Question re: Physical Items
Karen Foster
Am I correct in assuming the workings behind:
Notify Circulation of wanted items
just aren't there yet?
I thought I had seen this working when you demo'd for us back in
April.
thanks, karen
Graham Fawcett
On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 2:15 PM, Karen Foster <fos...@mcmaster.ca> wrote:
>
> Hi Graham ~
>
> Am I correct in assuming the workings behind:
>
> Notify Circulation of wanted items
>
> just aren't there yet?
Yes, that's right, it's not there yet. Art and I just discussed this
today at lunch; I hope to have a first-draft shortly (maybe even
tonight, if the stars align!).
Best,
Graham
Graham Fawcett
I've got a rough demo of the Notify Circulation screen, for
discussion. Take a look here:
http://kessler1.medialab.uwindsor.ca/reserves/phys/circlist/?term=2009W
(note you'll need to be logged in as a staff user, e.g. userid "staff"
password "staff").
The notion is that we would send emails to the Circ staff, and ask
them to come visit a page like this.
Each item has links to display the item's MARC record, its title
details in Evergreen (or the ILS of your choice, with a bit of
customization), and its record in the Reserves system.
There are some rough corners that I need to the "what's needed?"
query. But do you think a screen like this would be useful?
If a circ person were to want to export this list into a more useful
format, what format might that be?
Best,
Graham
Karen Foster
were aligned. See my comments below:
On May 6, 8:43 pm, Graham Fawcett <graham.fawc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> Hi Graham ~
>
> >> Am I correct in assuming the workings behind:
>
> >> Notify Circulation of wanted items
>
> >> just aren't there yet?
>
> > Yes, that's right, it's not there yet. Art and I just discussed this
> > today at lunch; I hope to have a first-draft shortly (maybe even
> > tonight, if the stars align!).
>
> I've got a rough demo of the Notify Circulation screen, for
> discussion. Take a look here:
>
> http://kessler1.medialab.uwindsor.ca/reserves/phys/circlist/?term=2009W
>
> (note you'll need to be logged in as a staff user, e.g. userid "staff"
> password "staff").
>
> The notion is that we would send emails to the Circ staff, and ask
> them to come visit a page like this.
mail every time a prof added an item to a course from the catalogue,
or could the prof hit a button to generate the email when they're
finished with their selections? I'm just wondering what it would work
like in say, August, when multiple profs are choosing everything for
their courses.
>
> Each item has links to display the item's MARC record, its title
> details in Evergreen (or the ILS of your choice, with a bit of
> customization), and its record in the Reserves system.
>
> There are some rough corners that I need to the "what's needed?"
> query. But do you think a screen like this would be useful?
included the Branch / copy location / call number / status for the
physical or the URL for the e-stuff.
From the list as it is now, circ staff could click on catalogue & then
write down all the info they need to retrieve the item - but - I think
they may whine about that.
>
> If a circ person were to want to export this list into a more useful
> format, what format might that be?
book - so delimited file that could be imported into a spreadsheet.
Then it could be sorted by :
status (so the checked out stuff could be recalled)
& then copy location & call number so someone could print the list &
go retrieve the items.
>
> Best,
> Graham- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
thanks, karen
Graham Fawcett
On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 10:15 AM, Karen Foster <fos...@mcmaster.ca> wrote:
>
> What a circ person is going to need to do is lay their hands on the
> book - so delimited file that could be imported into a spreadsheet.
> Then it could be sorted by :
> status (so the checked out stuff could be recalled)
> & then copy location & call number so someone could print the list &
> go retrieve the items.
I'm just curious -- if we could generate a bookbag in Evergreen for
the wanted books, would that be more or less useful than a
spreadsheet?
Best,
Graham
Karen Foster
bucket (perhaps?). I'm not totally up to speed on all the things you
can do with a copy bucket but I did envision them as part of the
reserve workflow for circ staff. I'm thinkin' they will want to have
all the requested items for a course in a bucket to mass-change the
circulating library to the Reserve branch (to get the shorter loan
periods & higher fines). And, perhaps even put the course number in
the stat. category or something. I was just thinking circ staff may
want to create the bucket themselves because they won't want any items
in there until the can lay their hands on it & re-shelve it into the
Reserve area. But again, I'm not totally up to speed on bucket
capabilities,we would still need a printable location/call number list
for book retrieval.
Guess the bottom line is, I don't know for sure yet - but this could
be an excellent way to go. I'll do a crash course on buckets & get
back to you.
karen
On May 7, 11:26 am, Graham Fawcett <graham.fawc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Karen, I'll reply in full later; but for now:
>
Graham Fawcett
That sounds promising!
At the system level, I think we'd need a way to push MARC records into
Evergreen (records which almost certainly originated in the same
Evergreen system; but we should account for other cases). Evergreen
would respond by 'doing the right thing' and adding those records (or
corresponding items) to the correct bucket.
If you want extra metadata (which prof asked for the book? in what
course?) I suppose we'd have to send that in parallel to the MARC
records. I'm hesitant to alter the MARC to inject a "prof/course"
comment, but if that's the best way, then so be it.
In the spirit of openness, I would want to make sure that Syrup
encapsulates any Evergreen-bucket-specific stuff, so that a
non-Evergreen library can still do something intelligent with their
Reserve requests (maybe just a visual display, like the one you see
now). Nonetheless, a good EG integration is a worthy goal.
I look forward to your post-bucket-learning report!
Graham
Karen Foster
1. Do you still get an e-mail when someone runs into an error page in
SYRUP?.
2. If yes, guess you saw the ones I got while trying out Mark items as
Arrived.
After I marked Freakonomics as 'arrived' I couldn't see it through
'about' or 'edit' in My Courses (error messages).
Now that I've left it alone for a few hours, I can open the record for
Freakonomics - but it's status is On Order. Should it still say that?
If I try to mark it as arrived again, it tells me:
Item already marked as received
karen
This item has already been marked as received. Date received:
2009-05-07 11:28:05.515329
Graham Fawcett
On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 4:17 PM, Karen Foster <fos...@mcmaster.ca> wrote:
>
> Hi Graham ~ more questions:
>
> 1. Do you still get an e-mail when someone runs into an error page in
> SYRUP?.
Yes.
>
> 2. If yes, guess you saw the ones I got while trying out Mark items as
> Arrived.
> After I marked Freakonomics as 'arrived' I couldn't see it through
> 'about' or 'edit' in My Courses (error messages).
> Now that I've left it alone for a few hours, I can open the record for
> Freakonomics - but it's status is On Order. Should it still say that?
> If I try to mark it as arrived again, it tells me:
> Item already marked as received
Ha. :-) Yes, that was me; I saw the error and tried to fix it. We have
no SIP at this moment, so we cannot check on item statuses. I hacked
at the record a little to make the error-message go away, but I didn't
do a proper job.
I'll put it back the way it was, but you'll still get an error (like
before) because of our lack of SIP.
Best,
Graham
Graham Fawcett
email.
On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 10:15 AM, Karen Foster <fos...@mcmaster.ca> wrote:
>
> Hi Graham ~ wow, thanks for doing this so quickly - guess the stars
> were aligned. See my comments below:
>
> On May 6, 8:43 pm, Graham Fawcett <graham.fawc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I've got a rough demo of the Notify Circulation screen, for
>> discussion. Take a look here:
>>
>> http://kessler1.medialab.uwindsor.ca/reserves/phys/circlist/?term=2009W
>>
>> (note you'll need to be logged in as a staff user, e.g. userid "staff"
>> password "staff").
>>
>> The notion is that we would send emails to the Circ staff, and ask
>> them to come visit a page like this.
>
> What are you thinkin' would generate the email? Would there be an e-
> mail every time a prof added an item to a course from the catalogue,
> or could the prof hit a button to generate the email when they're
> finished with their selections? I'm just wondering what it would work
> like in say, August, when multiple profs are choosing everything for
> their courses.
Good question. I don't think I'd email per item-added is a good idea;
that could get crazy. A daily summary seems a healthy compromise. Or,
perhaps we could use an "urgency scale": if the items are needed in a
few weeks, send one email per day; if the items are needed tomorrow,
send one email per hour (or 15 minutes or whatever). The length of the
cycle would be proportional to the lead-time.
Here's me, guessing what a typical Reserves workflow looks like. Many
books are ordered by profs throughout the preceding term, mostly
during the final weeks before the new term. Most of the books
requested are in the collection, it's straightforward for Circulation
to move them within a couple days (or to put a hold on them and move
them when they're checked back in).
There must be cases where a book is not available. E.g., the prof
picks a record from the catalogue, but there are no holdings for the
item. The library might choose to purchase a copy, or borrow one
through ILL, or tell the prof that it's a no-go. It would be good
customer service to discuss this with the prof closer to request-time
(rather than close to start-of-term). So perhaps there is a case for
an early Circ review of requests?
If it's May 1 and Circulation is asked to send a copy of War and Peace
to the Reserves Desk for the Fall term, is there anything meaningful
they can do at that point? Can they put a "Fall hold" on the book? Or
is it just to early to process the request?
>> Each item has links to display the item's MARC record, its title
>> details in Evergreen (or the ILS of your choice, with a bit of
>> customization), and its record in the Reserves system.
>>
>> There are some rough corners that I need to the "what's needed?"
>> query. But do you think a screen like this would be useful?
>
> Yes this screen is very useful. It would be absolutely perfect if it
> included the Branch / copy location / call number / status for the
> physical or the URL for the e-stuff.
> From the list as it is now, circ staff could click on catalogue & then
> write down all the info they need to retrieve the item - but - I think
> they may whine about that.
Ha! Yes, writing things down correlates with whining; I'm not sure
why.
I think the bucket idea is a good one here, if it will make it easier
to move Reserves requests into the right place, electronically.
I suspect the right thing to do is have keep a screen (like the one I
mocked up) for "All Fall needs"; let the Circ people copy the items
into buckets at appropriate intervals; and keep track in the "needs"
screen of which requests are bucketed, and which are yet to be
bucketed. This way Circ knows what Reserves wants, and Reserves would
know which requests Circ has actually begun processing.
Best,
Graham