease of doing multiples in series, that it is never down (she is a late night/very early am user).

And for staff:

• Love the dymo labels.  Big, clear, clean crisp...   I would never actually print them thru Koha cuz I love the flexibility we have now.
• I like it when --two seconds after someone says they are done-- I can use the back button to get into their record to check them out again.  Ever heard, "Can I just check out one more item?"
• I love being able to move easily between circulation, cataloging, and holds.
• I love that the patron's checkout screen lists WHERE each waiting hold is waiting, without having to go into each item individually to check.
• Totally and completely clickable!!!!!!
• I like the fact you can bring up Koha after you have "accidentily clicked the X."

Hovering Happiness
One feature that was mentioned in the thread that I hadn't heard about was hovering...

• In regards to being able to see which disc of a series a patron has checked out:  she was happy to hear that hovering over the name of the series in her list would reveal the disc #... as she does a lot of suspending/unsuspending series DVDs. she'd thought it required clicks to see the full title and is just fine with 'hover.'
• Another hover tip:  to quickly find the item bib number when in 'Normal' view in Koha Staff Client, hover the mouse over the left side of the item details page where the boxes for Normal/Marc/ISBD are and the bib number shows up in the url at the bottom of the screen.

Are there other features you're appreciating?  Any other tricks like "hover" that you've run across?  Please leave them in the comments!

LINKcat and browsers

Although Firefox is required for staff-side functions, the public catalog (LINKcat) *should be* browser-independent.

What does this mean for patrons at home?
Patrons may use any browser to access the new LINKcat public catalog. 

What does this mean for patrons using SCLS-support public PCs?
When the LINKcat shortcut on a library's public PC opens up in Internet Explorer, it should work.

Different browsers may result in slightly different displays. Mainstream browsers that adhere to standards (tsk tsk, IE!) will most likely look and work better.  If you run across a function in the public catalog that does not work at all with a certain mainstream browser (Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, Internet Explorer), please let the ILS staff know the details using the problems and questions form on the ILS Support site.

 

Measuring slowness

Be detailed when reporting slowness
One of the things being reported to the ILS team is that "Koha is slow."   Just like when you take your car to the repair shop, it's helpful to be able to provide as many details about what you're experiencing as possible.  In the case of your car, you might report "it's a 'tink-tink' noise on the front drivers' side when I'm driving between 10 and 20 mph."   In the case of Koha, it's helpful to be able to tell ILS staff:

• whether you were in the staff client or LINKcat PAC
• which module you were using (circulation, acquisitions, etc)
• what you were doing when it happened (checking in, checking out, etc)
• if it involved a patron record or an item record  (and which records those are)
• approximately how long it took to do the action
• what time of day it happened
• if the slowness was happening on all PCs around that same time or if it seemed to be tied to the action you were taking

The link to the form to report slowness can be found on the ILS page.

Every bit of detailed information helps.  Some slowness may be related to network traffic and issues.  Other slowness may be the Koha software and what's going on behind the scenes.  Details will help staff track down the source the of the problem.

Add-on for Firefox to assess speeds
If you are interested, there is an add-on for Firefox that will display the length of time it takes a webpage to load.  It can be used to assess speeds for Koha functions.

To install the add-on:

• In Firefox, go to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/lori-life-of-request-info/
• click on "Add to Firefox"
• Restart Firefox if/when prompted

The plugin will add a status bar at the bottom right corner of Firefox and will display:

• TTFB: how long it took to see the first byte from remote server (from click to first byte received). This value gives a rough estimate on when the browser can start laying out the content.
• TTC: how long it took to display the page (from click to complete drawing of the page).  For us, this includes all possible contributions to lag time:  the Koha database + the Koha web server + the internet + Badgernet ---- it is not a pure measure of "how fast is Koha?"
• Page size (number of bytes used to display the page): this value includes both bytes fetched from network and bytes fetched from the browser's cache.
• Number of requests: number of requests used to fetch the page's content (images, style-sheet, javascript ....). Again, this value include both network requests and cache requests.

Notes: that the above stat is only updated when a page is completely displayed (the progress bar is no longer displayed). 

The numbers reported by the add-on of most interest to SCLS staff troubleshooting the slowness problem would be the TTFB and TTC numbers.

 

FAQ updates: Part 4

Please take a look at these temporary workarounds for features that aren't working correctly right now:

• How do I do a Direct Check Out to non-ILS SCLS libraries?
• If a patron is picking up another patron's holds (with permission), how do I handle that checkout?
  

Other additions:

• Is there a way to set defaults in serials? We always circulate our current issue of our magazines.
• Why does a patron receive multiple emails if multiple holds arrive on a given day... even if the patron is set up to receive digests?
• How do I change an item’s status to “on display”?

 

Whaddya know about the new LINKcat?

Guest post by Kerri.

In past weeks, I saw some tips about the new LINKcat mentioned on library Facebook pages and in their Twitter streams.  Here are a few:

• Say your want to put multiple items on hold. Add each to your CART, then select all, then choose "Place Hold."... http://fb.me/t3hr9Rtx
• Email notices of holds are sent within 1-2 hours of when they're checked in!
• Q: Why do I have fines for things I haven't returned? A: New LINKcat assesses fines when items go overdue, not when returned.
• Q: why can't I log in? A: your login is your 14 digit barcode number (no more shortcuts) and your password is your PIN.
• We've posted a few pictures on facebook from our transition to the new LINKcat. http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150157212340415.289765.125660475414
• Learn new LINKcat via YouTube: http://ow.ly/4C7bb

I've also had some positive comments made by patrons about the catalog passed my way  (Thanks, Maggie!)...

• "I like the idea of the cart, I feel like I am shopping but not spending any money!"
• "Wow - so if I want all this books by the same author, all I have to do is click the box and put them on hold at the same time? That is easy"
• "I was kind of confused the first night I got on, but it is nice that I get suggestions, I'm not the world's greatest speller..."

Have others?  Please leave them in the comments!

FAQ Updates: Part 3

Holds

• How do I place holds on a TV series for a patron?  (Thanks, Gloria!)

Searching & Record Display  (Thanks to all the MPL staff who helped answer these questions!)

• How do we do a "starts with" or known title search? 
• Are there search operators that can be used in the basic search screen?
• How do I search for scores?
• How do I search for magazines?
• How to limit by format
• How to limit by content
• Why can’t I find the travel books or test guides when I limit to non-fiction content?

 

Searching, Part 1

Guest Post by Jean Anderson

Wow - what an email conversation we're having about searching in LINKcat. Thanks to all for your tips and tricks to find what we need until the system works the way we want. In this first post on searching, I thought I'd compile all your suggestions into this post so they're all in one place and easier to find.

As a library patron (yes, I'm one too), who does a lot of searching on LINKcat for my personal To Be Read list (the link is to my LibraryThing list) I've been frustrated with the search function, too. As Vicki noted in her email, searching is at the top of the list of problems we're working on. The problem is in relevancy ranking - we're not sure why braille and foreign langauge titles are rising to the top. We've reported this to PTFS and are working on it.

In the meantime, here are your suggestions:

Dennis: Using Advanced Search limits will help you narrow your search.Examples:

• Title = Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets; -2005 in publication date; Fiction books (subtype limit) yielded 10 results with the English version at the bottom of the list
• Title = Wimpy Kid; 2010 - in publication date; Fiction books (subtype limit) yielded 7 results with the English version at the bottom of the list

Vicki: While there isn't a way to limit to just books due to the way cataloging is formated, you can limit to books in the Advanced Search - as Dennis mentioned above - use Fiction or Non-fictoin books under the Subtype limits for content.

Amy: Searching for Wimpy Kid in the Series search option in the public LINKcat or Series Title on the Advances Search screen yields 13 results - including Wimpy Kid 5.

Carolyn suggests limiting the results to your library (if you know your library owns a copy). It doesn't work for everything, but is an option for some searches.

From Alice, Chris, Kylie, Dennis, and Maggie: search Amazon, WorldCat, or other source for the title then copy (Control +C) the ISBN and paste (Control + V) it into the search box (love this tip!). While there is an ISBN search from the drop down menus in both basic and advanced search, you simply paste the ISBN into the keyword field and go. Dennis notes that you can also right-click on the ISBN and copy it and that this doesn't work quite as well with the 13-digit ISBNs which are hyphenated.

Janis notes that using the Title search instead of the keyword and searching for Wimpy Kid 5 comes up with two results. Sometimes, it's as easy as switching the type of search you're conducting.

Jane and Leah incorporate advanced search techniques into the basic keyword searching. Try this:

• Enter ti: confession and au: grisham into the search box OR enter confession by grisham and you'll get similar results (I got 21 when I did the second search and the book is #8)

If you like the search operators (ti, au, etc.) we'll get a list of them up on the FAQ soon - from Amy. Update: the list is here.

Sandra uses the Title Phrase search in the Advanced Search options and notes that it has cut down the number of results.

Thanks for all your tips! Keep them coming - comments are open.

I'll be updating the FAQ with your suggestions next and will update this post with links where needed.

Helping each other

Guest post by Kerri.

Yesterday, I got a double dose of the best of us.  On the link-announce email list, a comment was made about how frustrating and clunky it is to search in Koha right now ("when I put in the exact title of a book I am looking for, why doesn't it just come up?").  A handful of libraries and SCLS staff sprang into action with tips, tricks, and suggestions to help those frustrated searchers have an easier time of it.

I spoke with another library yesterday about a printing issue they were having.  By the time I had called, they had already figured out not just one, but TWO workarounds which I have added to the printing page on the status wiki.  Sweeeeet!

I think everyone will agree that where we are now in Koha is not where we want to be -  we want it to be smarter, faster, more intuitive, and fixed weeks ago! (And oh, how I wish I could take out my Harry Potter wand, utter a spell, and magically take care of that!) Until everything gets worked out, how cool is it that we have a pool of 49 libraries with clever staff to help see us through it?

Thanks to everyone who's working hard to help patrons and help their coworkers as we settle into Koha.  We are all trying our best under very trying circumstances. Thanks to everyone who has shared helpful tips and tricks and who has figured out "workarounds" for the things that don't work quite right yet.  We appreciate it!  We've got a long way to go, but I can't think of a better bunch of folks to have working on it with us.  :)