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.

Revised SCLS Guidelines for Registering Patrons

The revised SCLS Guidelines for Registering Patrons were approved by the Administrative Council in April 2025. Please review the changes to this document, Circulation Manual, Section V Patron Records and Registration, Part C.  The revisions are highlighted in green.

Talpa search available for LINKcat

Talpa is an experimental, AI-powered, "plain language" search that allows you to search LINKcat in ways that are different from traditional searching. We have access to Talpa through our enhanced content provider, Syndetics Unbound (enhanced content includes cover art, series information, reviews, about the author, etc.). Here are some examples of Talpa searches:

• astronaut stranded on mars
• time travel novel with blue cover

We are able to try out Talpa for one year but we don't know what will happen after the year is done. During this time, the vendor will be gathering information about how well Talpa is working, and may or may not continue the service.

The Talpa search link is available on the LINKcat Help page. From here, either patrons or staff can use Talpa. For more information on how the Talpa search works, go to https://www.talpa.ai/.

Non-fiction multi-part TV series, mini-series, documentaries can circulate together as a set

Effective immediately, you can now circulate non-fiction multi-part DVD TV series, mini-series, and documentaries together as a set, in the same way that we have been circulating fiction multi-part DVD sets. This change to the Videorecordings Searching and Matching Policy was approved at the April 5 ILS Committee meeting. 

 

Please note that instructional and travel sets would still circulate separately if each part can stand alone. Travel sets can be large, and cover different states or countries on separate discs, so that is why travel sets would continue to be split. For instructional sets, there are some sets that are circulated together, such as the Great Courses, because they come with a booklet that is used with all discs and these would continue to circulate together. However, if each part of an instructional set can stand alone, then it would be circulated separately.

 

Moving forward, you can treat non-fiction multi-part TV series, mini-series, and documentaries in the same way that you have been treating fiction sets. Any new non-fiction sets can be added to Bibliovation as a full set. The Linking Manual and Linking Training materials have been updated. These are all linked from the Cataloging page (under the Multi-part DVDs Project header): https://www.scls.info/ils/cataloging. The FAQ for Multi-Part DVD Packaging has also been updated.

REMINDER: Update Bibliovation URLs by September 1, 2022

This is a reminder that all links to the Bibliovation staff URL must be changed to scls.bibliovation.com by September 1, 2022. After September 1, the old URL of scls.kohalibrary.com will not work. This change only affects staff. It does not affect patrons using www.linkcat.info. See below for more details on updating URLs. 

Where are the staff URLs saved?
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.

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).

7.0 Bibliovation - post-upgrade Circulation problems and information

The following Circulation problems have manifested in 7.0 Bibliovation after the upgrade on 1/11/2022.  The links are to the Known Problem entries. We will update the Known Problem entries and the Support tickets as information is provided

Reported to LibLime:

• SCLS Support ticket #27963 "Item already checked out" block/warning pop-up is missing
• SCLS Support ticket #27976 Accessing Patron records sometimes produces Internal Server Errors
• SCLS Support ticket #27956 Items are renewed without giving the pop up warning
  
  

Informational entry, not a bug.

• SCLS Support ticket #27958 Guarantor Information section displays in form when creating a new adult patron record

Thank you for your attention.

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.

Reduced Transportation Holds setting change - effective 11/22/2021.

On 11/22/2021 the Reduced Transportation Holds setting, "FillRequestsAtPickupLibraryAge", will be changed back to 60 days.  This was approved by the ILS Committee at their 10/06/2021 meeting. 

There is a bug affecting this setting in Bibliovation version 6.2 (Production).  The algorithm for this setting is incorrectly calculating from the item’s Checkin date rather than the Hold (Placed) Date.  That means that some materials checked in, which should stay at your library to fill a patron’s hold, will leave your library to fill the oldest active hold in the Holds Queue. 

The fix for this bug has been tested and confirmed fixed in the 7.0 version of Bibliovation, currently in our Sandbox.  We hope to upgrade Production to that version in December. 

For more information about the Reduced Transportation Holds settings, please read the Circulation Manual, Section IX Placing and Managing Holds, Part I Reduced Transportation Holds (aka RTH). 

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

As of October 2021, the FCC is 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 of the 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 placed 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.