Course Reserves Staff Users Manual v.19

Hi,

I wanted to share that DePauw has decided to bypass the ExLibris Reserves module all together for our print/media reserve items. We were already using Blackboard for our e-Reserves, managed by our Circulation staff. We decided to take that one step further by adding links for the rest of the reserve items to the OPAC records. So, our patrons will see all items on reserve for the library, whether print, media or electronic in Blackboard.

We will still work with Aleph to add personal copies and to move owned items into Reserves. Rather than getting into too much detail, I thought we would share our procedures and attached them in a Word document. We think this will greatly reduce the time we spent managing reserves in the Reserves module due to the problems were were encountering. We have integrated MacroExpress into our process to make the process even more efficient. Plus, we will now get a comprehensive list of reserve items WITH course and instructor name for the first time since we have been with ExLibris.

I have also attached the Macros we are using as well. If you have any questions, please let us know.

- Sherri

PS - This blog would not let me atta

BACKGROUND: Around March 1st, we made a copy of the hickory patron database (i.e., a snapshot) of all the existing patrons and transactions on hickory (your production database). It was loaded along with the bibliographic and other data from hickory to the spruce server in preparation for conversion to v.17.01 software. When Ex Libris staff had us start reporting problems with the conversion on spruce, one of the first (and major issues) we reported is the inability on spruce server to view local or global patron information for the converted patron records of your ADMs. For instance, we could not see WCP or UIP records. We requested resolution of this issue and requested a way to test the patron database with the new "user-sharing" feature to see if it was workable for PALNI. Ex Libris staff had difficulty in getting the patron database to that point. They have now figured out the PALNI patron problem we were pointing out in v.17.01 on spruce server.

OK, we believe enough of a shakedown has been done with our testing and your testing (thank you!) to warrant turning you loose to edit existing v17.01 staff users/privileges on spruce, as well as add new staff users/privileges. In the meantime:

1) I am adding IP information for circulation functionality into the now shared table for tab_attr_sub_library on spruce v17.01. So for those libraries where functional area library staff have been encouraged to start testing and using the software, give me a few minutes (about an hour actually) to get everyone's IPs in the table. I will stop/restart pc_servers as I get library data added to the table.

2) Ex Libris staff are supposed to be working on the patron (full database) issue today. While it is still an issue, we are hoping for resolution soon. We will post when we know something more.