LINKcat News

Items can be renewed on self check units.

The December 4.14 point release included development to allow patrons to renew on self check units.  Two libraries tested the development in the Sandbox before the holidays and the point release was approved and delivered.  The system preference that allows renewals on the self check units was turned on January 2, 2013.

Self check units using the Apex Express software require the physical items to be re-scanned on the units in order to renew.

Self check units using the Liber8 software do not require the physical items to be re-scanned on the units in order to renew.

Items renewed on the self check units are subject to the same rules as items renewed elsewhere.  Please see the Circulation Manual, Section IV Renewals for a list of these rules.

4.14 Upgrade Scheduled

We are pleased to announce that the 4.14 upgrade to LibLime Koha has been scheduled for the evening of October 29 with the changes available to libraries on the morning of October 30.  The primary change with this upgrade is the switch to the Solr search engine which will provide improvements to searching and response time when adding new bibliographic records.  Amy Gannaway has alread posted on the improvements that will be coming with with Solr.  We are working on a complete Release Notes document and will make it available soon.  We may also ask for volunteers to do one more round of testing prior to the release date once most of the remaining bugs already identified are fixed.

I strongly encourage everyone to try out the new search engine in the PAC sandbox.  Amy has created a separate document with searching tips for the new search engine.

 

 

Koha indexing switch to Solr

The next upgrade to Koha will be a major re-write of Koha's indexing platform. The new software is now available for testing in the SCLS Koha sandbox (both staff client and PAC). If you would like to try it out, you can log into the sandbox using the same login and password that you use for Koha production. 

The sandbox is a work in progress and additional fixes are still being added. After we have an upgrade date, we will post full release notes on the ILS web site.

Why are we switching to Solr?

Solr is an open-source search indexing platform that is faster and offers more flexibility than Koha's current indexing platform (Zebra). It fixes a number of searching bugs and will offer us the ability to create browse indexes in the future.

What are the new features and bug fixes that are coming with Solr?

Here is a list of fixed bugs and new features:

• Indexing of new bibs and items: With Solr, new bib records and item records will be indexed in approximately 5 minutes, instead of several hours. Edits to existing bib records and items will also index in approximately 5 minutes. (SCLS Support Ticket 39738) 
• Improvements to relevancy ranking: Exact main title (245$a) matches are ranked before a main title with the same words, but that is not an exact match. Also, English-language books continue to be ranked above AV and foreign language materials. For example, a title search for The passage will return titles with that exact main title ranked at the top of the list. These titles will be ranked about titles such as Spirit of the passage and The passage of power, which have the same words but are not exact matches. Please note that exact matches are prioritized, so a search for The passage will rank a record titled The passage before a record titled The passage : a novel. In some cases this will cause an AV record to be ranked above a book record. For example, if a record for a book contains a sub-title but the AV record does not have that sub-title, then the AV record will be ranked above the book record, because Koha will rank the main title first, and then rank the English-language books. Finally, these relevancy ranking improvements have been applied to both the title and keyword indexes, as well as the Cataloging search in the staff client.
• Problems with Author search: The author searches in both the staff client and PAC are now working correctly. Previously, the Author searches in the drop-down box on the main page of the PAC and in the advanced search of the staff client were searching title fields as well as author fields. (SCLS Support Ticket 41891)
• Facets work for entire search results list: Facets now include results from the records in the entire search results list. Previously, the facets were generated based on only the current page of search results. (SCLS Support Ticket 40742)
• Searching of titles and authors with diacritics: You can now search titles and authors even if there is a diacritic in the title or author fields. Previously, these searches were failing. (SCLS Support Ticket 40822) 
• Using ampersands in searches: Using an ampersand in the search no longer causes problems with browsing search results. Previously, if you used an ampersand in a search, then you lost the search results when you went to the second page. (SCLS Support Ticket 42602)
• Keyword searching in staff client for titles that are numbers: Using quotes allows you to do a keyword search in the staff client for titles that are numbers. For example, search “1493” to find the title 1493 : uncovering the new world Columbus created. (SCLS Support Ticket 41768) 
• Re-sorting the search results list in the staff client: Previously, re-sorting the search results list did not always work. Instead, you were taken to the Advanced Search page. This only happened when you used an equal sign in the search (e.g. au=john grisham). Because you now must use a colon when you are using a search operator, this problem is no longer an issue (e.g. au:john grisham). (SCLS Support Ticket 39838)
• Punctuation in titles: Searches that include titles with punctuation, such as colons, slashes, exclamation points, etc. no longer fail. Sometimes you may need to use quotes around the title, but you should not need to strip punctuation.

Are there any new search tips?

Yes, Solr offers more tools for refining searches:

• Use double quotes to search an exact phrase in any index. (Single quotation marks are ignored). For example, searching "lord of the rings" will only return records that contain that exact phrase. (NOTE: We will no longer have separate phrase indexes for title, author and subject. These indexes have been replaced by the double quotes feature).
• Place your search terms in parenthesis to return search results on words in any order. For example, searching (lord of the rings) will return records that contain all of those words, but not necessarily in that order.
• Use a question mark for single character right-hand truncation, for example to find nap or naps, search nap?.
• Use a star for multiple character right-hand truncation, for example to find nap or naps or napping, search nap*.
• Use a question mark or star for center truncation, for example to find woman or women, search wom?n [single character] or wo*n [multiple character].
• Use a tilde combined with double quotes to make two terms appear within a certain number of characters of each other, for example "roman empire"~10 would search for the two words within 10 characters of each other.
• You can use the following search operators when using the keyword index to narrow your search. You do not have to use the search operators when using the keyword index – they are tools that are available but they are not mandatory. You must use a colon (:) between the search operator and the search terms, (e.g. ti:the help):
  • ti: (title)
  • au: (author)
  • su: (subject)
  • isbn: (isbn)
  • issn: (issn)
  • biblionumber: (biblionumber)

Are there any known bugs in the sandbox that aren't in production?

Yes, there are some bugs in the sandbox that are not present in production. These bugs will be fixed before we upgrade:

• Library limit (Location and Available limit) in staff client doesn't work. Ok in PAC.
• When searching ISBN-13, ISBN-10 is not found (and vice versa).
• Clicking "more" link in facets column generates error in staff client. Ok in PAC.

There may be more bugs present in the sandbox (that are not already in production). See the next section for information on helping out with testing.

How can I help with testing Solr?

Fill out the Solr testing checklist. If you cannot finish the entire checklist, that's fine, just do what you can and leave the other questions blank. Please complete any testing by Monday, October 1.

You can also report problems that you encounter in the sandbox using the Koha problems and questions form. 

 

Update on 4.12 Upgrade

If all goes well, we are planning on doing the upgrade to LibLime Koha 4.12 the week of May 28.  It will most likely occur on the evening of May 29 due to the Memorial Day holiday.  Testing is underway and so far we have identified one bug that will need to be fixed prior to the upgrade.  We are working on the Release Notes and will make them available next week so that you can prepare for the fixes and new features that will be included.  At this time we do not expect substantial workflow changes.

We do expect that there will be a fix to Talking Tech (Harriet) so that patrons are not called for holds they have picked up (SCLS Support Ticket 40862). There is really no way for us to test this ahead of time, so we may want to be prepared for some tweaking to occur to this process on the day of the upgrade.

4.10 LibLime Koha Upgrade "Coming Soon"

 

We are planning to do the 4.10 LibLime Koha Upgrade in mid-January (no specific date yet).  The LibLime elves are working on completing the final bug fixes.  Next week, ILS staff will be doing additional testing in the sandbox and begin preparing the documentation for the upgrade.  Included in the 4.10 upgrade are:

• Last patron information (more details coming next week)
• Holds Managament which resolves the problems with manipulating holds when there are a large number on a single bib. See the Holds Managament document under Testing on the ILS Web Site Training page. We strongly encourage you to look at this in the sandbox as it substantially changes the way holds are displayed for staff.
• Display Agency code when checking in holds
• Improvements to relevancy ranking (more details coming soon)
• Many bug fixes (more details coming soon)

We realize there are a lot of "details coming soon", but we wanted to get the word out about this upgrade as soon as possible.

Following this upgrade, LibLime will be delivering to our sandbox a substantial number of additional bug fixes and enhancements pertaining to our contracted development. We are working on a complete list which is "coming soon."  This will be the beginning of LibLime Koha 4.11 which will also include our next phase of new development.

 

Testing, testing, testing

Testing in the LibLime Koha 4.9 Sandbox

I am pleased to report that we received a great response to our call for general software testing in the sandbox.  Here are some statistics:

• We had 16 checklists covering the various modules.
• We had 56 individuals participate in testing!
• The most tests that one person completed was 8.
• We had testers from 23 libraries.

This testing was in preparation for the 4.10 upgrade which will be coming in mid-January 2012.  We asked for people to test to identify bugs in the sandbox that can be fixed before we go into production.

Thanks to each and every one of you who helped out. You will be receiving a little Thank You in delivery.

More details on what will be included in 4.10 will be coming shortly.

Upgrade to 4.9 Sandbox: fixes to holds management and agency code at checkin

We recently received an upgrade to our Koha sandbox. Links to the sandbox can be found on the ILS web site Training page. Koha now displays the full library name and the agency code when checking in transit holds. You can try this out yourself in the sandbox. This is the development project we contracted to fix SCLS Support Ticket 40354.

I also would like to bring your attention to a substantial improvement in the way that holds management works from the staff side.  This is the completion of our first post go live development project which was contracted to improve the following:

You cannot place holds on titles with a large number of holds (e.g. Smokin' seventeen, The King's speech (DVD)) in the staff client. You can place holds on these titles in the PAC. Also, you cannot view the holds lists or change pickup locations for these titles. (SCLS Support Ticket 39880)

LibLime has provided us with documentation for the new holds development which you can find on the Training page under the Testing Documents section. Holds management will look quite different, so now is a good time to read the document and try out this new functionality in the sandbox before it is added to our production database. [Note: as of right now the sorting feature has ascending and descending order reversed.  We have reported this to LibLime.]

LINKcat Development Update

The Known Problems spreadsheet (web site password required) has been updated to include newly identified bugs and problem fixes since early September.  We have also created a document called "Detailed Descriptions of Prioritized Projects" which you will see right by the spreadsheet.  This document provides more information on where we are at with each project that does not fit well into a spreadsheet.  Both of these documents will be updated periodically.

We would like to point out that we don't have to "trade" one project for another.  We often see people saying this when talking about a problem in an email exchange.  All prioritized projects are actively being worked on in one way or another (writing specs, being quoted, in development, in testing, etc). The difference is in the order in which they are being completed.  In general, the problems that were reported earliest are at the top of the list of priorities. 

Migration Updates for week of 1/10/2011

FAQ

The Koha migration FAQ has been updated. SCLS staff are compiling answers on all types of issues pertaining to the migration.  You will see "dead" links where future topics will be posted.  Check back frequently for new information. http://psw.scls.lib.wi.us/ils/koha/faq/index.html (login required)

Check-in Notes

This week we approved development for the new check-in notes feature.  This feature will allow you to create a check-in note for any item.  Check-in notes will appear when the item is checked in. Staff will have the option to keep or delete the note at that time. The really good news is that the existing check-notes from your item records will migrate into the new check-in notes on Koha.

Ownership of Items and Editing Item Statuses

Another development project we are working on is the "ownership" of items.  This feature will prevent staff from one library accidentally modifying items from another library. However, libraries need to be able to change many of the item statuses for all libraries' items. This week we approved a development project that allows libraries to modify statuses even if they do not own the item.

Third Party Product Vendor Collaboration

This past month we have been working with LibLime and some of our third party vendors. We have been testing checkout and check-in on a self check unit that is on loan from ITG. We are testing check-in to assure that libraries will be able to use automated materials handling (sorters) with Koha.  We sponsored a project to add to the SIP2 data that is transmitted from Koha in order to handle holds check-ins.  ITG has been working closely with LibLime on this.

We have been working with Talking Tech to fine tune the call-in and holds notification call out processes. Again, Talking Tech is working closely with LibLime.

LibLime has also been finishing the electronic ordering, receiving and invoicing component of the acquisitions module (GetIt).  They are working with all of the vendors with which we do electronic ordering.

This project has become a truly collaborative effort between libraries and multiple vendors.

 

 

LINK 2 Koha Migration--the final stretch

We are closing in on the final month of our Koha migration.  This seems an appropriate time to provide an overiew of where we are at with the various aspects of this project.

Software Development

We are close to receiving all of our final development and we are testing as fast as we can.  We will then continue to work with LibLime/PTFS to fine-tune the projects based on the reports we provide them from testing. All development should be in place by the end of 2010 so that we have a stable database for you to do your final training in January (see under Training below).  The training database will be upgraded at that time. LibLime/PTFS is also working on the response time issues and they are working with all of our third party vendors to make sure those products work well with Koha. Please see the Development Projects status page if you are interested to see where we are at with all of the projects (ILS web site login and password required).

Preparation for Go Live

SCLS is preparing to support the ILS libraries during the Go Live on January 17 and 18. We will be providing a variety of ways to assist with what will most likely be a stressful period for the libraries.  Please read the recent blog post regarding the Go Live details. It is important that ILS libraries read this post as soon as possible as we are asking for information from you by Friday, December 17.

Koha Comments and Questions

We have continued to receive great comments and questions via the Koha Comments and Questions form. However we have had difficulty in keeping up with answering them! We have discussed this with the ILS Committee and they have agreed that it would be OK if we do not address each submission directly.  We will either add them to a FAQ or incorporate them in to our training. Please do continue to submit your comments and questions as we will continue to review them and they are very helpful to us.

Training

The hands-on serials workshops are being conducted now.  All other hands-on workshops are completed.  For the next several weeks, we recommend that staff continue to use the Koha Training database to familiarize themselves with navigation and the basic functions. When the training database is updated with our new development in early January, that would be a good time to conduct final in-depth training in the library. To assist with this we will be producing a variety of to-the-point webinars and online tutorials to address new development and specific functions. Staff will be able to watch these on demand. These will be posted on the Koha Training page. Now would be a good time to watch the webinars already recorded and also found on that page. If you have suggestion for training topics, please use the Koha Comments and Questions form and include the words "Training topics" at the beginning of the Comments box.

Data Migration

We have begun the final cutover phase of the data extraction.  On December 9, all bibliographic and item records were extracted from Dynix.  We are about to begin testing item records.  See the Migration Events page for specific details of the remainder of the data migration.

PR and Patron Education

The SCLS PR and Patron Education committees have been busy too. The PR Committee is working on ways to inform patrons of the various down-time and the changes coming to LINKcat.  The Patron Education Committee is developing materials such as bookmarks and online tutorials to assist patrons with using the upgraded LINKcat.

SCLS Technology Staff

The technology staff are working on various aspects of the migration as well.  For a peek behind the scenes, see the recent TechBits post.  It would be fair to say that virtually everyone at SCLS has been involved in the LINK to Koha migration in one way or another.