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.