As we certainly hope you know, you downloaded a new ‘build’ of the URSA/iBorrow client on August 10th when you clicked on the SirsiDynix icon. This build was designed to solve several problems. It didn’t get them all, but it got some, and the rest should be coming soon, but without your having to download a new build. Here’s the summary.
1. You can now decline iBorrow requests if you are the Lender.
2. If you want to push an iBorrow request to OCLC, and you lack an ISBN in the URSA request, you can do a separate search—in the Portal or in your local online catalog. If you find a record there with an ISBN, you can plug it into the one in Mediated Borrowing and then push it to OCLC.
3. The current lender is always displayed in the Item Detail screen up near the top. You may like this better than having it in the ROTA or you may not like it as well. But it’s there for you.
4. In the Portals, the Request Item button is now visible on the screen after a search almost all the time. Say, 90% of the time. And we’re working on the exceptions.
5. Recalled Loan. A lot of you have a bunch of items in your Recalled Loan container in the URSA client. Please leave them there. The engineer who is working on the earlier OCLC problems you have reported has put them there on purpose. That container is ignored by the “Day End” run that URSA/iBorrow does, so they will hold still while he is fixing them. As he finds the problem with each one or each group, the ones he fixes will pop back into the right URSA client container. If no new request for that same title has been created, they will behave as though they’d been in the right place all along. If a new request has been placed in the Portal or if the patron found a copy locally, or if the request has aged past his deadline, then there’ll be some orphans to clean up. We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.
6. Centralized ILL management. This matters big time to Lee County and Hillsborough County. The fix did not work when we stepped through it with SD this morning on the phone, but they think they know where the problem is, and we should have a fix shortly.
7. Local Holds. Same story with this one. It works on their test servers but not on ours yet. Again, they think they can find and fix the problem soon without a new build. Stay tuned.
Please continue to mail or call in your questions. We’re fixing stuff as fast as we can.