NExpress Shared Catalog

Looking for a specific barcode?  Add the text ‘barcode:’ before typing or scanning the barcode to go directly to the Bib record associated with that barcode.  For example:

- Sharon

Step 1:

Step 2:

A lot of valuable information about holds, transits, holdings and loans can be gleamed from the Details table of a Bib record in Koha.  An illustrated discussion:

1. Location – The location shown is the Owning Library.  Libraries can see how many copies of an item they own.
2. Status – Checked out.  You can see who has the item checked out and when it is due.  The patron name is a hyperlink to their patron account.
3. Status – Waiting.  This item is on hold for a patron, waiting at the pick up branch the patron selected.  This status is triggered when an item sent from one library to another is checked in and the hold is confirmed as received.  This hold will now be OUT of the holds queue and give a status of Waiting.
   
4. Status – In Transit to Fill a Hold.  This is shows that an item has been been confirmed to fill a hold and is in transit from one library to another.  As soon as a hold is confirmed and routed to the pick up library, the Current Location of the item changes to the pick up library (even if the item is temporarily in a courier bin at the sending library).
   This status also shows that this item has been ‘linked’ to a patron for the hold.  In the Holds Queue, this will appear as an “only item” hold instead of a “next available” hold.
   
5. Status – Checked out and On Hold.   This is an example of a Copy-level or item-specific hold, rather than a Title-level or ‘next available’ hold.  Only staff can place copy-level holds and only the specific copy of the title associated with the patron will fill the hold, not the next available item.
   

Yesterday we had a follow up OPAL session for the new libraries and the issue of Agent ILL’s came up briefly.

Some options:

• You can create individual ILL Patron accounts for libraries you send materials to through Agent.  If you create an ILL account, please include the terms ‘ILL’ and Your library name in the Surname field to help differentiate your “Anytown Public Library” ILL account from other libraries.
  • Example:

• You can give these ILL Patron accounts a patron category of Interlibrary Loan or one of your regular Adult patron categories.  The benefit of using the Interlibrary Loan patron category is that we can set up unique default circulation and fine rules for those patrons, for example 35 day loan periods with no fines.  Just let the NExpress team know that you want new rules established for this patron category.
• Another option is to create a single “Agent ILL” or “My Public Library ILL” account and check out ALL of your ILL’s to this account.  Centralia uses this solution and Tonganoxie has recently switched to this solution.
• For items on loan from outside libraries, some libraries use a Fast Add Framework to create a ‘quick and dirty’ Bib/item record for the item on loan. Ottawa also has a procedure established where they put a hold on the item at the time of check out to ensure that the ILL librarian gets the book when it is returned by the patron, so they can send it back and delete the Fast Add record.
  

Are there other options out there worth sharing with the new NExpress libraries?  Please use the comments to add to this discussion.

-Sharon

UPDATE:  As of today only 127 items are missing item types – WAY TO GO!!!  That’s awesome.   I hope this will fix the statistical reports.  Feel free to run the report yourself after a cataloging session to double check your work.  It’s the 2nd report listed “NULL Item Type report for all libraries” – just RUN it.

Sharon – Monday, July 20, 2009 during a rainstorm, while listening to Cyndi Lauper…Time after Time

Hello,

We have a theory that missing or NULL item types in the catalog are messing up the statistical reports.  There are only 274 items that DO NOT have an item type associated with them.  Please look at this Excel Spreadsheet report and edit or delete those records that belong to you.

Thank you for helping us keep NExpress tidy

Sharon

From a patron’s Detail page (illustration from my account below), there appears to be a way to return a mass of items without using the barcode scanner – you check the box and hit the “Return checked items” button.  This would be great…IF IT WORKED properly.

Unfortunately, if one of those items you’ve returned without using the scanner happens to be on hold for another patron or belongs at a different library, Koha DOES NOT tell you that.  You have to scan the barcode in the Check In module to activate or trigger a hold or transfer/transit from one library to another.

So, for now…please don’t use this feature.  We are reporting this bug to LibLime today.

-Sharon

NEW: Liz added a webchat widget to this site, right up there…see it?

All you have to do to get a hold of NExpress staff (and techie staff from Iola, Independence and Salina if they’re on that day) to ask Koha questions is click on that and give yourself a nickname!   This is open to anyone, from front line staff to Director. Even patrons are welcome, should they so desire.

Ask, comment, complain – this is an open forum for all things Koha (in Kansas).  Yesterday, we discussed reports.  Today, Chris joined us from New Zealand and talked about uber techie stuff with Liz (it was all WAY above me, but that’s OK).

-Sharon

I lied at today’s meeting – I updated the Go Live! bookmark for Wellsville and Valley Falls without posting the revisions to this site. – Sharon

Here it is! (Word Doc) – The May 2009 revision of the 4-per-page instructional bookmark, customized for Valley Falls

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Brief Notes from the Users Group Meeting

(May 21, 2009 at NEKLS HQ)

• Sharon, Diana and Liz shared their impression of the KohaCon 09 conference in Plano, TX.  Notes from the event are available at: KohaCon09 with CoverItLive and at Sharon’s library blog: lybrarian.wordpress.com
• Mickey reported on the Holds notification enhancement, which is ready for testing in the TEST catalog.  When creating a new patron, the e-mail holds notification will be defaulted to ON.  Other types of e-mail notification can be selected at the time a new card is created.  More information about the various notification features of Koha will be coming soon.  Sharon will work with SEKLS and CKLS to create specifications for a Reports enhancement.
• Reports training is scheduled for Monday, June 15.  Registration is open at http://www.nekls.org
• Mickey will work with CKLS and SEKLS to create a combined Bibliographic Maintenance Package that includes bib/item merging to help with removing duplicate or sub-standard records from the catalog without losing valuable circ and item information.
• Interest in fine-related developments was expressed and NEKLS staff will to put together an overview of fine-related enhancements, in case individual libraries want to contribute.
• Diana shared that 24 libraries are now in NExpress and another 7 will be joining in the fall.  The Users group discussed the issue of duplicate patrons and several libraries shared their procedures for determining which of two accounts is the ‘keeper.’  Royce Kitts reminded existing libraries to weed inactive patrons.  New libraries joining were encouraged to weed their patron database deeply prior to migration and to use NExpress to search for possible duplicates.  The issue will go to the Policy Committee.
• The Cataloging Standards Committee will be chaired by Diana and their first order of business will be to create best practices for making labels.  Mickey will chair the Policy Committee and Sharon will chair the Collection Development committee.
• Sharon shared information about the “%” wildcard character to help with searching and invited libraries to contact her for further search training (more information in a post).
• Issues:
  • Use of the Lost Items report can help to manage the replacement or deletion of missing and lost items.  The patch for Bug 3160 will soon be added to our installation of Koha that will change the status of Items currently checked out to a patron from Lost to Available upon check in.  Development is aparently still needed so that ANY item currently marked Lost or Missing will become Available once it is checked in.  Materials marked Damaged will need to have their status updated manually.
  • We discussed managing your library’s Holds Shelf.  Jerie shared that the Cancel and Return buttons that appear on the Holds Awaiting Pickup list do NOT trigger holds.  You must re-scan the item in the Check In box to trigger and transfer a hold.
  • Offline Circ module needs to be reviewed for updates and new instructions created and posted.  This module MAY be useful during busy summer reading days, as it is faster than using the live circulation module.  Circulation speed is dependent on bandwidth.
  • Jim promised that NEKLS will send out an emergency Cell phone number and appropriate use guidelines by the end of the week.

If you have other important points to share that I have missed, please put those in the comments section.

- Sharon

A cool feature of Koha that I really appreciate as a patron is the Advance Notice of Item Due, which was perfected in our last round of updates. This is what it looks like:

Dear Diana Weaver,
The following item(s) will be due soon:
Einstein’s dreams / by Lightman, Alan P.,
Please return or renew your item(s) soon, or contact us to renew for you. Some items may not be renewable.

NEKLS HQ
4317 W. 6th Street
Lawrence, KS 66049
785-838-4090

Patrons can sign up for this by opening the “my messaging” tab after they login to their NExpress account. You  can choose how many days in advance of the due date you want to receive notice (mine is set for three). And you can also choose to receive the messages as individual emails (per item) or as a digest (one email with all items listed).

I can’t promise I will never have any overdue items ever again, but at least I will be reminded that I need to renew!

We recently had a number (60) of patches, bug fixes and new features added to our TEST catalog.

These are the updates we tested today and felt were the most important to share.  These will remain in TEST for awhile before being moved to the LIVE catalog.

Comments are WELCOME – really, you all are the Front Line and can give valuable feedback about these new features and improvements!

• Bug 2691 – Call number splits in labels.  For those of you who use the label maker in Koha, please do some further tests in TEST (green background) to see if this ‘fix’ works for you.  Related: Bug 2984 – Ability to Generate Labels for Batch in CSV format, for editing in Excel.  How many of you use a Word mail-merge for labels?  This should help you out.
• Bug 2854 – Ability to search for partial barcodes, using “fuzzy logic” with the “%” character.  If you want to find an item based on a partial barcode, you can search using the first part of the barcode and the % character, for example 00030090080%.  This works in both the Cataloging search box and the regular search box.
  Word of WARNING:  Use this this care, or you could accidently try to pull up your ENTIRE collection (and time out the catalog, like I just did).  I would use this feature if you know all but the last 2 or 3 digits of the barcode series you are cataloging with.
  • Scenario:  Say Kathleen at Bonner Spring needs to find something she cataloged last week and knows from the sheet of barcodes sitting on her desk that she’s in the series 00030090080XX.
    She can search for “00030090080%”:
    
    The Results – 98 items recently cataloged at Bonner Springs…with the item Kathleen is looking for (click to zoom):
    
• Bug 2991 – Select and Place Multiple Items Titles ON HOLD at One Time!!  Three different scenarios:
  Patrons logged into the OPAC can select multiple items and place them on hold, select multiple items and put them in a Cart and then put things from the Cart on hold OR they can select multiple items and put them in a List and then put things from the List on hold.
  Let me demonstrate with some trashy romance I so adore:
  1. I did a search for ‘Quinn, Julia’ in the OPAC after logging in.  I arranged the results in date order, newest to oldest.
  2. I selected several titles from the Search Results and can Place them on Hold using the greenish Place Hold button:
     
  3. OR, you can select several items and Add them to a Cart:
     
     and then a Pop-up for Your Cart will appear where you select the items you want to Place on Hold:
     
     and then verify or change the Pickup Location and Confirm the Holds:
     
  4. OR, you can Create a List and add items to it from multiple searches and search terms and then place any or all of the items in your public or private list on Hold:
     
     then after the List has been created and Stuff has been added to it, Open it:
     
     After opening your List, select the items you want to Place on Hold and go through the confirmation process illustrated above:
     
• Keyboard Users:  Several changes were made to ‘improve keyboard access‘ by improving how tabbing works in Koha.  This might make creating and editing patrons faster and more efficient, because you can Tab instead of using your mouse.  Test it and let us know!
• Improved Quick Search options in the OPAC – OK, this might be old news, but you can do a ‘quick search’ by ISBN and Call Number, along with Title, Author, Subject and Series:
  
• Bug 2126 – Fine balance errors fixed – Sometimes a patron with fines of $0.00 got a note of “fines are owed.” The problem was caused by how the program was round-off balances (remember in the movie Office Space where they write a program to gather (steal) all of those partial pennies? Same thing here, without the theft).
• Item Call Numbers displayed in OPAC search results next to owning library – Good?  Feedback wanted.  Until we can suppress the Library of Congress Call number from displaying,  we thought it would be good for the patrons to see the local call number next to their library’s name:
  
  We are going to create a mock up of how this information might be displayed better…maybe with more space or |’s or ::’s between the libraries.
• Patron Details screen changes – now calculates Totals for both Charges and Replacement Costs…
  
  …not just Replacement Costs:
  
• Bug 2870 – IMPORTANT change to Guarantor Fields in Child patron records and auto-population.
  Basically, do this:
  1. Create the Child Patron (From the Adult, select “Add a Child” or from Patrons, select “New > Child Patron”.
  2. Add the Name and Birthday.
  3. Set the Guarantor using “Set to Patron” feature.
  4. Add the barcode (and whatever else is REQUIRED). (Bare minimum)
  5. SAVE THE RECORD
  6. Go back and EDIT THE RECORD > Voila, the Adult’s contact information should appear in the child’s record.
  7. Make any edits or changes needed – for example, put in the child’s personal email address replace the parent’s ‘email (home)’ with the Child/Teen’s email address if they want notifications or change the phone number.
  8. RE-SAVE the RECORD to make sure all of that hard work is SAVED.
  • WARNING:  Anything you type in a field that is auto-populated when the Child is SET to the Adult will be overwritten by the Adult’s data when you FIRST SAVE the record.  If you Save the Record and THEN edit it, the changes will ’stick.’
  • TEST IT > you’ll see what we’re talking about.
• Bug 2908 – Send List by E-mail (Updated in January)  In the OPAC, patrons can e-mail Carts and Public and Private Lists to themselves.  Add that to the new ‘multiple  holds’ feature and I think patrons will be Happy!

- Sharon

Cheryl Morisse of Bonner Springs discovered a way to speed up the process of deleting a years worth of magazines all at once. She writes:

Go to “Edit Items”

Find the group of magazines you want to delete. (example 2006’s)

Click on Delete to left of first magazine

Pop up box asks “do you want to delete” Click on “OK”

You do not have to wait until this magazine is deleted. You can just continue one with the next magazine and the next until you have done all of the ones on the screen. The system will continue and delete all of them in the same amount of time as it takes to delete one.

Our system is so slow that this really speeds things up for me. Hope it helps you too.

Thanks, Cheryl, for sharing!