Support & Training Services Report: June/July 2007

Summary Holdings and exporting local holding records to OCLC – Four test libraries are being used: 2 libraries (Alexandria Technical College and Northland Community & Technical College/East Grand Forks campus) not using the Serials Module, but manually maintaining the seriality on the item record and 2 libraries (Inver Hills Community College and Minnesota State University/Mankato) using the Serials module. The holdings to be sent to OCLC for serial titles from Alexandria Technical College and Northland Community & Technical College/East Grand Forks campus have been identified by the respective librarians. We are waiting to hear from OCLC which tag fields are necessary on the holding record. Then, those fields will be added and a test file of one of the libraries’ serial holdings will be sent to OCLC. From that test file, we will be able to determine what is missing or that it is correct.

Importing bib records into Aleph and then exporting the library holding/ownership to OCLC –St. Cloud State University (SCSU) was testing the import of bib records directly from GPO vs. going through OCLC. SCSU has dropped out of the testing project since their interim cataloger will be leaving the position and a new, fulltime cataloger will be joining their staff. PALS is now looking for another MnPALS library to work on this project. If you are interested in working on this project please contact Mary Ann Greenwald, PALS office at 507/389-2000 or via the PALS Support Center http://pals.custhelp.com.

EDI – Ordering with Yankee Book Peddler and Metro State has been tested.  MTR sent some orders successfully.  We are waiting to hear back from YBP before we begin EDI ordering in production.

Inventory Services – Testing with St. John’s/St. Ben’s University the new inventory marking feature and 4 new services; e.g. item-01 is to determine a range upon which to perform the inventory. The item-01, which marked the inventory, has now been run. They now will be testing the following: item-08 is used for a batch process, item-09 is used to set a process status on “missing” items, and item-10 produces a summary report upon completion.

LibProxy - PALS does intend to incorporate ezProxy. The server has been ordered and will be setup and configured late summer. Currently the plan is to provide more information to the MnPALS Consortia at the October User Group Meetings. Prior to the October User Group Meetings, we will be testing the product. We may be asking a few libraries to assist in the testing of ezProxy.

MnPALS Task Forces and Working Groups:

Authorities Task Force – Reported at the April ’07 Cataloging UG meeting that they will not meet until ver. 18 is loaded. They will then examine the new Authority features.

Marketing Task Force – Taking a break until early August. Cathy has asked for calendars to try and coordinate a couple of meeting dates to get the group started again.

MnPALS Access Task Force –Perry Madden reported to the group about the Availablitiy column on the Lute (development server) brief results page (also sent out to the Reference User Group mailing list on June 22). The PALS tech staff adapted new functionality that Ex Libris has put into version 17 in preparation for integrating Primo. Aleph now creates an "Availability Status" that can be incorporated into the Web OPAC. On each of the local web OPACs on our Lute server, we have replaced the
Library (Owned/Out) column of the Brief list display with an Available column. The system will say one of three things: available, unavailable or check_holdings (if some items are checked out/not available and some items are available). Unfortunately, this functionality will not work on the Union Catalog. Let Perry know what you think of this new functionality, and if your library thinks we should implement it on your production web OPAC.

Perry has also been working on updates to the Web OPAC help screens with Lori Pesik of St. Mary’s University.

MARC Records Task Force – At the April 2007 Cataloging User Group meeting, presented the new “Guidelines for the Import of non-OCLC MARC Recordsinto the MnPALS Catalog”. It was approved by the Cataloging User Group. It needs to go the User Council and Deans/Directors/Executive Council for approval. Since the work of this task force is done, their convener, Robin Horowitz (MSL), will write a letter to the Fall 2007 Cataloging User Group asking that they be formally disbanded.

• Currently there are no training sessions posted. During the next Support and Training Meeting we will be reviewing potential new training and refresher sessions that need to be offered.
• Check out the following link from the PALS homepage for a full listing of training offerings and links to registration forms http://www.abcsignup.com/view/view_month.asp?as=16&wp=112&aid=PALS.
• Individual invitations will be sent out each time we add a new session to our offerings.
• Customized Training or Training for adding a new module of Aleph to your library is available upon request. Please contact the PALS Support Center http://pals.custhelp.com.

• Mark your calendars MnPALS Fall User Groups will be held October 11 & 12, 2007 at Minnesota State University, Mankato.
• MnPALS User Group Conveners will be contacted in late summer to begin planning for Fall User Groups.

Subproduct of Services/Reports added under Modules – A change has been made in the way you can select “Reports” as a subproduct when sending a request for assistance. Under modules, where it is applicable, you will see an option called “Services/Reports”. Previously there was one choice called Reports that went across all of the modules. We think this new option will get your question to the most appropriate Support Specialist the fastest.  

Examples of what module would be chosen for a Services/Reports:  

You want to add an additional overdue notice - Choose Circulation Services/Reports

You want to set up for emailing notices or automated reports from the job list - Choose Systems, Services/Reports

New Answers added to the PALS Support Center Knowledge Base:

• Shelf Reading Report Missing Items #3154
• Issues Arrival Statistics vs. List of Serial Titles #3155
• Budget Rollover Process #3156
• Titles never loaned (mnpals-22) #3157
• Items not linked to Holdings Records (mnpals-23) #3158
• Non-deleted ADM docs that have links (mnpals-24) #3159
• Titles in a collection (mnpals-27) #3160
• BIBS with multiple Holdings (mnpals-32) #3161
• Automatically add NUC to Holding Record #3164
• Item record linked to wrong bibliographic record #3165
• Circulated Statistics Transferred During Migration #3166
• Material typ causing duplicate lines of loc/avail. in WebOPAC #3167
• Logical bases definitions (tab_base.eng) #3168
• Global Changes to Remove Item Process Status #3169Number and Title

We are in summer mode, working with libraries as they notifying us when ILL services will be unavailable. All components of the Gateway are working well.

• ELUNA Technical Seminar and Aleph User Group, 6/3-8/07 – Dee, Mary Ann, Sonja, Susan & Perry
  • Poster session presentation “Fixed field indexing: A Cataloger’s Dream Come True” – Mary Ann
  • Cataloging/Authorities Interest Group Secretary –Mary Ann
  • Patron Scrubbing and Privacy Issues Panel – Susan
  • Ask the Experts Panel - Sonja

• ALA, 6/22-26/07 – Mary Ann & Linda

Training participation:

• Synchronous Learning Expert - ‘Learn how to Learn Online’ – Synchronous Facilitation Certificate, In process – Becky, Cathy, Dee, Dan, Frank, Kyle, Mary Ann, Perry, Sonja, Susan
• RightNow Version 8 administrator/certification training – Cathy, Frank & Kyle

Please send any questions regarding the Support & Training Report to http://pals.custhelp.com.