PALSconnect LINKER and ERM, based on Simon Fraser University’s CUFTS and GODOT open source software, underwent a series of enhancements recently, including the addition of several new reports.

Two new reports were added to the ERM. “Payments by Fiscal Year” is a new report that shows the payment for each database for each fiscal year. The “Resource Usage” report includes the usage statistics for electronic databases and the cost per use of each database. The statistics for this report are collected using the COUNTER standard, whereby database vendors like EBSCO convey to their customers how many patrons are accessing their databases.

Snowy Christmas Background by Vectorportal Site

It is my pleasure to announce that Carrie Curie has joined the PALS Training and Support Team.

Many of you know her already, from her more than eight years at Minnesota State Community and Technical College-Moorhead Campus. There, her knowledge of Aleph made her a key player in all library activities. Carrie has served on many of the Consortium of MnPALS Libraries User Groups, Steering Committees and Task Forces, so she knows the consortium as well. Carrie will be providing support to both our Aleph and Evergreen customers.

Carrie grew up and attended college in Ohio. In 2003, she graduated from Kent State University with a MLIS.

Two of her favorite activities are reading books (in any format) and watching movies. She enjoys working on art and craft projects, although she freely admits that her attempts at knitting and crocheting turned out less than perfect. She is also looking forward to practicing on her French horn in her new apartment.

The Bridge Consortium of Carleton and St. Olaf colleges have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with PALS to integrate Web Scale Discovery with VuFind using a new display approach called “channeling.”

VuFind is used as the presentation layer for both the library catalog and results from the Summon web-scale discovery service using the vendor APIs. The results are displayed in two columns or “channels”. Books and other library materials are displayed on the left side of the screen and the Summon journal article results on the right. Patrons’ new and exciting research experience minimizes time by receiving book and article results through one search.

The Aleph production server was re-indexed during Thanksgiving weekend. This entailed a clean-up of indexing tables in the bibliographic library (SYSO1), and the holdings library (SYS60). Re-indexing helps speed up the searching and retrieval of records.

In addition to routine re-indexing, several improvements were made to implement the recommendations of the MnPALS Indexing Task Force. Improvements included a change to the filing procedure in the LCCN index to fix locates for ILL, adding the linker field to the keyword index (WLK) - both subfield a and b were indexed independently in the WLK index. Indexing changes to 510 fields improved the keyword notes index (WNO). Now users are able to search for any word in the notes field. New status indexes were added (WSA) for both the SYS60 and SYSO1 libraries, which allows the narrowing of searches by status.     

An introduction for new employees, a refresher for the rest
Presenter: Alex Kent

Join us for a webinar and Q & A covering the basics of Aleph Cataloging, version 21. The purpose of this webinar is to provide new employees with an introduction to cataloging in Aleph, and to act as a refresher for experienced catalogers. It’s always good to brush up on the basics!

Webinar attendees should have at least a basic knowledge of the MARC cataloging format. As a prerequisite, the attendees should view the webinar Getting Around the Aleph Desktop, located at: http://www.mnpals.org/aleph/syslibs/gui/index.htm 

The webinar will cover the general cataloging workflow, from logging into Aleph to creating and editing records (including templates), creating holding and item records, searching, saving records, and deleting records.