OneClick Digital Registration

Posted on December 9, 2011 by Sharon

Anyone with a NExpress Regional Library Catalog Online catalog login and password can register for OneClick Digital, the audiobook portion of the State Library’s Kansas EZ Library digital content program.

How exactly?  Watch this 3 minute Online Tutorial, or follow the instructions below.

  1. Log into the NExpress Catalog (http://catalog.nexpresslibrary.org) using your username and password.  If you do not have one, your local library, participating in NExpress, can set this up for you.
  2. From the My Account screen, find the “Kansas EZ Library” tab (the wording may change).
  3. Click on the Kansas EZ Library tab to open the Registration Page for OneClick Digital.
  4. Complete the online form.
    1. By accessing this form from within your Library Account, you are authorized to be a OneClick Digital subscriber.
    2. Choose whether or not to use the OneClickdigital Media Manager as your default player. This is the preferred method and it allows for the easiest download experience.
      1. Mac users or users that wish to download manually should select “no”.
    3. Next you select a Default Device.
      1. If you are an iPod, iPhone, iPad or iTouch user select “iTunes” as your Default Device.
      2. Users with a non-Apple device select “Other”.
  5. Select the “Create an Account” button to complete the process.

You are now registered for the service and can find, download and enjoy digital audiobooks courtesy of the State Library of Kansas and your NExpress Shared Regional Library!

Posted in NExpress News, Tutorial | 1 Comment

Known Issue: Lost Statuses

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Sharon

From Mickey’s email message sent Nov. 23, 2011:

Hi everybody.

This is an important update on Koha’s “Lost Status” functionality.

Since our upgrade, there have been significant changes to the way Koha behaves when a Lost Status is applied:

First, as I mentioned in my earlier email message on November 21, the ONLY way to change an item’s Lost Status is to click on the item barcode and then select the appropriate Lost Status from the dropdown menu. You can’t EDIT the item and modify the Lost status any more.

Second, these Lost Statuses behave differently than they have in the past. Here is Nicole Engard’s reply to my question about the change in Koha behavior:

…there was a bug that made it so that the other statuses didn’t mark things as lost on the patron record. Once that was fixed you started having problems. I think that Ian has been looking in to another way to solve this ‘bug’ so that it doesn’t effect those like you who had a workflow in place

without realizing that there was a bug in the system. I’m sorry about this and hope that Ian can help us come to a solution that works for everyone.

Until further notice, please be advised that ALL Lost Statuses in Koha will CHECK IN THE ITEM AND APPLY A REPLACEMENT COST TO A PATRON’S RECORD, IF CHECKED OUT.

These are the defined Lost status values in our catalog:

0 = Not lost
1 = Lost
2 = Long Overdue/Assumed Lost
3 = Missing
5 = Claims Returned

Until recently, the only one of these choices which checked an item in and applied a replacement charge was the LOST (1) status. Now, regardless of which value is selected, Koha behaves the same as if you had selected LOST (1).

This will have a significant affect on several libraries’ workflows. I know that some people have used the LONG OVERDUE/ASSUMED LOST status as an intermediate step to marking an item LOST; CLAIMS RETURNED has likewise been used as an information status for items that are in dispute.

Please be aware that as of now, ANY use of LOST, LONG OVERDUE/ASSUMED LOST, MISSING or CLAIMS RETURNED will result in the same action in Koha: If checked out, Koha will check the item in and assign a replacement cost to the patron’s fines tab.

Please pass this information along to your staff, and let me know if you have any questions about the change. ByWater is looking into how to address this situation and to give us some time to reevaluate our processes. Thanks.

Mickey

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November Upgrade 3.6 Release Notes

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Sharon

Our TEST catalog has been upgraded to Koha version 3.6.0, so that means it is time to test, test, test!

From the Release Notes, I see that we already have most of these new features, but I will be looking more closely at these this week:

ADMINISTRATION and CATALOGING

  • New permission for overdues report
  • Z3950 results highlighting
  • And a whole bunch of stuff that will make Heather dance for joy…

CIRCULATION

  • Three-part Name Searching is Finally HERE!!!  Wooty woot!  We paid for this one…use it with love.  Test with “Nancy Rene Fury Jr“
  • Added a checkin tab to the patron search screen

  • Added a checked out from column to list of checked out items (syspref controlled)
  • Add shelving location to checkin results screen


OPAC

  • Paging on the OPAC detail page, allowing the user to move through search results.  Notice, we also have the “What’s Next” database for series under “More Searches” AND we have added Facebook “Like” and Twitter “Tweet” buttons.

  • Recent comments view – I think this is pretty cool…and I just approved five new comments in our catalog, so this feature is being used!

  • Added user customizable html block under the facets in search results – Hmmm, more stuff for Liz to play with??
  • Show number of comments on the “Comments” tab in OPAC - 
  • And a whole bunch of OPAC Customization options that made Liz dance with joy…and re-vamp our online catalog! Including these nice rounded corners:

  • With the blessing of the Cataloging Committee, we are adding links to movie trailers to the Catalog.  Go find One for the Money…


SEARCHING

  • Added ISBN filter to advanced
  • Analytic links search on full phrase title
  • Control order in which facet categories display – Huh?  Need to ask Liz about this one…
  • For keyword searches where you ask Koha to complete a search term using either an asterisk (*) or the percent sign (%) as “wild cards,” you will get different results.

    Example: Let’s say you are searching using the first letters of a popular author’s last name, EVANO. You can use different wild card symbols to search for:

    EVANO* or EVANO%

    The * is going to force an exact search of the first few characters. The asterisk will allow for an infinite number of characters in the search, as long as the characters designated by your keyword search are the same.

    The % will treat the search term in the terms of “is like.” So a search of EVANO% will search for words like EVANO.

    When you run a search on the NEKLS catalog using EVANO* you will see a list pretty much limited to Janet Evanovich (with a few exceptions like Evanoff, Evanore, etc., all of which contain the EVANO search term), but when you run EVANO% you will see a much longer list with much more variety (Evans, Evan, Evanovich–items like EVANO).

    Bottom line: * is exact, % is like.

PERFORMANCE

  • Koha should run faster and more efficiently.   Test this with these searches:
    • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
    • Holds for Explosive Eighteen
    • Find your favorite power user Patron and pull them up, renew or check out fake books to them – is it faster??  (6 seconds…)


Posted in Found Feature, Known Issues, NExpress News | Leave a comment