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Kimberly and Little Chute Temporary Change in Hours

Please note that from now until November 4th, the Kimberly and Little Chute libraries have made some temporary changes to their regular open hours. Kimberly will be closed on Mondays and only open until 5:00 pm on Thursdays. Little Chute will be closed on Fridays and only open until 5:00 pm on Wednesdays. The OWLSnet directory has been updated to reflect these changes. Updated hours can also be found on their library web site at http://www.kimlit.org/about/hours. Their regular hours will resume on November 7th. 

Evan

Renewing Titles with Holds

A new feature in Innovative was suppose to "allow patrons to renew checkouts on items if there are more available copies than existing title- or volume-level holds." We have confirmation that this feature is not currently working. Patron's trying to renew a title with a Hold on it will get a "Not all renewals were successful. See details below" message. The message will say "ON HOLD" even if many copies are available. We understand that this can be very frustating for patrons and staff and we will work with Innovative to try and find a solution. 

Evan

Sierra 2.2 Upgrade Complete

The upgrade was completed successfully at around 12:40 am. Please remember to turn on one Sierra computer at a time and let the new files download before starting another Sierra computer. If you have any problems starting Sierra or notice any issues with the program, please email owlsnethelp@mail.owls.lib.wi.us. Thanks!

Evan

Scheduling Next Sierra Upgrade

Our last Encore update did not complete fully, as part of the Encore upgrade required that we were on the latest version of Sierra. I would like to schedule our upgrade from Sierra 2.1 to Sierra 2.2 as soon as possible. The upgrade will likely be run around midnight, so there will be no down time during library hours. Clients will, however, need to load new jar files in the morning. Please let me know if any of these dates would be a problem for you or if you have any questions.

Late Evening / Early Morning

  • May 24/25
  • May 31/June 1
  • June 6/7

Thanks!

Evan

Wording of OverDue Notices - Update

At the January AAC meeting we agreed to change the wording of Overdue Notices. I postponed making the change because the direct link to the Encore patron account was not working on some mobile devices. That issue appears to be fixed with the last upgrade. I have updated the OverDue Notices. They now read:

The following item(s) are overdue. Please return them promptly.
If you have questions, please contact your library.

It may be possible to renew online at: http://search.infosoup.org/iii/encore/myaccount

If a patron ever does have trouble accessing their account from that link, please have them go to the InfoSoup home page and click on My Account. Thanks,

Evan

Marking Items as Damaged - Update

In Sierra, when viewing a patron's Checked-Out-Items, you will now see an orange button "Mark Damaged Item." OWLS staff (and other Innovative Libraries apparently) are still trying to understand the ramifications of using this status, particularly on how it integrates or doesn't with fines and notices. Until we can get a better understanding of how this status works, we are asking libraries not to use this function. We hope by the May AAC meeting that we will be able to understand (and explain) the implications of using this status, and discuss with you why a library may or may not want to use this feature. Thanks,

Evan

Encore Upgrade

The upgrade to Encore 4.5 appears to have gone well. The only thing I noticed was that the mobile patron account is displaying a full list of features, many that we do not offer, such as Bookings, Library Events, Messages, etc. I have a call open with Innovative to fix this. One of the new features of this upgrade is the addition of a genre facet in Encore. This requires Innovative staff to turn on, so we are just waiting for them for that. We have also asked them to enable the article search for Digital Public Library of America. If you come accross anythig that does not appear to be working in Encore, please post to OWLSnet help: owlsnethelp@mail.owls.lib.wi.us . Thanks,

Evan

Marking Items as Damaged

As decided at the March 2016 AAC meeting, we have asked Innovative to enable a feature that will allow in Sierra to mark items as damaged. Innovative will enable this feature Monday afternoon, May 2. At that time, OWLS staff will first test to make sure this feature is working as described. If all looks well, we will post instructions on how to mark an item damaged. Because we could not test this feature until it is "live" this will be somewhat of a work in progress to determine how useful this will be. After we post instructions, let Laura know if you plan to use this feature and if you have any questions.

Just a reminder, there is no requirement to use this feature. It is also intended that libraries should only mark their own items as damaged. We will talk about this more at the next AAC meeting and post any additional information that we may learn. Thanks,

Evan

Encore Upgrade

The update to the latest release of Encore (Encore 4.5) is now available. I would like to schedule the upgrade for May 3rd, around 7:30 am. There should be no downtime at all for Sierra and only a brief 15 minute downtime for Encore. Unless someone has an Encore training session scheduled for that morning, I plan to just go ahead and run the update on the 3rd. The update should improve the patron account experience for mobile users, add a genre facet to the side bar, and allow us to begin using Digital Public Library of America as one of our searched databases. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns (or any Encore training sessions planned for the 3rd). Thanks!

Evan

Printing Outstanding Charges Receipt in Sierra

With the most recent Sierra updates, there was a small change that now allows staff to print out the total amount that patrons owe on their account. Pull up the patron record in Check Out (Circulation Desk), click on the Fines tab and click on the Print icon. The receipt will display the individual charges with the total outstanding amount appearing at the bottom. If you have any questions about this, please contact Laura. 

Evan

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