Fwd: Adding and Sequencing Resources
Graham Fawcett
Below is my long-ish response to an email from Karen Schneider. Karen
completed a very thorough review of the Syrup interface, and had sent
along her notes. There's good stuff here, and Karen agreed to let me
share the discussion on the list.
Karen, you're welcome to come join us at
http://groups.google.com/group/syrup-reserves-discuss !
Graham
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Graham Fawcett <graham....@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 8:44 PM
Subject: Re: Adding and Sequencing Resources
To: Karen Schneider <k...@esilibrary.com>
Cc: Betty Ing <in...@mcmaster.ca>, john...@gmail.com, Art Rhyno
<artr...@uwindsor.ca>
Hi Karen,
Thanks for the feedback! Your notes are fantastic.
> If I'm adding items, right now, the newest item seems to go to the
> top of the list I'm creating, and i then have to fiddle (and not
> trivially... in two places...) to get it in the right place. That
> seems backwards no matter what environment I'm in (if you have Unit
> 1 and Unit 2, wouldn't Unit 3 come next..?), but as an instructor I
> find it particularly odd with a syllabus, which almost by definition
> is ordered chronologically/numerically.
Ah, that makes sense. I agree that new items should appear at the
bottom of their current heading.
I've just pushed a fix that corrects this.
> there are a lot of things I like, btw. As long as I have you here i'm
> attaching my (cryptic) notes... I realize this system is still in
> work... wasn't bothered by the stuff marked FAIL... some of these
> notes may just be useful for cues or documentation.
Fair enough -- I'm going to respond to some of them in-line, below.
> i also don't know why it's called e-reserves. We don't call PINES or
> Sitka e-catalogs :-)
An excellent point. :-) Fixed, I've changed it to "Syrup Reserves
System."
Excerpts of your notes, with responses:
> why would a prof "join a course with an invitation code"?
Some profs are students, too. :-)
> As prof, can't view Renaissance, 2009W -- why is it listed if I
> can't view it? Can it be marked off in some way to indicate I don't
> have access?
I'll add this one to our TODO file. I think we hadn't settled on a
"correct behaviour" and so had left it broken.
> Course details -- seems a little terse -- but may be what folks use
I know that Betty Ing would prefer "Edit course-site details", i.e. to
refer to a "site" (which lives in the system) as distinct from a
"course". Maybe that will help. Added to TODO.
> Cannot edit items (e.g. The Divine comedy)
That was a bug. Silly programmer moved the templates, and missed a
line of code that didn't know about the move. It should work now.
> Adding a new unit -- why not add it last, instead of first?
Fixed, as discussed.
> Sequencing -- easy! Save -- maybe make a button?
Good idea! I also used to have a little narrative that popped up below
the "Save" link, and somehow that got lost. Adding both to TODO.
> * URL -- would be nice (future forward) to have URLs picked up
> * delicious-style. What about attributes... future forward, can
> * those be populated with a selection list and add/new? Felt they
> * were a bit laborious and non-obvious.
Hm, I need your help here. Possibly my reserves-virginity is showing,
but I'm not sure what kind of selection-list would populate a URL
field. Shouldn't it be open-ended?
Re: attributes, you can add DC attributes to any item. Perhaps you
meant something different than this?
> * Electronic Document -- not able to test
Hm, should work now. Maybe my template-moving silliness broke this.
> * Physical Book/Document -- Catalog search FAIL
Coming soon! It's very cool, honest. :-) Just waiting for the Conifer
test server to come back up.
BTW, an undocumented feature is that you can also copy a
"title-detail" or "bookbag" URL from the Evergreen interface, and
paste it into the catalog-search field. This will bypass the Z39.50
query, and suck the item(s) right out of Evergreen.
> Functions need "cancel" or "go back"
The others have mentioned this too. I'll TODO this, and try to do a
thorough sweep for cancel/back placements.
> Adding new items feels laborious
Wait until you try the neural-implant interface. Super sweet!
Seriously though, all suggestions are welcome. I've tried to minimize
required clicks, etc., but don't have any good ideas left.
> Books can only be added from the catalog?
Yes, that's right. I'm not wedded to this, but there is a rationale:
it makes it much easier to associate item-requests with physical items
as they arrive at the desk. The higher the quality of metadata in the
item-request, the less work the reserves staff have to do.
> 2. logged in as staff
> "Browse the Reserves (Note: some course materials may require you to log in)" -- (But I *am* logged in!)
Good point. :-) TODO'ed.
> will there be search?
There is search. Maybe the search-box isn't prominent enough?
> logged in as staff, what are "my courses"?
Well, again staff might be students too, possibly even profs. Of
course a staff-member may have nothing under My Courses, but it feels
wrong to exclude it from the Staff interface.
> Instructor access... tried to add Karen as new instructor. "no such
> user Karen" -- is it tapping something else for this info?
Yes, that's right. The backend is customizable (tap into LDAP, a
database, Evergreen). The add-instructor interface is definitely weak.
> Notify circulation of wanted items -- FAIL
Yes, we still need requirements for this one! Should it generate a PDF
of wanted items? An Atom feed? An email to Circ, with a link back into
a report in the Syrup interface? Ideas welcome!
> Mark items as arrived -- ok?
Probably not too OK. :-) That's Conifer-test being down. I hope it
comes up soon. (I was able to make Syrup work partially against the
gapines demo, but it really needs EG 1.4 to work properly.)
> Add term: what's the format for adding a date? Can it prompt or have fielded entry?
Yes, a better date-entry would be nice. TODO'ed.
> added summer term -- worked fine
> Departments: what is an "active" department?
I think Art added this to allow departments to be 'deactivated', so
that if a department is closed (As Sometimes Happens in These Economic
Times), we can keep the historical record, without exposing the old
department in the "Browse by department" interface.
> section numbers and invitation codes -- cool
Cool, glad you liked them. :)
> Django: very different look and feel... font very teensy
Yes, that's intentional. The Django interface is supposed to look
different, and very few people will have access to it.
> can create course on one page... can add course in group permissions box
> Why is staff a member of a course? is that a requirement?
Not a requirement. I left it there for two reasons: (1) it's easy
enough for the staff person to remove himself from the list during
site-creation; (2) in your library's workflow, perhaps the staff
person is "responsible" for this site, and being a member of the
course will keep it on her "My Courses" list.
But I should have set it up so that the staff person was given "proxy
instructor" permissions on the site -- that is, she has instructor
permissions, but does not appear on the "list of instructors" and will
not appear in a "browse-by-instructor" view. I'll TODO this.
Whew! That was a lot of ground covered. Thanks again for the
in-depth notes; that's a very efficient way to communicate your
experience.
Best,
Graham
Dan Scott
<snip>
>> * Physical Book/Document -- Catalog search FAIL
>
> Coming soon! It's very cool, honest. :-) Just waiting for the Conifer
> test server to come back up.
We're working on it. Oddly enough, we've been sorting out the
production server configuration first but the test servers are coming;
we wiped the test servers clean to install the latest Debian image (to
match the production servers, naturally).
Sorry about throwing a wrench into, well, everything.
--
Dan Scott
Laurentian University
Graham Fawcett
On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 2:33 PM, Dan Scott <den...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/4/21 Graham Fawcett <graham....@gmail.com>:
>> Coming soon! It's very cool, honest. :-) Just waiting for the Conifer
>> test server to come back up.
>
> We're working on it. Oddly enough, we've been sorting out the
> production server configuration first but the test servers are coming;
> we wiped the test servers clean to install the latest Debian image (to
> match the production servers, naturally).
>
> Sorry about throwing a wrench into, well, everything.
No worries! The core production work is far more important than this.
Thinking happy thoughts,
Graham