Beth’s Blog

This is a brief OCLC update. 

Since the latest build (on Januaray 19), URSA has found a new way to submit duplicate requests to OCLC.  I’ll summarize it below.  The good news is that SirsiDynix has found the cause of the problem, created a solution, and has fixed it on the RSS server.  But you may find some duplicate requests on OCLC right now, if we have OCLC listed as your LOLR in your URSA setup.  Here’s how the error happens.

If OCLC is your LOLR, URSA will automatically send a request to OCLC, if it can find no available copies locally.  An URSA-to-OCLC request goes through several servers:  URSA to Gateway to RSS to OCLC, then back to RSS to Gateway to URSA.  Each one sends a message to the next one and waits for 45 seconds for an acknowledgement response.  If it does not get a response in that time, it assumes the message did not go through.

In this case, the message got all the way to OCLC, but the response did not get all the way back.  One of the inter-server delays exceeded 45 seconds.  So, OCLC got the request automatically.  But URSA did not know OCLC had the request, so it left the request in your Mediate Borrowing work space.  Some of you manually sent some of those requests on to OCLC.  That’s how the duplicates got there.

The timing problem occurred in the RSS server and was fixed about 4:45 today.

So far, the new build seems to be a success. I’ve toured through the ‘catalog level’ locations this morning, and I’ve found no over-age requests in Fill Loan or Mediate Loan.  (Whew!!)

So, let’s quickly review last week’s changes and then move on.

You know that the OCLC tools in URSA now seem to be working exactly as they should. If YOU find they are NOT, please tell us ASAP.  (813-622-8252 ext 223)

You also know about the “secret code” you need in Fill Loan to over-ride URSA/iBorrow’s fear that you may have filled a request with the (GASP!) wrong item.

(The secret code is “Left Arrow Key” to make “YES” clickable. Tell all your friends.)

I told you before we got the build that requests being filled by OCLC would be labeled ‘External”. That’s true, but not quite the way I thought it would be.

To see it, go to Receive Loan in your URSA client. Find a request with an OCLC Review Number. Double click it. Click on the History tab. Look under the Event heading. Voila!

This last part is primarily for Sunline libraries, but the rest of you are welcome to read it, too.

When a patron makes a request through the Portal, URSA does a background search (usually using ISBN) to find an available copy.

If it thinks there is an available copy at a Sunline Library, but if it cannot successfully place a Hold (NCIP error, bad karma), it puts the request in the Mediate Loan workspace at the Sunline/catalog level. Since no specific Sunline library has the responsibility of monitoring that work space, requests have piled up there.

In the past, I would push them out in batches by Declining them when I had time to work on that. Because Aging was broken, there were always old requests there.

Now that Aging is working, I want to try a new approach.

As time allows, Matt and I will look at the requests in Sunline Mediate Loan and search them in Suncat. If we find a copy on the shelf, we will ‘push’ the request from the Sunline level to the owning library’s level. In other words, we’ll share out the work.

So, if you see a title appear in your Mediate Incoming Loan work space of Request Manager, it means we think you have an available copy.  If you really do, we’d like you to fill the request.

If you don’t—either because Suncat was wrong or because you can’t loan that particular item—just Decline it.

We’re doing this only for Sunline, because it is irrelevant at Pinellas Park, Hillsborough, and Lee, and because Polk has someone doing the same thing for their system.

We’re not yet sure what the best way will be for Palm Harbor, Citrus, and Hernando. 

Congratulations!  We are 20% larger than we were a few days ago.  No, this is not a Weight Watchers issue.  I mean that we have added an iBorrow participant, and URSA/iBorrow now searches six servers instead of five.  (If you count specific library buildings, it’s not as big a deal.  I’ll let you do the math on that)

Palm Harbor Library and East Lake Community Library are now pretty much full iBorrow participants.  They bumped up from Horizon 7.2 to Horizon 7.3.3 on Monday and came up on iBorrow on Tuesday and Wednesday.  I think an appropriate comment is, “Wow!”

We and SirsiDynix are still tweaking various parts of the software to get everything working right.  As of ten minutes ago, a Portal search would show their titles, but the ‘availability’ tab would show only the Location and the Due Date.  By the time you read this, that will probably be fixed. 
As other New Participant glitches emerge, we’ll pounce on them and fix them as quickly as we can.

And, speaking of fixes, SirsiDynix said in today’s Conference Call that the new build will be here tomorrow (Friday) and should have all the promised goodies.  Except one.  The ‘user friendly’ status messages in the “My Account” part of the portal go lost in the software conveyor belt somewhere.  They’ll have to wait for the next build.

If you run into new build problems Friday, please let us know.

If the new build works wonderfully and makes you want to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony, tell us that, too.

Al Carlson
 

We wanted a new iBorrow build for Christmas, and we didn’t get it.  But it looks as though one will come through this month.

Our URSA team at SirsiDynix says they have rolled one off the assembly line and are test driving it now.  The planned download date is Friday, January 19.  Would you like to know what’s in it?  I thought so.  Here, in no particular order, are the bug fixes and enhancements you should see on the 19th.

1. Requests advance correctly to the next lender, when the Process By date is reached. This is huge.  The broken ‘aging’ process has been making life miserable for ILL staff for months now.  The cause of the problem was that the ‘day end’ run was trying to do too many tasks at once and was crashing.  SirsiDynix broke the aging of requests into multiple separate passes, and the processor can now handle the entire job without choking.

2. URSA/iBorrow accurately checks Availability status before placing Holds, both Local Holds and “Remote Holds”. We originally set up Availability Rules for every participant, so that iBorrow would go after only books with a status of Checked In.  URSA was occasionally ignoring those rules and placing holds on titles whose copies were Out or Missing or Lost or even non-existent.

3.  The OCLC Gateway gets several fixes:
It can handle requests that do not have an ISBN or OCLC control number
It no longer chokes when validating ISBN’s
It will not send the same request to OCLC more than once
Requests at OCLC will have a status of “External” rather than “Filled” when you look at them in History in the URSA client.

4.  Columns for Author and ISBN have been added to displays throughout Request Manager.

5.  There are columns for ISBN and ISSN in Mediated Borrowing and in Mediated Lending.

6.  The Portal “Results Bar” displays only the total number of hits for a de-duplicated search.  It does not show the number at each target server.
·       Search for “Gone with the Wind” in the current version of the Portal, and you’ll see how much space is wasted by the results bar.

7.  Request statuses have been re-written in “patron friendly” terms in the My Account part of the portal.

8.  The red error messages that show up in the portal when a Z-server is down will no longer appear.

9.  If you enter an item barcode in Mediate Lending, the request will go directly to the borrowing library’s Receive Loan workspace, not just to your own Fill Loan workspace.

10. You can push a request up to the Catalog Level from a sub-agency. 
In other words, if there is a request in Mediated Lending at (e.g.) Oldsmar that should not be there, Oldsmar can push it up to the Sunline level, so someone else can fill it.

11. Staff notes display in the order they were added.

12.  NCIP errors will decrease, because NCIP messaging for handling Local Holds in Horizon has been fixed in a new build of the Horizon NCIP responder.
·       I know.  That sounds like total gibberish.  But, trust me.  It’s a good thing.

13. In a mapped system, if an item is already checked in on the local system when you Complete the loan in URSA, URSA will successfully set the status to Complete.

And then for Al and Matt we have:
1.  A Brokered agency can inherit Borrowing Sequences from the Broker
2.  An agency can inherit Borrowing Policy
3.  Availability Rules can use wild cards and will come with a default value.
(These will save us a lot of time when we are setting up a new library system)

Neat stuff, eh?  If something comes up to delay the January 19 download, I’ll let you know.
If you have questions about any of this, please email me or call me at 813-622-8252 ext 223.
Al Carlson
 

We are happy to announce that Palm Harbor and East Lake will migrate to iBorrow on Tuesday, January 16th.  We welcome them to the iBorrow family!