Aleph 18 Features

[This list is not exhaustive, it includes functionality deemed useful to the consortium.]

Acquisitions

• Arrival Pop Up – When an arrival is registered in the acquisitions module, the system will identify whether the item is requested in which case a message will pop up. This will appear whenever arrivals are registered, whether when creating arrivals or when invoicing the order.

• Enhancements to claiming for serial orders and standing orders – A new field, Claim Date, has been added to the vendor tab of a serial order and a standing order. This field can be updated by the user or the system will calculate the claim date based on the type of order it is; i.e., standing orders use order date plus max. no. of arrival days. Serial orders use order date plus the delivery delay field. In addition these fields can be updated either manually or by the system when doing a claim on an order.

• BIB display when adding a line item invoice – In order to confirm that the invoice is added to the correct bibliographic record when adding a line item invoice, the system now displays the short bibliographic information associated with the linked order. This information displays in the upper part of the lower pane of the screen.

• 13 digit ISBN – The ISBN validity check routine is able to validate both types of ISBN - 10 digit and 13 digit.

• New index added to order index – A new order index has been added. The index is AON for Additional Order Number. The AON is based on the additional order no. 2 found in the order form.

Cataloging

AUTHORITIES

• A new Authority process for headings considered by ALEPH as 'conflicting headings' was added. The uniqueness of the headings now takes into account the 2nd and 3rd positions of the tags. This will ensure that 2 headings with identical text that belong to different categories will be considered as 2 separate entries in the headings list.
• When a BIB field is corrected through the authorities correct functionality, the tag and indicators of the BIB field will also be updated
• Sorting of the headings derived from fix_doc_aut_duplicate Program
• Highlighting an entry in the Browse List in the GUI Search Tab and clicking the new AUT Recheck button, initiates re-checking the heading for a matching AUT record.
• Authority control on 1XX/240 and 1XX/243 BIB combinations

CATALOGING

• MARBI updates for 2005 have been implemented in this version. For information about the updates, please see http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/list-p.html
• Blank subfields cannot be entered for fields that require a subfield. If the tag must not contain subfields, the subfield will remain empty and cannot be filled.
• Search headings will work per base and not only per library
• OCLC Unicode export option. Based on LDR/09, ALEPH can determine if the record is in UTF-8 (LDR/09=a)and MARC-8 (LDR/09=blank or anything else than 'a')
• Improvement in moving items...from one bib record to another:
  • immediate expansion of all record tree nodes in the GUI is possible with one click.
  • enlargement of the maximum number of elements from that display (from 99-750)
  • cut and paste can be used, in addition to 'drag and drop'. (ctrl+x, ctrl+v)
  • ability to move a HOL record, with its related items, to a different BIB record
  • ability to move an item from one HOL record to another**Tree Expansion
  • expand ALL nodes of a record tree in the Overview Tree, by right-clicking the mouse & selecting the menu item titled "Expand all Nodes" from a popup menu.

INDEXING

• new expand routines are available

ITEMS

• Inventory marking
  • Dialog box has 2 new options for defining 'Lost' or 'Missing' process status.
  • Inventory definition (item-01) – the call number range displayed in the output report of this service is now formatted in the regular manner that call numbers are formatted in reports.
• Items List
  • ability to delete multiple items in all item lists
  • If an item is linked to an order, the Vendor Column will display the Vendor code of the linked order record. If it’s lined to a subscription record, it will display that Vendor code.
• Global Change GUI tool – Global Items Changes now includes the following fields: Material Type, Arrival Date, Order number, Subscription number
• Circulation Logger – added as a new node where Item History is shown in the Cataloging Module's Item tab. All of the circulation activities which have been carried out on the selected item will be displayed when the CIRC Log node is selected, allowing all of the actions that the Circulation Module's Circulation Logger allows
• Item History Expand Window has been enhanced to include all the fields that can cause the creation of a specific history record.

SEARCHING in GUI (from Cataloging Module)

• Check box for "word adjacent" has been added to the multi-field search tab of the Find node. Selecting this instructs the system that the words in the string must be in the same field and must appear next to each other in the record.

Circulation

• Crediting Lost Item Charges: New options have been added to the tab100 LOST-LOAN-CREDIT-METHOD variable to enable crediting of lost item charges by waiving open charges instead of creating balancing credit transactions.
• Global Patron Fields: A new field, called Mail Attachment, has been added to Global Patron Record to allow definition of how patrons receive email attachments.
• Partial Waiving: Cash transactions may now be partially waived.
• Cir-52 letters can contain currently accrued fine: By adding lines to the overdue-sum-single XSL files, it is possible to show the currently accrued fine on the cir-52 Overdue Summary Single Letters.
• Circulation Logger added to Items tab: The circulation logger has been added to the Items tab. All of the circulation activities which have been carried out on the selected item will be displayed when the Circulation Log node is selected, allowing all of the actions that the patron tab circulation logger allows, but from the Item perspective.
• Printing a Patron's Renew List: An option to print a patron's renew list has been added to the list of letters that are printable when "Letter" is clicked in the Global Patron Information tab of the patron record. This renew list is a list of all of the patron's loans, with an indication of whether they have been renewed or not.

Interlibrary Loan

• ISO interlibrary loan is brought into the GUI client. The integrated ILL client, ILL2, will have a similar look and feel as the other modules. Because of the integration it may streamline workflow between circulation and interlibrary loan. PALS believes ILL2 will provide faster response time than WebILL. Additionally, the integration should decrease the number of X-services errors.

Although WebILL is an option in version 18, the MnPALS User Council and MnPALS Executive Committee agreed with the PALS recommendation to run ILL2 server wide. All MnPALS Libraries must run ILL on the same platform.

Serials

• Global Change Form – Additional fields have been added to the global change form. The additional fields are Material Type, Arrival Date, Order Number, Subscription Number.

• 853/853X Patterns – ALEPH now supports the $y regularity pattern for combined enumeration and chronology codes.

• Deleting of multiple items at one time – It is now possible to delete more than one item using the shift or control key from any items list in ALEPH. Previously users could only do this through the check-in node in serials.

Systems

• PRINTING - The option of sending e-mails with a HTML attachment or only with a plain text e-mail body is now configurable per patron or vendor.
  • Plain text XSL templates no longer need to be explicitly defined as plain-<template name>.xsl files.If no plain text template exists, one will be created on the fly when an e-mail is sent.
  • Plain XSL templates will now accept the '##' mark to insert a 'new line'.
  • The SaxonVersion variable will no longer allow the use of the saxon.exe utility. Available options are Saxon7.jar or Saxon8.jar. Both of these require Sun Java to be installed on the pc.

Web OPAC Features

• Bookbag: When a non-logged in user adds record to the bookbag, and then signs in, the records in the temporary bookbag will now be copied to the bookbag of the signed in patron.
• Basic Search Page: Ex Libris created a page that mimics the current functionality of our Basic Search page, allowing both Keyword and Browse Searches on the same page. PALS will be implementing the Ex Libris solution to better conform to the Aleph base code.
• Booking Rooms and Equipment: Functionality for booking rooms and equipment is supposed to be in place in version 18, but PALS staff is still studying how it works. We will have a better idea once we have a live version of Aleph 18 to work with.
• My Borrowing Record: Two new columns of data have been added to the currently displayed information: Author and Year Published.
• Multiple Holds may be placed on records in the Web OPAC Bookbag in one of three ways:

1. Entire group – The patron identifies a group of records for which he wants to place a request, and clicks Request. This places a request on each of the records.
2. Parallel group – The patron identifies a group of requests that are equally suitable for his needs. After the patron receives the first available item in the group, the other items are no longer of interest to him.
3. Serial group – The patron identifies a group of requests to be supplied in a given order.

It appears this functionality is found only in the Bookbag (My e-shelf). This will require testing with a library to see if functionality is working/valuable.

Additional Resource: