Early Christmas Gift: New iborrow Build
We’ve had the current build of the IBorrow Staff Client in place for quite a while. It’s not the most exciting piece of software on the planet, but it’s been stable. And after its early history, that’s counted for a lot. But, behind the scenes and under the radar—and possibly over the rainbow and through the looking glass—Holly Harvey’s software engineering team has been hard at work to improve it. Barring the always possible last minute show stoppers, we should see the new version this weekend.
As we’ve done with the past two releases, Matt and I will test it on Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday. If it breaks or goes catatonic on us, we’ll call Holly and ask her to take it off the server and put the current version back on. If it survives our rigorous beer-and-pizza-driven testing, we’ll leave it in place, and you’ll see it Monday morning.
If you need help from your IT Department to load new iBorrow builds on your PC, please let them know that one is—probably–due on Monday. Most of you will see it when you click on the SirsiDynix icon Monday morning and watch the download.
So, what are these new features? I’m glad you asked. There are over 40 of them, so I’ll hit only the highlights.
1. When you are pushing requests out to other participants in Mediate Borrowing, the request will actually go to your target location and not hang around in your work space, tempting you to try it again and then generating an error message. We like a practical joke as much as anyone, but this one has gone on long enough.
2. They’ve added some “hover text” to the Portals, so that “mousing over” choices such as “Volumes Needed” will bring up an explanation of what that means.
3. Many of the error messages currently end with, “If the problem persists, ask a Librarian.” That’s a nice tribute to our profession’s skills, but not very useful to the patron using his browser at home. Or even to the patron in the library, because few library schools offer courses in NCIP error message diagnosis. So, the “ask a Librarian” line will leave iBorrow and go stay with Virtual Reference where it belongs. Other misleading messages in the Portals have also been fixed.
4. When you are searching in the staff Portal and pick a group of target libraries, you won’t have to pick them again every time you search. Your choices will persist through that session.
5. When you use Search Requests in the URSA Staff Client, it will be MUCH faster than it has been, even if you do a complex search, such as “How many requests are there with a requesting agency of Pinellas Park, a lending agency of Lee County, and a status of Pending at Lender?” And the columns you set up to show the results of those searches will now persist, so you don’t have to drag them into place every time you log in.
6. A couple of the tabs or ‘buttons’ on the Home screen in the Staff Client have been relabeled. Instead of having Mediate Loan mean “either borrowing or lending, depending on how I use it in the rest of the sentence”, Mediate Loan will mean you are borrowing from someone else, and Incoming Loan will mean you are lending to someone else. If you want confusing labels, you’ll have to shop elsewhere.
There will also be some visual differences that are tough to describe, so I’ll just say “Watch for them!” I expect to hear at least one “Oooo!” or “Ahhh!” next Monday.
If you have questions or concerns on any of this, please contact me.
–Al Carlson