Product Selected

Based on feedback from the extensive focus groups and our surveys, SAILS has chosen the SOPAC product. More information may be found at thesocialopac.net site.

Exciting News out of Canada

This is an article from Library Journal about BiblioCommons, one of the products that looks very interesting.

Request - view the month of a magazine on hold

Question/Comment: I usually put magazines on hold, but if I put several months of the same magazine on hold (exp. Jan, Feb, March), I'm not able to tell which months I've requested when I go under the 'review my account' feature. Is there a way to have each month listed along with the title in case I decide to cancel a month I might have acquired somewhere else?

Response: To see the month of the magazine you put on hold, we'd need to somehow get the call number to display on the holds list. I'm going to check to see if this is in the next release for iBistro, which is at the end of the summer. They made a number of changes to the interface and usability. I'm assuming it's too late to request new features, but I'll pass this along anyway.

Online Catalogs to Consider

Our selection committee, made up of staff from our libraries, has done some preliminary reviews of a few products on the market. We would like to get public feedback on these.

Please take a look at the sites below. Each is using a different product currently available. Please leave any comments - likes, dislikes, impressions, what features you would or wouldn't use, etc. - and make it obvious which product you're commenting about. Thank you!

Two good test searchs: bud not buddy (to see if you can find it or if the word NOT is eliminating the word buddy) and harry potter (since there are many formats and lots of added content).

• Aquabrowser - at Old Colony Library Network
• Bibliocommons - now live (7/22/08), public sites, and says it works with SirsiDynix.
• Encore - Not the classic catalog link, but need to type in a search in the "Search Library Catalog" form.
• Endeca - software behind stores like Walmart, at Phoenix Public Library
• Koha Zoom Browser - Live at Athens County Public Libraries or demo at LibLime
• Primo - at Vanderbilt University
• Scriblio - based on wordpress
• SirsiDynix Enterprise - works on top of iBistro. No public demo available yet, but seriously promising.
• VuFind - developed by Villanova University
• WorldcatLocal - not sure how this would work because the database, from OCLC, only has network level titles for our libraries, not the local library holdings.

Make the search results re-retrievable after placing a hold on an item

Library patron: Currently, after users complete a search and go through the steps to place one book on hold, when attempting to go back to those search results, the page reads unable to display, and the search results are gone even after trying to refresh the page. That’s REALLY exasperating.

SAILS: Use the "Back a Step" link on the iBistro navigation to get back to the results. If you use the browser's Back button, it may work, but will end up being problematic.
If you are using the Back a Step link and still getting the error, that is not supposed to happen and we'd be happy if you emailed support@sailsinc.org the name and version of the browser you're using and we can try to see if there's a browser setting that can/should be changed.

OverDrive & iPods

For those of you who have requested the OverDrive digital audio book & music service work on an iPod, your request will soon be granted! Not everything will be available at once, but it's a great start. You can read the full article or the Overdrive Web site or a related article in Library Journal.

Abridged vs. Unabridged

We had gotten a number of people asking for a clear distinction between abridged and unabridged audio books, as well as the ability to search for specifically abridged or unabridged. If you type in "abridged" as part of your search, for example, Goblet fire and abridged, you will only see the abridged versions. The problem has always been that the word abridged or unabridged was not in every record, so not everything would be found. Last week our cataloging department said they will "make sure that any new records will come through with Abridged or Unabridged in the edition statement."

Give us your feedback

Please feel free to post your comments on the answers below or for any of the features listed to the right. We're hoping that if we can get you, the people who use the online catalog, to speak up and say what features you'd like to have available, we can get a system that the majority of our customers will be happy with.

To comment, click on the word "COMMENTS" below or follow this link.