A Holiday Present

We had our usual weekly Koha Task Force meeting today. And while we still have some outstanding issues, this week we were able to check some items off the list.

1. New Patrons are now being limited to only five items for check-out. (At first, it was unlimited charges.)
2. Patrons are now limited to only five movie DVD's. (At first it was unlimited)
3. Receipts for check-outs are now available. (For the first couple of days, we were unable to get any.) We still need to tweak them but much better.
4. We now have items/holdings attached to bibrecords for on-order material. This was a big problem for us. Now patrons/staff are able to place holds for these titles.
5. Authorities are working!! This is a big one. Cathi assured me that new authorities were being added to the catalog when we first migrated to Koha however that hasn't been the case for the past two weeks. The catalogers have been tearing our their hair in frustration and the reference staff has wondered why new books haven't come out of Technical Services. Today, we finally have resolved this problem.
6. It looks like discarding is working as it should though not as we want it to. If we delete the last item/holding attached to a bib record the bib is not deleted as well. We must delete that bib record manually. We don't understand why it takes awhile for this to show up in the catalog. Does it have to do with the zebra indexing?

So, this week's accomplishments were an outstanding holiday present to Cathi and me. Now we have three days off from work... no thinking about Koha!

Jackie

Koha - 2nd week

Look! It's now official... we made the news services Arcadia Public Library Goes Live With Koha.

We still have some issues to iron out, but we are making progress. As with the last post, many of the problems we face are not knowing that what we put in the initial profile for the "test" system may not act as we really want it to in the "live" system. For instance, we "thought" we had set up "Circulation and Fine Rules" correctly only to realize that the system wasn't limiting DVD charges to 5 per patron for seven days. After trying a few combinations, we now have that working correctly. We are a single library so thought using the "default" settings that we'd created was correct, but we actually needed to create settings and select the configuration our specific library.

We have a problem with adding new bibliographic records from the Marc Import. It looks like Koha doesn't automatically attach a holding or item to the new records so our patrons (and staff) haven't been able to place holds on newly purchased material until they are cataloged. We have come up with a work around for this, at least until this issue is considered by development for an enhancement, by using MarcEdit to add the necessary 952 fields (a, b, c, y) to the Marc Import file before it is staged so that the temporary item record is created when the new bib record is imported into the catalog.

Authority records are not showing up in the catalog. Cathi has been downloading files from Technical Services but these records are showing as available authorities when the catalogers need them. We have a ticket in for this with our consultant team, ByWater Solutions.

The most troubling problem is that titles that were migrated aren't always searchable in the catalog and then in most cases reappear after the item is checked in even though it isn't actually checked out. This is puzzling to us. We know that a small percentage of our titles didn't migrate correctly from our old system, SirsiDynix Symphony, for one reason or another. For example the item barcodes that ended with a $ didn't migrate over correctly--the trailing $ was omitted. We are able to add the $ to the barcodes and this corrects the problem. This is an issue that we are fixing as the items turn up on a one-by-one basis.

I give kudos to the staff. Luckily the Christmas school vacation days are a slower time for the Library; it allows us to work out some of the kinks with the system. And while the staff continue to pass on problems/issues to Cathi and myself, they are still positive about the system.

Jackie

The First Week

Well, now it's Friday. We have been on Koha since Monday morning. The consensus is that our migration has gone very well. Our patrons seem to be taking the change in stride. Most of their issues have been not being able to login because of a password/PIN issue (PINs that start with a zero didn't migrate over correctly.) Once we reset their PIN they have found their way around the site with very little staff intervention. Several patrons have commented that they like the new format and features.

Staff are feeling their way along, many are wishing they'd spent more time "playing" with it when they had the chance, but have adapted quickly and their comfort zone expands daily.

We have found that there are 3 levels of issues - Discovery, Nuisance, and Problems.

1. Discovery issues are nothing more than the staff finding their rhythm and when there is more than one way to do something deciding which way is most natural for each person.
2. Nuisance issues are things like the "0" as the preceding digit in a password and the trailing "$" in an item barcode which didn't migrate to Koha in an orderly fashion. Both of which we've learned what we need to do to resolve the issue on a one-by-one basis. This too is becoming a familiar routine.
3. The Problem issues are those things we will rely upon ByWater Solutions to fix or educate us on, and there aren't many of those. But we've even found ways to cope with most of them in the short term. There are other problem issues that we created for ourselves. Staff error at work! These had to do with the marc imports and not setting the instructions for the loads correctly. For a while the catalogers thought they were losing their minds. Bibs and items were disappearing right and left! They would catalog material and the next day the titles were gone. We could appreciate their concern. We believe this is all under control now.*

The bottom line is there are few complaints and that makes any change easier to adjust to.

We thank ByWater Solutions for their excellent job and for the pleasantly surprising level of support we have received so far. And I want to thank Cathi Wiggins, our Information Systems Specialist for all the long hours she has given and her commitment to the Arcadia Public Library.

*(Most of this message was composed by Cathi in an email. She came up with the three levels of problems.)

Jackie

Go Live!!!!

Arcadia Public Library's new OPAC is up and running! The Library Board of Trustee's chose the name "Arcadia Searchlight" for our catalog.

Are you curious? Check-out our new catalog at

http://catalog.ci.arcadia.ca.us/ or by linking through our website.

Thanks to all the hard work of Cathi Wiggins (the Library's IT support specialist), the ByWater Solutions team, and the City of Arcadia's Information System's Staff, we are able to move ahead.

Go Live Day (minus one)

Tomorrow we go live with Koha. On Saturday evening, after we closed at 6:00 pm, Cathi migrated the last of our circulation transactions from Symphony and placed them in a file(s) so that ByWater Solutions could install them into our new catalog on late Saturday and all day on Sunday. We appreciate that our consultants are willing to work on the weekend, allowing us to stay open to the public.

The staff has been practicing the new system, publicity is out, and we feel ready for the new system. Not everything is perfect yet. The OPAC needs some tweaking, the authorities are not perfect, the receipt printers are spewing too much paper, and the Syndetics book covers are not consistent however none of these problems will hold us back from our new system.

Wish us luck!

Jackie

Talking Points

On Monday, December 13, 2010, we go live with our new Koha catalog. Cathi, our IT Specialist, is putting in all sorts of extra hours trying to resolve problems with our vendor, ByWater Solutions. It is nothing to receive an email from her at 2:30 am! I think she is eating, drinking, sleeping and dreaming Koha!

I have been on vacation for the past few weeks and was surprised with all that has been accomplished in my absence. With the help of the Koha Task Force, our new OPAC has been designed, a new name for our catalog has been chosen, and a new logo developed.

Staff has worked on a list of talking points so that we can present a positive position to our patrons:

Why We Like The New Library Catalog!
• It’s simple! The new catalog offers simplified searching. Misspelled or mistyped words won’t end your search!

• You can suggest new titles for the Library to purchase right from the Catalog.

• You can add items to a personal, private list. This could be used for keeping track of books you’ve read or want to read.

• You can place your own comments or reviews for items in the Catalog.

• You can add tags (personally meaningful terms) to items in the Catalog.

• You can set up an RSS feed and be notified when new items are available by authors or about subjects you select.

• You can place requests on different items at one time without having to retype your Library card number!

• You can receive notices by e-mail and decide for yourself when you want to receive them!

• Book reviews are available right from the Catalog.

• You can browse the shelf virtually by looking for other books in the same area.

• It features book lists including new books for adult, teen and children, DVDs and Best Sellers.


Jackie