A Very Private OPAC

A case study in adding and scoping branch librariesPresented by Phil Brabban and Dylan Harrison14th September 2006

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Introduction

• The University

• The Challenge

• Scoping

• Loan Allocation

• Data Conversion

• Self-issue

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Durham – a Collegiate University

• 16 Colleges of Durham University

• Pastoral

• 12 Colleges have a Library

• 6 College Libraries are automated– ALICE– AUTOLIB– Homegrown

• University Library - separate department

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The Proposal

• Colleges expressed need for an improved LMS

• Initial interest in networked catalogue using Autolib XML

• Single automated product for all Colleges

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Why Unify?

• Single search interface for users

• Maximise investment in Millennium

• Advantages of Millennium over smaller LMS’s

• Less work for College Librarians

• Quality Bib records

• Professional support

• Funding

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The Specification

• ‘Private’ collections

• Access only to individual College’s members

• Off-campus members should be able to search College holdings

• College loan entitlement

• College loan rules

• Self-issue and return

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Scoping – the easy stuff

• Create the branches

• Create item and bib locations

• Edit Locations served

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Scoping – the hard stuff

• How to ensure each College’s holdings are private?– Catalogue must be available ONLY to College members– Members can be on campus or off campus– Members of one College should not be able to view members of another

College’s items

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Scoping solution

• Re-scope of Catalogue (105F)

• Create a scope for each College

• Use Limit Network Access | HTTP to force OPAC into correct scope

• Use LOCKSCOPE option to ensure OPAC ‘held’ the scope on new searches

• Remove the Scope from the OPAC dropdown by changing scope menu order to 0

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More scoping problems

• Leakage

• View entire Collection

• University Library Scope

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Off-Campus

• Scoped search for off-campus users

• College affiliation?

• Can engage scope via url

• VLE (Blackboard)

• Liaised with Learning Technologists

• Blackboard building block

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Blackboard building block

• Determines the user's College affiliation from field in VLE user account

• Displays the relevant College crest

• Sets the ~S URL parameter to engage the relevant scope

http://library/search~S43/t?SEARCH=cheshire&search=title

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Blackboard building block

Above screenshot shows relevant scope "Castle + ULCAT" engaged

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The Downside

• Hidden scopes can’t be seen

• No Keyword search

• Complex setup

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Loan allocation

• Patron blocks table

• Max item A-D

• By ptype

• Item OR location ONLY

• Create new itypes for colleges

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Self-issue

• 24 hour opening

• Unstaffed

• Student assistants

• Minimal security if any

• Graphical Self-check product (310M)

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Diminished returns

• Students were used to return items

• No self return product

• Circulation module – reduced modes

• Needs to be staffed

• Controlled access

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Data Conversion

• 5 Libraries had pre-exisiting catalogues

• Records were very basic

• Colleges re-barcoded first to elimnate duplication

• Autolib data extracted as flat file tab delimited by supplier

• ALICE export and manipulation done locally

• In-house Perl scripts and MARCEdit used to manipulate the data

• Local load tables developed

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Data Conversion machinery

Comments from the Perl scripts:

# Terminate subtitle with full stop if none present

# Pull off first author and dedup the remaining author list

# Add a 700 field for each additional author

# Ensure pubplace ends in space colon

# Terminate pub with comma if none present

# Add a 598 field

# Check beginning of series for skippable words

Perl module MARC::Record

http://marcpm.sourceforge.net

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Data Conversion machinery

Graphical version of LOC MARCMakr/Breakr

http://oregonstate.edu/~reeset/marcedit/html/

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Finishing touches

• Loan Rules

• Local operational review

• Fines payment

• E-commerce

• Training

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Conclusion

• 12 Libraries

• 45 Scopes

• 1 Catalogue