ELUNA 2009

Next week I will be attending ELUNA 2009 in Richmond, VA. ELUNA is the annual ExLibris North American conference. I hope to learn a lot about Voyager 7.0 and the future direction of ExLibris during the conference. To that end I will be moderating the following session:

V2. Using a Project Management Approach for Customizing WebVoyage 7.0.1
Vani Murthy, Library Technical Services Manager, Montgomery College
Brenda Braham, Digital Initiatives Librarian, Montgomery College
Jenny Hatleberg, Librarian, Montgomery College

This presentation will describe Montgomery College Libraries’ project management approach to customizing WebVoyage 7.0.1. Staff members from Technical Services, IT, Circulation and the Reference department were recruited to work on this project. We created 3 teams that focused on design, usability testing, and implementation. Each team was dependent on the research and subsequent recommendations of the others. We used LibGuides software as a communication tool, since we are geographically divided across three campuses. Presentation attendees will see demonstrations of our new OPAC and the LibGuides interface, and will leave with an understanding of the benefits & drawbacks of our approach.

Important Notice from Syndetics Solutions

From our rep:

Dear Syndetics customer:

As part of our ongoing commitment to product and service excellence, Syndetics is implementing a new database and image delivery service*.  Most of the changes are “behind the scenes” and will not affect how you access Syndetics content, or what you and your patrons see when using Syndetics; however you should experience improved response time.

This email is to let you know that your library is being moved to the new Syndetics system on Wednesday,
September 3.  You will not have to make any changes to your OPAC; implementation will be handled by the Syndetics team at Bowker.

We have set up a “hotline” for you to contact Bowker Technical support in the event that you have problems with the new system.  If you experience issues such as extremely slow response time, missing data, or lack of ability to access Syndetics at all, please contact your Systems Librarian, Denise O’Shea.

Thank you,
Melissa Kuzma

*Syndetics is the company that provides the book cover images, summaries and book reviews in the Voyager catalog.

Voyager 7 Overview

I’ve attached a word document that contains screenshots of the next version of Voyager. They really overhauled the appearance of WebVoyage, the online catalog. There are also screenshots of changes made to other modules like Cataloging, Periodicals and Circulation.

Voyager 7 Doc

Voyager Hacks and Plugins of Interest to CoolCAT

I attended and moderated some sessions on tools that you can add to Voyager to enhance the program. Here is a list of tools that I think we should explore for CoolCAT:

• Link checking software — used to check validity of URL links in catalog records
• Search Log Analysis tools — look at how our OPAC is being used
• Catalogers Toolkit — a variety of tools to assist catalogers with repetitive tasks
• Spine Label Printer — an alternative to the OCLC label program currently in use by CoolCAT
• New books list and RSS feeds– view new items added to the catalog
• Spell checker — need I say more?
• Location maps — graphics that show patrons where items are located within our libraries
• OPAC Search Box — I’ve already got one ( http://alpha.fdu.edu/~doshea/home.html ).and so does Amy over at CSE (http://www.cse.edu/index.php?id=2220) , but there may be better ones out there
• Web browser search boxes — search CoolCAT from within Firefox and IE browser toolbars

Voyager 7 Update from EMA

Mike Dicus, Voyager Product Manager from ExLibris, gave an update re: the Voyager product. Voyager 7 is scheduled to be released by the end of Q1, 2008. I wrote about the planned enhancements on the FDU LibraryWiki this past spring — http://librarywiki.fdu.edu/index.php/EndUser#Voyager_Update. To recap, here are some key changes that CoolCAT libraries will be particularly interested in:

• Pickup locations linked to request groups to prevent routing to invalid locations
• Edit a hold or recall request in request maintenance
• Validation of ISBN and ISSN numbers
• New look and feel for WebVoyage
• Session timeout warning and search refresh (WebVoyage)

All-in-all, Voyager 7 has many improvements. While the new WebVoyage is certainly an improvement over the old one, on the whole it is not radically different. The general feeling at the conference is that ExLibris will be placing more of its efforts on developing and marketing Primo. More on that another time.