Reports Work Group Highlights, 2008-2009One of the major accomplishments of this group for the past year was process related. We had been attempting to use the forum to conduct business, but although the forum works well for discussion, it does not work well for decisions. We decided that all requests for new reports would go on the forum, with the group meeting as necessary via conference call to make decisions.
Aleph v. 19 limited the number of custom reports, which required similar reports to be bundled together. The Work Group helped determine which reports could be bundled, suggested names for the reports to help users find the right one, and helped test the bundled reports. We continue to work with PALS to refine the reports with added fields and to test how the data displays in Aleph and Excel. Specific activities include:
- Priv-21 Titles with Circ Events by Call Number/Date Range is a new report, where Work Group members worked with PALS staff to determine what fields were included in the report and to test it.
- Sorting by call number in reports was an ongoing issue in many reports, which mostly seems resolved.
- New instructions for retrieving by call number range are available in the Answer Book.
Members of the Reports Work Group provided a conference call for the consortium to advise which reports would help to fill out the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) Academic Libraries Survey. Members of the Work Group also presented training sessions on the production of reports and manipulation of data at the Cataloging/Acquisitions and Serials Workdays and created a list of reports they use frequently and for what purpose. This list is posted in the MnPALS Support Center.
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