LINKcat News

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.

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

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).

Change of practice - Entering more than one email address in the Primary email field

Past practice for entering more than one email addresses in the Primary email field was to place a comma or a semicolon between the addresses.  This has been a very useful tool for parents/guardians to (also) receive email notices that their children/guarantees receive, as well as other types of situations where more than one email address is provided for a patron record.

 

Oregon Library discovered that if a semicolon is used to separate addresses, the address after a semicolon will not receive the email notices.

This was confirmed and reported to LibLime, who stated that we should ONLY be using commas to separate email addresses.

 

Please inform all of your staff that create/edit patron records that if they are asked to place multiple email addresses in a Primary email field, to ONLY use a comma to separate the addresses.

 

There were 71 patron records in our database that were using the semicolon, LibLime has replaced all of those semicolons with commas.

NEW INFORMATION: Platform upgrade rescheduled for 7/27/2021.

As you know, LibLime had to abort the platform upgrade this week.  The date has been changed to the night of Tuesday, July 27.  

 

In the morning of Wednesday, July 28,  check your email and the SCLS status wiki to confirm the platform move was completed before accessing Bibliovation and before self-check/sorter libraries make the changes as previously instructed.

 

Best case scenario:

 

The move will begin at 9 pm CDT and complete by 7 am on Wednesday, July 28. Indexing will start. Libraries will have access to the system and may begin regular functions. Libraries can adjust their self-check and sorter settings and the other IP setting work will be completed by SCLS and the database vendors. Searching may be unreliable for much of the day until the re-indexing is complete.

 

Worst case scenario:

 

The move will begin at 9 pm CDT and allowed to continue until completed.  Libraries will not have access to the system and may not begin regular functions until we notify you. If the move is not complete by the time libraries start to open, they will need to use Offline Circulation or an alternative method to check out materials until the move is complete.  

• If your library uses Offline Circulation, confirm that each of your staff Check Out stations has the Firefox extension installed before 7/27.  The step-by-step instructions for installation and use of Offline Circulation is in the Circulation Manual, Section XV Offline Circulation.

Once the move is complete, Indexing will start. Libraries can adjust their self-check settings and other IP setting work will be completed by SCLS and the database vendors. Libraries will be able to access patron records, check out item to patrons and check in materials but searching may be unreliable for much of the day until the re-indexing is complete.

 

SCLS staff will provide ongoing communication via the SCLS status wiki and emails.

 

Thank you for your attention.

Optical scanner required to read digital patron barcodes

With the advent of the new LINKcat Mobile App, patrons are able to store their library cardnumber (patron barcode) in their app.  However, the laser barcode readers, Metrologic and Honeywell, will not read these digital barcodes.

If you are accepting digital library cards at your library, you may wish to purchase an Optical Barcode scanner to read these barcodes at your Check Out station(s).  Bibliotheca and Envisionware Self check units have optical scanners, though one Bibliotheca library reported that their older model Bibliotheca unit had a laser scanner for patron barcodes.

Craig investigated optical scanners a few years back and his purchase recommendation is located on the Peripherals Order Form.

NEW: Requirements for entering data in a patron's phone number field(s)

As of October 2021, the FCC will be mandating Wisconsin phone companies to require customers to enter a 10-digit phone number to make calls.  This means that all phone numbers entered in the Bibliovation database should be entered with the area code and correct formatting.  

 

Both Talking Tech services, phone hold notices and text hold notices, will require the area code and correct formatting to successfully deliver notices.

 

Format for data entered in the phone number field(s):

• For "regular" phone numbers, the format is xxx-xxx-xxxx.  Use hyphens, not parentheses.
• For text message phone numbers, the format is T1-xxx-xxx-xxxx
• Please do not enter 000-000-0000 or a Note to indicate that a patron has not provided a phone number.  Leave the field(s) blank if that is the case.

Reports will be sent to libraries for clean-up.  Please make sure that all of your staff are aware of this change.

Check LINKcat URLs on websites before Jan 15

Please check the LINKcat URLs on your websites before January 15. Soon after that, old URLs will lead users to a "page not found" error message.

Do this by hovering over the link. The information should appear in the lower portion of your browser. Or, copy and paste the link in a new tab, but don't hit Enter.

If they look like this...

http://launcher.linkcat.info/go.cgi... or
https://launcher.linkcat.info/go.cgi...

Replace them with a link that looks like this:

https://www.linkcat.info/ or
https://www.linkcat.info/app/work/1366215 or
https://www.linkcat.info/app/me/dashboard or
https://www.linkcat.info/app/search

If you prefer to send patrons to a branded version of the catalog, replace the "www" in the links above with your library's 3-letter delivery code.

Example:
Change https://launcher.linkcat.info/go.cgi?biblionumber=1366215
to https://www.linkcat.info/app/work/1366215 (general LINKcat)
or https://ore.linkcat.info/app/work/1366215 (ORE branded)

Old URLs would have been used in links created before December 2019. They were often used for book club or recommended book lists and guides to accessing LINKcat, for example, so those are prime places to look. Don't forget about links you may have stashed elsewhere, like on newsletters or social media.

Using the TigerWeb search tool to identify municipalities

Lucas Schneider of Madison Public Library has created a video explaining how to use the U.S. Census Bureau's 'new' search tool, TigerWeb,  to locate the correct municipality for a patron's legal place of residence.  TigerWeb is the replacement search tool for American Factfinder, which was discontinued earlier this spring

 

A link to the video has been provided on the "Assigning PSTATs" webpage.

 

The information about selecting municipal divisions for Middleton, Sun Prairie and Verona has also been updated.  Lucas has provided spreadsheets to use to help determine the voting district within those cities.

Curbside Pickup workflow and new report to assist in filling Local Holds

The Pandemic Support for ILS webpage has been updated to provide new curbside workflow information about check-ins, filling local holds and checkouts.

A new report, Local Holds for Curbside, has been added to the list of On Demand reports in Bibliovation. This report may be run after you’ve filled the local holds from your regular Holds Queue report. It will list active holds for pickup at your library where your library owns an available copy of the item, but may have been already trapped for a hold at another library on your Holds Queue Report. You can fill more holds at your library with local materials while delivery is running a reduced schedule.

For more information about the report and a link to the report workflow, click on the Local Holds for Curbside link on the main Reports page. https://www.scls.info/ils/reports

New options for searching for PSTAT information - replacements for American Fact Finder

The U.S. Census Bureau has discontinued access to the American Fact Finder tool as of 3/31/2020.  Here are some options for library staff to use to help determine the PSTAT (sort1 field) for new patron records and updated patron address information.

An updated digital Census Tract map can be found here: https://tigerweb.geo.census.gov/tigerweb/ You have to enable these options - Census Tracts, Blocks layer and the Places and County Subdivisions layer - to find the relevant information. The address search bar along the top can then be used to find where a particular residence falls within these areas.

• The Firefox extension that an MPL staff person created will, when enabled, automatically populate the sort1 (PSTAT) field in a patron’s record based on data from the US Census Bureau – if there is corresponding data for the address in their database. If there is not, you should mark the address as “UNDETERMINED”. ILS staff periodically perform clean-up on patron record’s that have an UNDETERMINED PSTAT.
• SCLS staff have reviewed and approved the script for this extension but do not provide support for it.

Another resource is My Vote WI - this does not provide enough detail for cities that use Census tracts in their PSTATs, but it works well for smaller incorporated places and townships. The exception to this is places like Village of Brooklyn which has multiple counties, because the My Vote site doesn't distinguish which county it is in.

• Click on the Search by Address button and enter the address information in the pop-up.

AccessDane provides county subdivision-level info via address searches for Dane County only.

• Click on the Address button under the Parcel Search header and enter the street address.