Borrow Our Stuff!

I just recieved the email from OCLC that our retrospective batchload of holdings has been loaded.

54,219 116,336 of our titles are now available via WorldCat! :)

This will make it so much easier for MLS libraries (and others) to ILL our stuff!

Remember, we're a member of LVIS and our OCLC code is BGI.

We don't send items from the Reference collection, or the "hot titles" collection.
Everything else (including AV) is fair game!

gaming symposium

Only 1 more week until the Gaming in Libraries Symposium! :)

I'll try to blog as much of it as I can, for those of you who are not just a short commute from downtown Chicago.

Science Fair Project Strategies

I've posted the ppt slides from our presentation.

I know Glenwood-Lynwood PL was interested in putting on something similar of their own and asked to see our materials.

Drop me an email at

nomextra [at] sbcglobal [dot] net

if you present a Science Project Strategies program at your library!

Podcast: CODI Stars

Presentation of the Stars Awards 2005

Podcast: HIP for Reference

Custom HIP for Reference Dept

Podcast: tech trend-virtual machines

vmWare and virtual machines

Podcast: tech trend-anonymous library cards

Anonymous library cards

Ben asked that I post this with a Creative Commons license.







This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

Podcast: tech trend-digital audiobook

digital audiobooks

Podcast: tech trend-wiki

Check Jenian's slides for explanation of a wiki. I missed the very beginning of her wiki presentation.

Podcast: Show me the numbers-Hutton

Show me the numbers, part 4, Hutton

Podcast: Show me the numbers-Terlaga

Show me the numbers, part 3, Terlaga

Podcast: Show me the numbers-Medling

Show me the numbers, part 2, Medling

Podcast: Show me the numbers-Borgendale

Show me the numbers, part 1, Borgendale

Podcast: What's all the fuss about RSS?

RSS in HIP from Hennepin Co.

one more thing you can do with RSS? podcasting!

Podcast: Horizon 8.0 SA and Security

Security and Sys Admin settings

Podcast: Horizon 8.0 Requests

Requests module

Podcast: Horizon 7.3 and 7.4 CirculationTips

Circulation Tips n Tricks

Podcast: SQL to do the dirty work

Horizon Utilities and SQL tools

Podcast: Channels in HIP 4.0

Channels in HIP 4.0

Podcast: Bugzilla

Bugzilla

Podcast: Jack Blount

Jack Blount: Understanding 8.0 Architecture, Planning for 8.0 and Hardware

Podcast: Opening Session, Horizon 8.0 Team

Demos of Horizon 8.0

Audio from CODI 2005

Yup, you read that right, audio from CODI.

I believe these are the first ever podcasts from CODI.
If you're new to podcasts and need info on how to listen or what to do with them, visit my library's podcast info page.

The podcast feed for this blog is http://feeds.feedburner.com/kellistaley/podcast

The quality of these CODI podcasts aren't crystal clear (they were recorded from out in the audience) and it seemed I always ended up seated next to the people who had colds! But, if you went to a different session, or didn't go to CODI at all, I thought sharing these would be beneficial to you all.
Perhaps next year plans can be put in place to record closer to the presenters, and maybe it can be coordinated so all the sessions are available.

Thanks to all who agreed to allow posting of the audio from their presentations here.
Thank you to Crystal Ashton of SirsiDynix for giving me permission to post the S-D sessions as well.
Here's the first one, Opening Session with Eileen Kontrovitz, David Schuster & Patrick Sommers

Enjoy!

now its "official" LPL podcast

I was holding off on posting that first podcast to the library site while I was putting together a podcast info page on our website for our patrons. Finishing it up on Saturday afternoon, I wanted some feedback to see if I left out any important points. Oh, look at that, a fellow librarian available on IM! After a brief chat with Ivan "the rambling librarian" he sent me this link to his post.

He actually had his blog entry posted before I had posted the podcast to the rss feed.

Although I had promised Jenny that she would be the first to know once I posted my first podcast on the library site, I had inadvertantly released this to Singapore first!
(but -- whew-- with the time change it is actually tomorrow there already.)

Youth Services reported that lots of kids were in today working on their science projects... I'm sure they'll appreciate having the audio available from that presentation.

Carnival! #15

Visit Ask Nettie Day for the latest in the Carnival of the Infosciences.

Next week it moves on to Library Stuff.

Plugging iPodder? Update your presentation!

iPodder just changed it's name to Juice.

Looks like the customizable iPodder from their store that I talked about isn't currently available, but will be soon.

Live, from LPL! Our podcast!

LPL's first official podcast! I've created a separate podcast feed for this blog.

Science Project Strategies


I used Audacity and recorded directly to the laptop.

Challenges faced: Gail had a bad cold. Somehow, remarkably, she made it through her entire presentation without coughing. Gail, Patty & I had not had a chance to do a "dress rehearsal" beforehand because I was at a conference.

Unexpected: Gail said she forgot the microphone was there! :)

I apparently say OK a lot in my presentations. I also said "um" a few times but with the magic of technology, you won't hear that! :)

Learning experience: In retrospect, we should have printed out the powerpoint so we would know when to change slides. This was the first joint presentation we've ever attempted.

I had to adjust the audio in some spots so you can hear people's questions, and at a few points when Patty interjected some additional info from the side of the room.

I'll be posting this from the library site probably Monday, maybe Tuesday.

The local newspaper interviewed us before the presentation began, and the article ran today.

Thanks to RadioDaddy for the intro & outro audios. Thanks to Greg for mentioning them once on Open Stacks.

CODI - Are you still on "classic" Dynix?

Are you still on "classic" Dynix? Planning to migrate to Horizon?

One of the biggest challenges you may face will be staff who aren't as mouse-savvy as they could be! It's hard to teach the new interface if they don't have the navigational skills they need!

We had let people play solitaire to practice. Bad idea. They continue to play solitaire once they're good with the mouse, and it doesn't teach the options and nuances of windows. Did you encounter radio buttons, form fields or drop-down menus in solitaire?

Here are some sites to get you started.
These could also be used if you teach mouse skills to the public.

• Palm Beach County Library System Mousing Around
  English or Spanish version. Begins by just using the enter key, then gets into the mouse later.
• Mousercize/Mouserobics
  
• Jigzone offers jigsaw puzzles of a range of difficulty to practice the drag & drop technique.

You can also google mousercize to see how different libraries have customized it.

CODI - Beyond the Sessions

I hope those of you who attended the conference realized the added value you can get from the conversations with your peers.

Thanks especially to Luke, Patrick & Sharon for sharing ideas and some great conversation!

Luke from Texas gave me some ideas for this blog, and some strategies to help target my desired audience for computer classes.

Monday evening, Patrick from New York started talking about (cheap) wireless access for the public and mentioned Zone CD. We exchanged cards, and he sent me a hyperlink before breakfast the next morning!

I ended up sitting next to Sharon from Indiana at lunch one day, and as luck would have it she's "from the other side of the border" just 15 minutes away from my home library. The Illinois & Indiana libraries are in different consortia, so we don't interact much, but Sharon's open to sharing some ideas across the state line.

I was able to ask her how they handle Internet access for out-of-state residents, which turned out to be drastically different than what we do. (No wonder the Hoosiers complain when they come to our library to use the Internet.)

She also shared that they have "deposit" collections for their often-checked-out-and-never-returned books. For example: the GED test study guide books. Patrons leave a cash deposit, and receive a 28 day loan. If it's not returned on day 29, the patron "bought" it, and it is processed as a lost item in Horizon.

They do offer access to Learnatest.com/LearningExpressLibrary (I asked)

CODI - 8.0 Serials Prediction Calendar

prediction calendar
Originally uploaded by nomextra.

Matt Hensler wows the crowd with the new serials prediction calendar!

CODI - Creating a Customized HIP for Reference Staff

Customized HIP for Reference staff

Phil Feilmeyer, Hennepin Co. Library

Ref HIP displays # of reservable copies, # of current requests

Item details list has status, status update date, circ, last use, barcode

(last use is just 10/05) etc. Status update date is 11/9/05

HIP 3.06a, Horizon 7.3.3 (just migrated to horizon in august 05)

each branch has a HIP profile, but they are essentially identical.

Decision making aspects of customization are centralized.

Previous CODI presentations on customizing stylesheets at

http://www.hclib.org/extranet and http://www.hclib.org/extranet/morepresentations.html

Horizon migration:

Evaluation of the client search interface

Catalog interface much different for staff and public (trying to get ref staff to interact more with the patrons)

Team identified essential functionality for ref desk

Blurry line between ref & circ desks

Reduce introduction of bad data by untrained and/or creative staff

Perceived reduction in level of customer service

Overall intent was to increase customer service. Staff would be used to the same interface as the public, and if they were showing the public a search results screen on a staff terminal, it would be similar to the public screens.

Reference desk tasks not covered in HIP

• Searching/Display: item detail, special indexes, update item status

• Borrower records* (login to my account without barcode or pin)
• View details, update address/phone, reset pin

• Requests:
• View title request list, place request, shuffle queue, change pickup location, cancel request, convert item-specific to any-copy (not available in horizon)

Separation of staff & public

Each branch has two HIP profiles, one for public, one for staff

Staff profiles don’t require a pin

Profile code is used to differentiate between staff & public in the XSL stylesheets

Same XSL stylesheets used for both

Types of customization:

Adding data elements to the XML using the HIP admin tool

Adding data elements NOT available through the Admin tool and XML

Link to custom web applications that interact with the Horizon database

HIP admin tool: item details.

Status set (date)

Use count

Last use date

Data not available from the XML

Custom java function in the XSL processor that pulls in content from a web page.

Then created a custom web application to deliver the desired information.

Phil gave an overview of the customizations they've done. He did not include the exact code or back-end programming they had to do to make this work. Unless you've got savvy programmers on staff, I don't think this level of customization would be attempted.

They also don't know how much of their custom work will carry over to HIP 4.0

I think they could have controlled the "introduction of bad data" by tweaking the security in Horizon, and for example, created a separate item_group_editor view (as I did) which only allows staff to change item status. Anything else gets sent to cataloging.

CODI - Horizon 7.3 and 7.4 Circulation Tips and Tricks

Bjorn Bjerkoe, SirsiDynix


Location, itype and btype groups:

Purpose of these is to make your life easier.

The problem is that they haven’t always existed.

Most of us had systems that were configured pre-groups.

Groups are set up in 3 tables:

Location_group table contains the location groupings for the library

Itype_group table contains the itype groupings for the library

Btype_group table contains the btype groupings for the library

Circulation privileges & parameters are based on groups. (not the codes)

The problem is we often call our groups the same as the code.

When we migrated to 7.3, it created groups for each itype.

Itype_group_itype lists which itypes are in which groups.

Circ limit applies each itype in the group, not the group as a whole.

Bib usage statistics for a period of time.

Horizon has the ability to gather 4 types of bib usage statistics for user defined periods of time. Checkouts, in house use, phone renewals, renewals

These statistics are gathered by period#, bib# and location

Defining the period(s): circ control menu: usage statistics period.

Periods cannot overlap.

No item statistics usage.

Set up the periods every year, Bjorn recommends doing a large group of them at a time, as Horizon keeps track of everything in a period until the next period in the list begins, therefore, if you forget to add more periods, the last one keeps building, and building...

Viewing bib usage statistics—search, get a bib, send to bib usage stats

The only way to view bib usage statistics is on a bib-by-bib basis.

Forgotten location parameters

Location specific due dates. Global due dates by location. Fixed or final. Effective time period. Good for school libraries. Publics use it when closing for a renovation or move.

Fixed due date.

Allow transit holds override. If you have an item requested via ILL, and our copy is returned, do we wait for the ILL to arrive, or do we use ours?

Charge for grace days.

Return within grace period, not charged. If item is returned after grace period, then charged for all days.

Hold shelf expiry includes closed days. Set for yes or no.

All items out display type-4 options.

All items out

Suppress ‘cr’ and ‘l’ items

Suppress ‘l’ items

Suppress ‘cr’ items

Not a status—but a patron block of one of these.

Horizon 7.4 introduces “circulation long term history” which is the ability to save a borrower’s history of checked out items. 7.3 saves the prior borrower on the item record.

Options: do not keep circ history, always keep, or allow borrower to choose. [default is yes] examples: can keep for a # of days (90 days) or last 10 items

Viewing a borrower record shows the circ history.

Right now: If you pay or waive in full, status of lost item changes to missing. Link to borrower is GONE.

Overdue timeline:

Circ privileges:

1st notice

notice interval

max # of notices (final notice not counted)

Constants

Final notice (can set to not print)

Item aging to lost

Horizon 7.4 additions

Overdue to lost (days) if you choose to use this setting, re-evaluate your notice timeline cycle.

Some people want to charge fines in addition to the lost book. (?) Lots of people in the room want this. Hmm.

In 7.4 if you do return a lost item, it will charge the fine at that point.

7.4 top circulating titles

gathers top circulating titles for a period of time by collection group.

Does it count 1st checkout, or renewals too? (Bjorn is not sure)

Table editor: collection_group

Define the periods in top_circ_control

DETopC day end process is delivered inactive. You’ll need to activate it to get the top circ stats

7.4 has stats only on itype record option. Some libraries use this instead of hash-marks to record ref questions. Have a barcode on the desk that gets scanned.

CODI - SuperSession 8.0 and Hardware

The big combined presentation covering:
Jack Blount's Understanding Horizon 8.0 Architecture
Jolynn Halls' Planning for 8.0 and 4.0: Decisions You Need to Make
Tim Hyde's Planning for Hardware: It Doesn't Have to be Hard

Combined into one session covering all three topics, presented by Jack Blount, SirsiDynix.

8.0 was architected, not just added on as they went along.

New acquisition

New pac

New ecommerce

Enhanced serials

New ERM

Cataloging

And more!

Combined with:

LDAP

Shibboleth

Linux

Blade servers

UPortal

New GUI

And more!

Why 8.0?

* State of the art uPortal
* Record ownership
* Agency modeling
* Support for native, open SQL databases like Oracle, DB2, and MS SQL
* Full UNICODE support
* Total Java/J2EE solution

Fully integrated e-commerce

UniMarc, MARC21, MARCXML

Support for Sun Solaris, Linux, Microsoft XP, and Mac OS X

Faster, more scalable system

LDAP: light-weight directory access protocol

A secure industry standard protocol for managing user information seamlessly between multiple application environments.

Kerberos: highest level of encryption technology

Enables our libraries to provide total data integrity for user information and user activities.

Shibboleth: secure identity the Internet way.

Providing single sign-on authentication from inside and outside the library.

Database Independence: Native support for Oracle, DB2, and MS SQL

Leverage your current and future investments in high performance, scalable database solutions. [Sybase wasn’t investing in R&D, so Sybase is not on this list.]

Don’t panic: our intent is that we will be able to provide a no-cost migration to a new database. No contracts signed yet, but this is the plan. Will make an announcement by ALA Winter at the latest.

UPortal: Industry standard framework.

Enables a library to centralize the resources of its digital campus community. Provides powerful searching in a customizable and personalized user interface.

Java / J2EE : #1 programming language used for enterprise application development.

Providing a single, powerful link that binds the entire network together. Seven years and 2 millions software developers later, there has never been a Java virus of any consequence.

Unicode: Multiple language support.

8.0 Architecture

Designed by chief architects.

Designed to be modular, scalable and flexible from the beginning

Designed to be a system software platform

URSA first application using the platform

8.0 application suite using the platform

allows rapid development of new features and modules

plan to release major new functionality every 6 months.

Modules you didn’t buy ARE INCLUDED ANYWAY. Train on it all, try it out, buy once you decide.

March 2006 general availability for 8.0

8.1 due June 2006

get a migration utility that turns this into an upgrade instead of a migration

upgrade or migration?

Can be either

It is an upgrade from horizon 7.3 or 7.4

It offers a great time to evaluate your workflow and introduce more efficient policies and procedures

Don’t approach 8.0 with your 7.3 glasses on!

Take advantage of the training and allocate enough time to implement new workflows and new features.

If you want to treat this as a migration, Sirsi-Dynix will work with you.

Can place on test server without any cost.

Jack will write the migration scripts for 7.3 to 8.0 himself.

When is 7.x not supported? No plans to not support anymore. Dynix has always supported their older products, and that isn’t going to change now.

Horizon 7.x architecture

Two-tier architecture model

Horizon 7.x are “fat” clients

Performs the bulk of the data processing

Requires significant amount of bandwith

Requires locally installed application

Requires some business logic in the database server

Horizon 8.0 Architecture

Introduces “n-tier” architecture

Java “thin” client at the staff level

Database server

Data only

Application server

Business logic

HIP server: Jboss-application engine, TomCat-webservices engine, uPortal-presentation engine, Lucene-indexing engine

Application Server: jBoss-application engine, TomCat-webservices engine, Swing-presentation engine, Lucene-indexing engine

Database server: data management only. No business logic, stored procedures to triggers in the DB

Benefits of 8.0

Faster

Bandwith requirements are smaller

Requires less client processing power

No more CD installs at the local staff workstations-staff client launches from web browser

8.0 Hardware

small or medium sized libraries (option A)

#1 HIP server

#2 Database & Application server

#3 Web Reporter runs on former staff client PC [requires windows]

Medium or large sized library (option B)

#1 Database

#2 Web reporter

#3 HIP

#4 Application

AMD 64 bit, opteron processor—fast, reliable, affordable $8000-$12000 for server

No published server specs for 8.0 until January 2006

Benchmarks will be out in January. If you really can’t wait, email Jack, he’ll work with Tim Hyde to get you specs.

8.0 Database Server Support

Database vendor: DB2, UDB, V8

MS SQL server 2000/2005

Oracle 10g

Operating System All operating systems certified by database vendor

Hardware platform All hardware certified by database vendor

8.0 Application server support

Operating system: Linux 4.0 AS/ES

Solaris 10

Windows 2003

Hardware Platform All hardware certified by operating system vendor.

Solaris & Linux on 32 bit processor supports 4Gb RAM (JVM)

[Want 4gig ram in hip server.]

Solaris & Linux on 64-bit processor supports infinite RAM

Microsoft Windows limits JVM to 2Gb RAM only

Hardware trends:

Dual core technology: by adding a second core to a single processor, as much as 75% gain in performance can be achieved.

Hardware prices falling rapidly

*VMware is not supported in 8.0

Gigabit Ethernet: if your database server, and horizon application server are on different boxes, put those on a leg of your network that is gigabit Ethernet enabled since that’s where the heaviest traffic will occur.

Clustering support is not in 8.0, but will add that support in 2006

Blade servers: Jack is not a big proponent of blade servers. Can’t get leading edge processors. Not aware of any that have opteron 64 bit.

Staying at slower processors, because of cooling issues.

2nd reason: blade servers are just too new. They way the chassis is designed, may not be able to carry you far enough into the future, if the vendors want chassis redesign.

Upgrade is included in maintenance.

You pay for consulting.

You pay for training.

You pay for web reporter portion if you haven’t already bought it. Trying to work out a scaled down version of web reporter to be included with 8.0

Can’t run 8.0 without web reporter.

Telecirc-2 options. Existing telecirc will work with 8.0. hardware may need to be upgraded.

Telephone messaging from another vendor will also be offered.

CODI - What's all the Fuss about RSS?

Glenn Peterson, Hennepin County Library

What's all the fuss about RSS? or... what is RSS and why should I care?

What is RSS?

• Really simple syndication
• another way to publish your library's content
• XML based (computer to computer)

What's in it for me?
Setting aside the whole improved customer service thing for a moment...

• low effort, high (?) impact
• users will be asking for it
• recyclable - write once/read many
• other websites can publish your information (like the town or city website)
• enhance your reputation as a cutting edge library

What's in it for our users?

• new way for them to get your content
• users are in control
• users want your content
• easy to use
• spam free
• users can customize your content to meet their needs

Glenn then showed his Bloglines account as an example of an RSS reader.
Bloglines is one of many free RSS readers.

Shout out to Jenny (TheShiftedLibrarian), Michael (TameTheWeb) & Dave (Dave's Blog) who were listed in his Bloglines account.
If you're not reading these blogs, you should be! They're always filled with important stuff!

What should I feed them?

• Booklists
• Event listings
• My Account info (items out, items due, holds awaiting pickup)
• New book alerts
• Catalog searches
• Feeds based on subjects that interest them see AADL for an example

Tools for RSS

• RSS-to-javascript.com
• web application software (ASP, .net, PHP, ColdFusion, Perl)
• Java: Seattle PL's Casey Durfee's code
  

Hennepin Co. tries to protect patron privacy in their "items out" feed.

• Only include 1st name and initial
• Don't include barcode or pin in the Bloglines feed

LibraryElf was mentioned as another method of getting "items out/due/on hold" info.

[audience comment]
Garry from Kenton County Public Library runs a SQL then places it in XML to offer new book feeds. DVDs are most popular and stay in the feed for 14 days. He created tables in Horizon to store the new titles. Cataloging had to re-evaluate workflow when the feeds created huge request lists.

CODI - Mark Minasi Keynote Address

Mark Minasi Keynote: The Future of Windows

author of the Mastering series of computer books.

Visit his website for a free newsletter.

What's coming and when...

IE7 end 2006?

Windows Vista (weirdly pronounced vee-stah) end 2006

Windows Longhorn Server by the end of 2007

IE7

Will run on XP SP2, 2003 SP1

Will not run on 2000, NT4, Win 98, Win 95

Ships with Vista

Why do you care?

* UI improvements
* More secure
* RSS aware (enamored, actually)

IE7

* Tabbed browsing (FireFox anyone?)
* Search field will let you configure to any search engine…eventually
* Printing will auto-size to fit the page
* Less icon clutter
* RSS support (called “web feeds” in the inevitable MS-ese)
* Finds RSS links on a page automatically
* More UI stuff (thumbnails, shuffle) as betas progress
* Transparent PNG support

IE7 Security

* 1 click cleans out your cookies, internet history and passwords
* all active X controls need to be approved, even pre-installed ones
* IE in “protected mode” cannot modify any files or settings; just the temp internet files.
* Extra menu option lets you run IE with “add ons disabled” mode.
* “Manage add ons” now lets you delete some active X controls.

IE7 Anti-phishing

* system looks out for phishy behavior
* flashes the URL bar yellow
* Microsoft will run a service of known phishing sites and IE7 will check that service
* If you try to browse to a known phishing site, the URL bar turns red, and IE blocks you from going there.

Vista

* New version of workstation NT WS 6.0
* Not a version of server, that’s a year later
* Big foci:
o Very revised user interface
o Better security platform
o More .NET-sity including a .NET CLI shell
o Networking changes
o Platform for a new Office 12
o WinFS isn’t in (bad) but may appear later (good)

Program manager upgrade

The UI

* GDI became “Avalon” which is now “Windows Graphics Foundation”
* Great for GUI coders, games
* Lots o’ translucency
* Keyword “beautiful”
* Things preview more quickly although that may depend on CPU power
* Alt-Tab is a lot prettier; more thumbnails, shuffle
* Smooth zooming, you quickly choose how “close” you want to get
* Vector graphics
* Really needs a 2004+ video board

More UI—It’s the little things!

* “my computer” is now “computer”
* “documents and settings” is now “users”
* and there are search bars everywhere
* philosophy is search, browse, subscribe

User account protection—protecting us from ourselves

* used to be called “limited user account” LUA
* gives local admins two tokens: low-power admin and normal admin
* application checks the low power token, if it’s no good, then it checks the normal admin token—but it prompts you if you need it.

Windows firewall can block outgoing traffic

Sniffs out RAM & HD failures early

Server spec news:

your best buy is 64 bit hardware from AMD

32 bit is now considered “legacy” by Microsoft

Jack Blount agrees with this (64 bit from AMD), and mentioned it in another presentation.

CODI - Star Award 2005

Eileen presented the Star Award to Bob Gale.

David presented the Star Award to Bob Rasmussen.

Congratulations to you both, and thanks for all your hard work!

CODI - Make SQL Do the Dirty Work: Using Horizon Utilities

Eric Graham, SirsiDynix

Eric mentioned that there are several documents on the CODI site.
Look for the Administrators Toolkit

Then he went over the steps to create a Purchase Alert table in Horizon.

Cool! We currently use a SQL to gather purchase alert titles, but that requires us to run it, and it's not dynamic. Eric's instructions create a table in Horizon that updates each time you open the table. And...you can send titles from the purchase alert to the ACQ module! How cool is that?

Eric said he had submitted the SQL statements to be posted to the CODI site.

CODI - Using Bugzilla to Track IT Work Requests and Regain (Some of) Our Sanity

Eric Sisler & Veronica Smith, Westminster Public Library

2 support people. Were fielding & tracking requests in many methods: email, voicemail, sticky notes, hallway conversations.


New method has reduced phone calls by 80-90% thereby reducing interruptions which means better concentration on tasks.


Solutions looked at:

TrackIt - was cost prohibitive for them, had client requirements
FogBugz
Bugzilla - free!

As of Oct 2005, 451 known companies use Bugzilla.

Why use Bugzilla?
Accountability for all staff. Creates a paper trail of decisions, coverage during absence.
Notification via email. Proactive notification.
Knowledge base/FAQ

Customized Bugzilla to work in a library environment.
Most products are visible to all staff, but a few are for internal use by Automation Services. We periodically review existing products & components to see if anything new should be added or merged. Some of our current products & components are:

• Horizon (our integrated library system):
  • Cataloging
  • Circulation
  • Searching
• Computers:
  • Staff
  • Public
  • Network printers
• Network services:
  • Bugzilla
  • E-mail
  • File storage
  • Internet connectivity
• Don't Panic!:
  • Use this when you don't know how to categorize the ticket. We attempt to categorize these if possible, adding a new product/component if necessary.

Privacy concerns:
Logins required even to search the Bugzilla archive. [some support requests may contain patron info] They do a Bugzilla training session, then assign each staff member an individual login.
Bugzilla is configured so both Eric & Veronica get the email notification of a new ticket.
This eliminates contacting the wrong person if someone is on vacation or out sick.

Built a training module "Trainzilla" to use in their Bugzilla training.
They also use this for testing upgrades or additional customization.

Every field in Bugzilla is searchable by keyword.

Easy-to-use interface for staff.

Staff logging a Bugzilla entry chooses a ticket type: fix me (bug), request, or informational.

IT staff labels requests with statuses of fixed, can't fix, or won't fix. [an example of "won't fix" is a request to unblock the website myspace.com] They also won't fix a request to relocate a Horizon field for 1 person's request unless others using that module agree.

Documentation on what they customized on Bugzilla.

How does it work?

• Staff creates a "ticket" for their issue/problem.
• Email is sent to Eric & Veronica.
• One of them claims the ticket as their project
• If additional info is needed from the reporting staff member, comments are added to the ticket in Bugzilla, which automatically emails the reporting member and any other email addresses added to the ticket.
• Staff responds, providing the additional info in Bugzilla
• Bugzilla sends Email to Eric or Veronica (whoever is handling the ticket)
• Issue gets fixed
• IT staff marks the ticket "closed"
• Bugzilla sends email to reporting staff, and any others on the ticket.

Can be useful, as the email can be set to notify an entire department, so the morning shift and afternoon shift don't report the same problem to IT.

Staff are encouraged to search Bugzilla for an open issue before reporting it.

Creates a searchable database that can be used in troubleshooting.
Can also record seldom/complicated tasks.

As comments are added in Bugzilla, automatically sends email to appropriate parties so everyone is kept up to date.

They had 875 tickets entered in 8 months.
Staff are encouraged to call for urgent patron needs during office hours, or call if unsure if it's urgent. Staff may be told to "Bug it, man!"

Pitfalls & Concerns:
Staff expectations: ticket entry does not guarantee an immediate response. Most tickets are added to the queue and handled in turn.
No response from ticket reporter: ticket closed due to lack of interest
Unresolved issues not in Bugzilla: "no tickee, no workee"
One ticket=one issue
ticket overload: same amount of "stuff" to do, just tracked better

CODI - Channel Your Efforts to Limitless Content: How to Set Up Channels in 4.0

Dennis Todd, SirsiDynix

Channels concept based on uPortal.

Step by step: Publishing a channel.

Who can create a channel? SA user. Any SA user on Horizon can create channels in HIP.

Channels use a wizard for publishing. You can choose from: custom, applet, image, inline frame, portlet, RSS, web proxy, WSRP, XML transformation.

Choose your channel type.
Channel name.
Channel description (this is what displays to the users.)
Be sure to click "finished" on the final review screen to save your channel.

inline frame & web proxy are for web
custom: as if you're writing a program in uPortal.

Image channel required fields:

• URL of the image
• image dimensions
• hyperlink for the image (optional)
• caption and sub-caption (optional)

Cannot add ALT text for an image--this will be an accessibility problem.
A workaround is to do it as HTML.

Inline frames required fields:

• URL of the HTML document

• height of the frame

hint: don't make your frame too short. If a channel isn't tall enough for the content, it will give you a scroll bar.

[audience question] What is the recommended monitor resolution? Developers used 1280x1024 but HIP does adjust to any resolution nicely.

Web proxy channel required fields:

• URL (required)
• enable HTML filter (turn on)

Web proxies demand well-formed HTML. Use an HTML validator and look up valid HTML to find out how to do it correctly.
Don't assume because it worked in the browser that it's ok. Dennis said that browsers are more forgiving of HTML inconsistencies now, and you really need to use an HTML validator.

So what's the difference between inline frames and web proxy?
Inline frame keeps the fonts, sizes, etc of the URL
If you want a consistent look and feel for your HIP, use web proxy.

RSS feeds
for example: the NYT Best Seller list as RSS
[audience question] Does clicking a link in an RSS feed open in the same window or a new one? It opens in a new window.

RSS required fields:

• URL of the feed
• RSS version of the feed

Dennis said for HIP, regardless of the version the feed says it is, it works best if choosing "RSS 0.9x" [OK, but what if you're podcasting?!? Then the feed must be RSS 2.0 to support enclosures, will HIP support this? --ks]

RSS hint: use RSS validator

Create your own RSS feeds!
You could use the shareware $39.00 FeedForAll

Luke plugs Blogger because it's free! and easy to use...it's what I use for our library RSS feeds

(i thought his name was Neil--if not, let me know & where you're from!)... said they use an RSS feed for new books! I'd like more info!

also mention of Casey Durfee from Seattle PL and his RSS coding

Dennis' final tip: if you modify a channel

• delete the channel from the layout & re-add it.
• completely close your browser & re-open it.
  

CODI - Overview of Request Module for Horizon 8.0

Holly Harvey, SirsiDynix

Can build exceptions to not allow requests based on collection code or item status.


It is no longer the enter key to acknowledge a request. Is now the Y key.

Ability to charge when a request is created, filled, or expired.

8.0 has loan charging and renewal charging too.

Request ratio function will allow you to adjust the loan period based on requests.

Requests can be grouped, then prioritized.

Do you want to read a series in order? Group the holds, and the hold for book #2 does not trigger until you’ve had book #1
the default for this is: request #2 activates when the patron returns book #1
It would be nice to be able to customize this per patron preference.

Do you need 3 sources for a school project? Place requests on 10 books, group them, and set the group to automatically cancel once 3 items from the group have been filled. System automatically cancels the remaining requests.

Max # of requests per patron counts the suspended requests too. If a lot of patrons begin to take advantage of this, we may need to rethink our max # of requests.

[audience question] Can we save a list of patrons for future use? (for example a book club group) No, but they'll look at it.

CODI - Horizon 8.0 System Administration and Overview of Security

Shelley Neville, SirsiDynix with some questions answered by Jack Blount.

Theory behind security: Worry about protecting/access control

components:

Staff

Roles & privileges (what processes staff can do)

Combination of staff & roles& privileges=security

Protection domain: determine what data they can do the processes to. Which MARC records, patron records, acq records can they work on?

A protection domain has contextual owners:

1. agency (items, patrons, copy records, codes)
2. cat owner (MARC records) bibs & auths- who can update, delete, etc.
3. Admin groups (roles, staff, security groups, system)
4. Processing center: ACQ (POs, accounts, vendors, selections)

Can carry over CRUDO to 8.0

Not all that different from 7.3 to 8.0

Item record ownership at borrower, item, ACQ is enhanced

What happened to the old passkeys? They’re gone.

[audience question] Can block overrides be set to allow override on only info blocks, and disallow ovveride on money blocks? S-D will look into it.

Day end is server side. Don’t need a client running.

Will still have processes you need to run in the background.

Scheduled processes. Scheduler, what needs to run, what is running, what ran

Can run some processes more often... like requests

[audience question] Will each process begin at set time, or can we schedule sequences? Should be able to do both.

Can run print notices once a day, run email hourly. Cool!

Hold block doesn’t indicate when a notice was printed or emailed. It currently lists the time/date the item was trapped.

8.0 will indicate when the notice was printed or emailed!

Mysteriously missing now: ability to set up a user to be required to change their password after "x" number of days. [audience indicates they want this back!]

8.0 can have ability to give "read only" access to MARC records

[audience question] Do roles transfer from 7.3 to 8.0? Yet to be determined.

Users will come across for sure, roles may or may not. Transfer script will probably be announced soon-Jack Blount.

[audience] Is there any easy way to find out who is doing what? (who is waiving fines, etc.) Yes, you can build reports to get who does what.

Table editor? More granual access than before. Rights to view certain tables/processes

Can apply audit trail to just about anything.

Separate privileges for checkin & checkout

Web reporter is required for 8.0

All reports will come through web reporter. No built in ad-hoc reporting in 8.0

A Piece of web reporter will be included with 8.0, how much you extend that will be up to you.

CODI - Show Me the Numbers! Using Statistics to Drive Management Planning

Marilyn Borgendale, Ann Hutton, Amy Terlaga, Joseph Fisher, Colleen Medling

Marilyn Borgendale, GMILCS, Inc.

GMILCS is a multi-type, voluntary consortium in New Hampshire.

9 public, 3 academic libraries.

Report generator was developed from the needs and requests of the librarians, allows staff to create reports themselves, presents data for use in creative ways, is the model we are working with as we implement WebReporter.

Eric Graham worked with them 1 yr to form their report generator.

Report generator is staff only, behind firewall. It's a web based product, where the librarians can choose from canned reports such as purchase alert, weeding reports. Items added report by call number for specific time period. Request detail report: “limbo report” list of holds on missing, trace, etc.

“In demand notice” if there is a request on the overdue book, they phone borrower right away: requested btype on report so they know they’re not talking to a juvenile.

Graphs of circ activity for management & board in bright colors comparing 1 year to another.

Colleen Medling, Tampa-Hillsborough County PL

Cooperative/consortia with 25 locations + 1 branch a year for next 5 yrs

one bookmobile, one cybermobile

3 special libraries, 2 co-operative libraries

Are the stats they're asking for already available?

Ad hoc reports, web reporter, snapshot data

Tables that are cleared each day:

Request pull list.

Day end-po’s approved?, expired holds?,

Can the data be captured and recorded on a daily basis?

Number of cko sessions per day

Cko by bstat

Create a table in horizon to retain your stats (see her presentation on the CODI website)

Create SQL query to capture info and insert into the table [capturing data slide]

Then create a scheduled task to run as needed.

Eric Graham & Brian Rawlings white papers:

Building Blocks for Horizon Statistics

Horizon Reports: Obtaining Reports without 3rd party software

Amy Terlaga, Bibliomation

Amy's presentation is on the CODI website. She focused on using Web Reporter to gather ILL statistics and balancing the requests between member libraries in consortia.

Joseph Fisher, Boston PL

130 online databases at Boston PL.

Joseph talked about the time consuming task of gathering the usage stats for the databases.

Some stats are available via Horizon RPA, but to evaluate the usage, the best way was to gather the stats from the vendors.

More vendors are adopting the COUNTER standard (counting online usage of networked electronic resources)

Ann Hutton, SELCO –SE Minneapolis

They needed a report to help determine how much staffing was needed at the circ desk.

Circ per hour custom report SQL

Using EasyAsk: change the red to reflect the location code you wish to report on, change the green to the month you wish to report on

select year, month, day, hour,
convert(int, sum(total))
from stat_summary
where stat_category='cko'
and location='zum'
and year=2005
and month=10

group by year, month, day, hour
order by year, month, day, hour

CODI - Top Five Technology Trends

one presenter missing, resulting in only 4 trends.

Eric Graham, Sirsi-Dynix - moderator.
presenters: Jenian Gebeaux, Beth Degeer, Ben Ostrowski & Eric Sisler

Jenian Gebeaux, SAS (corporate library in N.C.)

Trend: Wiki as a collaborative tool.

They use a wiki at the reference desk and to manage information overload.

Wikis close the gap between creating content and consuming content.

Ward Cunningham developed 1^st wiki in 1995.

Over the last 10 years, wikis have hit popularity.

Wikipedia
is an online encyclopedia used and maintained by its users. Anyone can edit the content and it works surprisingly well.

At SAS they use wikis for meeting minutes, staff calendar, faq

They also have a blog for reference desk : called for printer service call, etc.

Staff can edit entries. No HTML knowledge needed.

Wiki incorporates a search tool, bread crumbs

Beth Degeer, Bartlesville PL

Trend: MP3 audio for checkout.

At Bartlesville, their patrons are tech-savy and they allow checkout of MP3 audiobooks from the library.

Overdrive (partnerned with Sirsi-Dynix) also have music subscription now. Have a lot of childrens books. Have picture books online. Overdrive was too expensive for Bartlesville. Seattle & New York PLs use Overdrive.

Audible
Wonderful for 1-on-1 subscriptions. Have lots of NPR programs, content will play on iPod, but Audible is interested in only having a limited number of MP3 players on a single subscription.

Netlibrary via OCLC
Lots of classics, very few children & YA titles.

$5000 for 1 yr subscription. Can download at home, play on own player. Cannot burn dowloaded content to CD. After checkout period expires, file expires. They had 200 checkouts in 1^st week. Doesn't accommodate iPods. [iPod dominates the market. Over 70% of all MP3 players sold are iPods, have sold close to 20 million units in 4 years. note: these stats are pre-video iPod-ks]

Apple hasn’t integreated DRM to manage expiration of a particular file.

Bartlesville PL's solution:
To serve iPod users, library has subscription to iTunes. They have purchased $4000 worth of audiobooks. How does it work? Bring in your iPod, library loads audiobooks. iTunes lets you use as many different MP3 players as you want with a single iTunes subscription. Adding music titles to their selection would address issue of stolen CDs.

Library has 5 MP3 players available for checkout, for patrons to try. Buttons are small, but patrons seem to catch on quickly, even the seniors.

Drawback: Patrons cannot download iTunes remotely. Must bring player into the library for library staff to load the book. Library “owns” the book in the iTunes.

Audience Q&A:
What happens when you dock the iPod on the computer?
Loading the audiobook erases their iPod content. Patrons must re-sync their iPod when finished with the audiobook to regain their tunes.

What MP3 players did you buy?
Creative nanos. [link to one of Creative's products. I don't know specific model they bought.] Buttons small for older patrons. Very durable. Cost for iTunes subscription is free. Each iTunes audiobook is $20-$60.

Why do you wipe the patron's iPod?
Don’t think can switch to manual to load audiobook.

Does library only own 1 copy of each audiobook title?
Yes. But if 2 patrons wanted the file, they’d probably load it.

Ben Ostrowski, Tampa Bay Library Consortium
Trend: Anonymous Library Cards
Ben is also the author of an article on this topic that appeared in Computers in Libraries June'05 issue.

Traditional circ: borrower proves identity, library keeps identity info, borrower borrows items.

Storing confidential information is inherently risky for several reasons: Patriot Act, Clerks get bored & look up their friends!

Reduce the risk of confidential information. How? Patches on software, firewalls, etc.

Destroy info you no longer need. ILS does this anyway.
(for example: can’t retrieve borrower records from 1997.)

[Horizon 7.4 introduces “circulation long term history” which is the ability to save a borrower’s history of checked out items. 7.3 saves the prior borrower on the item record. Options: do not keep circ history, always keep, or allow borrower to choose. [default is yes] examples: can keep for a # of days (90 days) or last 10 items. Will your library decide to implement this "feature" or not? Viewing a borrower's record shows the circ history. -ks]

Ben says...Can’t be forced to provide info if you don’t collect it.

We’re using identity for collateral.

Why not car keys? children? Cash?

Gift cards are bought with cash, card stores monetary value. Not associated with identity of buyer or the person using it.

Would people really put down cash just to get a book?

At Cracker Barrel, buy an audiobook on tape or CD. Pay cash value for it. Return at any cracker barrel, minus a weekly rental fee.

Anon cards in use at Sturgis Library. Offer cash based lending for the bikers $50 deposit=1 item. Give name, but can use an alias. Return item, tell them the alias, and they refund the $50

Another method is the borrower puts down a deposit to cover the value of what they’re checking out.

Library creates borrower record. Btype=anon. Place misc charge to reflect that we have money from them. May be able to voluntarily collect zip code. (might be nice for stats)

Can still deduct a late fee or damage fee from their deposit.

When they return, they get refund.

Law enforcement. Search the suspect, find anon library card, could come in and retrieve the borrower info. We could show them our records link to anon user, we're not withholding info, can't provide info we don't have. Nobody needed to show ID to read book in house.

Drawbacks: some materials are impossible to replace. Can control this by not allowing certain collections to circulate to anon btype.

Enhanced service to the rich. Doesn’t help the poor.

Could allow people who can't prove mailing address to place requests or ILL and use in-house. Library never required identity for storytime, to ask a reference question, or read a magazine.

Horizon 8.0 will have a database structure that supports anonymous library cards.

Q&A

How do you limit items that are restricted to adults only, to keep kids from checking out adult only items? Could have 2 btypes anon adult & anon juvenile and set up circ parameters accordingly. Could inspect applicant's ID just to determine if they were juv. or adult when setting up the anon card.

Certain restrictions for non-local patrons?
Make sure the anon users don’t automatically get access to the online database subscriptions.

How do you handle recall?
In an academic setting—using if you're using the recall function in Horizon, since you can't mail the recall notice you could give anon btype a shorter loan period.

Eric Sisler, Westminster PL
Trend:Computer virtualization

VmWare allows you to run “multiple computers” on one server.

Can run virtual machines, completely independent of each other, own cpu, own ram, own peripherals,

How does it work?

Physical hardware itself. Software that provides the virtual layers for you: a slice of the processing, a slice of the ram, etc.

Virtual PC from connectix

Other market leader is VMware (recently purchased by EMC, who makes blade servers, etc)

Eric uses VMware at their library.

Microsoft VirtualPC=VMware workstation product desktop

Good for testing new software

VMWare gsx server. Designed to run on a server, rather than a desktop

Can do things remotely. Snapshot functionality allows actions similar to deep freeze (can undo actions)

Vmware esx can move a virtual machine from server a to server b to without any shutdown

[note: Jack Blount said in a later session that as of right now Horizon is not supporting virtual machines in 8.0 When Eric asked why, Jack asked him to talk to him afterwards. Eric--feel free to add a comment to fill us in on what Jack told you!]

CODI - Opening Session - Horizon 8.0 Team (cont')

found a few more notes...

Ed Riding - ERM (Electronic Resource Management)

Why ERM?
Can track ERM data for all e-resource types: interface, package, ejournals, ebooks, websites, trials, access management & administration.
Track agreements & licenses. Has fields for incident log, z39.50, authorization, IP recognition, status of whether you've sent IPs to a particular vendor. Fields for contract terms, packages within packages.

A grid can display which ER are available and what the restrictions are.

Project manager to allow tracking of tasks & people required to renew a particular resource. Build a workflow of tasks involved. When task is completed, the next person in the workflow are notified via email that they are now responsible. Also sends "overdues" when people are hanging up the workflow.

Eric Graham - Web Reporter 1.4

Can send reports with sms.
All dashboards are HTML documents.

Planning on Web Reporter being the major notice and reporting tool for 8.0

Enhancements:

Over 50% of the enhancements reviewed by the CODI Board are in 8.0!

CODI - Opening Session - Horizon 8.0 Team

Horizon 8.0 team responsible for product management

What's the difference between Corinthian & Horizon?

Corinthian=Academic Libraries /Horizon=Public Libraries
BUT you're not forced into one or the other. Seems to be a lot of the same software, just in a more customized skin for your purposes.

So what's new?

Shelley Neville-- “ACQ Queen”

Selections: give people outside of acq access to lists to select items for order, or add things to a list (such as patron requests) type in title, use research button which launches a browser, which you can preconfigure for (example: amazon) then locate the ISBN you need for your list. Copy from amazon, paste into selections. Then use VIP. (VIP-able) is now a verb! VIP can now search MULTIPLE vendors. When it locates the item, it will pull in all the other data from VIP. Can also link the patron to that request so when the item is ordered, the request is placed for the patron. [guy behind me clapped] Can also add multiple patrons to that request.

Research button can also take you to amazon to evaluate a title on the selection list and give you more info to make the decision to order. Could also be set to configure to titlesource2, and others.

Accounts & Budgets

can set up in a tree structure.

“work budget” command launches spreadsheet where I can begin plugging in amounts to build a budget. have status of “new” when created. Change to “open” when you’re finished and they can be used.

Jolynn Hall-- Cataloging

De-mystify record management

MARC record lists

Item lists

URL verification tool [David Schuster is happy about this one!]

MARC record list: displays lists you have available based on login. Some were created at time of import. Create a new list.

Can restrict to 1 user, or a group. Save list. Then begin adding records. Can search by keyword, barcode, and lots more. Filtered searches are simple. No SQL necessary.

Example:
I need a list of records who are owned by a specific agency/location, to take them out of circulation for summer renovation. Can search by status, cat type, location, certain bib numbers, record creation date, or user. Records created in June by Steve? No problem!

Save that list.

then...>

Item lists:

Item editor: pull in an item list I’ve created. Batch edit, or individual edit. Select all, then batch edit and options: permanent change or temporary change? Temp change (summer renovation) change item status, location, display for public? Etc.

When change period is over—pull list into item editor again, select all... reset to previous settings.

Could be great for temporary collections.

Ability to double-check URL

URL check: quick check, scheduled check

Use quick check to verify URL on an item record.

Click start validation, and it verifies URL. OR you can do this manually if you want to see the link opening, click browse, if you edit the URL in the browse window, it will update the URL in the item record.

Schedule URL can check all at records at once. Can exclude domains such as EBSCO

Holly Harvey

Horizon 8.0 Circulation

Patron record is now available in the launcher

Photo in record! Really! Lansing: it's really in 8.0

Default notification method for different types of notices: email, phone, print, SMS

Can adjust notification preferences: Bill notices can go to one place, hold notices to another.

Can link patrons together. Parents & children/ entire families

Can see all items out to the entire family on 1 screen.

What does this do for patron privacy? Will we unlink records once the kids are no longer juveniles? --ks

Items Out automatically displays when you pull up a patron record.

Other areas such as requests are listed in a tab above the items out window.

Requests can be grouped, then prioritized.

Do you want to read a series in order? Group the holds, and the hold for book #2 does not trigger until you’ve had book #1

Do you need 3 sources for a school project? Place requests on 10 books, group them, and set the group to automatically cancel once 3 items from the group have been filled. System automatically cancels the remaining requests.

Matt Hensler--Serials

Serials checkin—can give you a lot more info now. Can view info about claims and more!
Pre-checkin notes. Rt click on an issue to receive. A lot of access to history in serials checkin. Copy history has a detailed overview. You can click & drag columns to reorder the display. Click on a column heading to sort.

Copy record management
"send to" is now called "open with"
Prediction pattern is broken into several tabs instead of 4 pages.
general/frequency/chron/enumeration/exceptions


There's a calendar with graphical representations of the prediction pattern. and the crowd goes wild! Hover the cursor over a date on the calendar, it tells you which issue is predicted.

Jeromy Wilson -- HIP 4.1

He talked about the Kids Information Portal, ADA settings and language preferences.
Channels create pop-up boxes. You can go to a web link or execute a search from within the catalog. (KidsClick) Kids are given lots of choices, don't need to be able to spell.

ADA version pulled out the javascript to allow tabbing through the screen. No mouse needed. Screen readers can "read" this easier.

Languages: users can set up a default language to be used when they log in. After a language choice, tab titles change to their language.

Showed Howard County Library who customized HIP as they wanted.

CODI -- Opening Session

Any emphasis is mine.


Eileen Kontrovitz, CODI VP/Pres-Elect

Eileen's shirt with all the former company names (Ameritech, Dynix, Epixtech, Dynix, etc) got a laugh from the crowd. Upon announcement later that it is Jack Blount's birthday, she presented him with one of the tshirts. Happy Birthday Jack!

797+ registered. This is a record number! [Hello to all who didn't attend and are reading about the conference via the blog postings!-ks]

961 including vendors & SirsiDynix people

General thank-yous to all the CODI board & conference planning people.

David Schuster: CODI President
David announced several International attendees, including U.K. blogger Dave Pattern.
CODI gave scholarships to 2 first-time attendees to attend the conference.

Introduced: Pat Sommers, CEO of Sirsi-Dynix.
Remember what it was like to be a kid?

• When decisions were made by eenie meenie miney moe


• Mistakes were corrected by do-overs


• Being old referred to anyone over 20


• Abilities were discovered because of the double dog dare


• Ice cream was a basic food group

Sirsi-Dynix Merger

Merger of 2 of the leading & oldest companies in the industry.

Important to understand who we are & what we’re about, and where we’re headed.

First, our basic assumptions:
* Your success is important to us.
* You’re seeking a long-term technology partner, not just a software vendor.

Dynamics for success
Build a stable, dependable company

25-year technology innovator focused on the needs of libraries, consortia, and users

consistent managed growth
4,000 clients, 23,000+ library outlets worldwide
200+ million people served by Sirsi-Dynix libraries. More than AOL!
Operations in 40+ countries in the Americas, Europe, Africa, Middle East, and Asia-Pacific
Experienced management team.

Dynix: pre-merger, profitable, growing

What makes Sirsi-Dynix so strong? Clear focus on meeting client’s needs.
Talking about true partnership: working with users’ groups, participating in listservs, staying in touch with users-via site visits, conference participation, focusing all operations to meet your needs.
SirsiDynix is committed to growing, improving, and excelling.

Our imperatives as a business:
Create a diverse, innovative, flexible organization
Develop a client-centric organization
Achieve unprecedented operational excellence
Perfect resource allocation and decision-making
Leverage technology to exceed expectations
Forge business partnerships
Become a recognized authority (on all matters concerning the library/user relationship) this is a core part of our success. They want to improve the experience of the user.

Pursuing excellence in customer service. Client care team approach. Team that is familiar with the portion of the software you need help with AND someone who is familiar with YOUR LIBRARY

New technologies go through a cycle.
Interest peaks, then falls, then levels off.
RFID went through the peak-and the trough is now in the 'plateau of enlightenment.'

Evolution of library tech.
Dumb clients ..server/client ..wireless, PDA/handhelds

Pioneers:Dynix
1st OPAC keyword searching, 1st windows based catalog

Sirsi
1st web based OPAC, 1st first enriched content for OPAC, first in RSS feeds

Why merger? We recognize that the demands of the marketplace, the things we needed to do to respond to the customers, was getting overwhelming for an ILS.

(some) Technology partners:Baker & Taylor, 3M, BWI, EBSCO, Bowker, Unique Management Services, Vendprint, Muse, Cisco, Sun, Blackwells...can often handle the support with the 3rd party, instead of telling you it's an issue for which you need to call the 3rd party tech support.

Who are our challenges today? (sd)

• Serving increasingly diverse communities


• Serving users who prefer the web


• Adapting to demanding “nextGens”


• Taking on new competitors who are raising the bar


• Discovering ways to collaborate with the broader community


• Managing collection and selection, particularly of increasingly important e-resources


• Coping with revenue and budget challenges


• Overcoming issues related to staff resources and training

In other words… “It’s not business as usual!”

Skill sets that people learn in libraries are critical.

The future is changing and changing in unpredictable ways. The future is not simply an extension of the past. Doing things they way you’ve always done them is not a guarantee of success.

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it” Alan Kay-computer technology pioneer.

User interface solutions: virtual reference, ebooks, open URL linking, RSS
analytical tools

Normative Database. Compare yourself to libraries like yours.

ILS systems today are a lot more than they were 3 yrs ago, or 10 yrs ago.

Patrick ended with things to see during the conference:

• Horizon 8.0


• Corinthian


• Hip & Corinthian portal 4.1


• Normative data project


• Rooms


• School rooms


• LiveNetwork

Minneapolis Central Branch

Hennepin Co. Library
Originally uploaded by nomextra.

As we approached the library steps, a man & his young son asked for directions to Orchestra Hall. Does this count as a reference question? LOL