Koha-US The Terrific Every-Other-Thursday Training Videos, 22 Jul 2021

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From YouTube: TTEOT Training Video - S1E23 - Plugins: cloudLibrary

Description

This week our lofty goal has our heads in the clouds as special guest Jason Robb goes over the plugin for Bibliotheca's cloudLibrary content. If you are in a fog about this plugin, be sure to watch this episode.

Music: https://www.bensound.com

A

Well good morning, I'm christopher brandon with the coeur d'alene public library and the community or excuse me, the cooperative information network. I don't know where I am today.

B

And uh I'm george williams with the northeast kansas library system- and uh this is another episode of the tuesday fantastic. What do we call this thing? Every other tuesday, video or thursday forgot.

A

B

Got terrific, okay, the terrific every other thursday video which, as many times is uh often recorded on a tuesday or monday, or I think, we've even done some on wednesdays and fridays. So I don't know that we've ever recorded one on thursday. I don't know um so uh we're sponsored by koha us we're part of the koha us education committee and you can find these videos if you go to koha us us.org and click on, learn and then scroll down and click on the watch. Koha us original training videos.

B

This will be video number.

B

23. wow we've almost got a year's worth wow. Has it been that long um and you'll also on our koha us page right now, you'll find the 2021 conference information uh which the conference will be in mckinney texas september 21st through 24th and registration is open.

B

um The cost for registering is all listed here if you're not coming to the actual conference. If you're just gonna participate online, there's an online uh free registration um we'd like you to register those that we know who's there. So we know um so we can keep in touch with everybody that shows up so uh and today we have a special guest.

B

This is the second time I think we've had a guest, uh we have uh jason rob from southeast kansas library system and jason is going to tell us about the uh cloud library plug-in. Last time we talked about uh the hoopla plug-in, and so this time we're gonna have jason, explain the cloud library plug-in uh which works with the cloud library service. So take it away. Jason.

A

C

B

C

You yeah all right, so the cloud library plugin is a plugin, so we can look at that first um administration and if you're on the current version of koha and a bywater customer, you can just like search it up and install it. I believe, um but otherwise you can go to bywater's, github, page download it and then upload it and install it and it's a biblioteca ebook plugin is the name of it, because bibliotech runs cloud library. So, as far as configuration goes, there are a few things that you have to put in here.

C

um You have to have a client id and a client secret, so you'll fill in that information. uh You'll get that from the vendor and um also the library id is from your vendor. um And then we set up just a special item type for electronic resources, and this is the item type code um for that which is just electronic, uh and that goes into the. I believe, the 942 item type record uh of the record.

C

We don't actually have items attached to our records, so um it's just dealing with the at the record level uh and then you get a few different options for how to authenticate the account, because it does sync up the accounts in the opac, and I can show you that for us, since our situation is a little different, our platform is administered by the state library of kansas. So everybody in the state is using the same account there.

C

So we had to set it up so that we're passing the state library card number into the plugin so that it can authenticate with that.

C

um If you're stand-alone or if you have your own cloud library subscription, then you can use uh the card number from the patreon account the user id from the patreon account or any patron attribute, and that's how I have it set up here- is passing the patron attribute, and I just created a new patreon attribute for the kansas library card number, which is here and then I think it does have to be a unique identifier. That's the one important thing you have to check when you're setting this up.

C

If you're going to use a patreon attribute, otherwise it won't, um it won't, let you use it, which is why you can see. I've only got two options here, even though I have multiple um codes here. It's because only my state library card number and my old ils key are unique identifiers, um and then that goes over to the patrons account.

C

And it's just another attribute here, so you can put in our state library card number there and that's all it takes to sync up the the two accounts. Now I don't know exactly what you have to do on the cloud library side of things, because my account was already set up. You may have to do the initial first time user setup to on that side, but once that's set up and synced up, then you're able to see your cloud library stuff in the opec which is awesome.

C

The other thing that the plugin does is it can pull records. So if I click run tool you can see it gives me the option to delete all the records.

C

It also gives me the option to fetch records um and this actually puts records into the catalog. It's not just like an asynchronous search like hoopla does, but it actually adds the records to the catalog and then you can search them. At the same time as your your real physical item records, I will say that we didn't have any luck with this fetching tool.

C

um The state library's collection is close to 30 000 records, and it would always time out for me so there's also a related cron job that can be set up and that's how we fetch records. It just goes out and grabs new records every sunday and pumps them in which is nice, because I don't have to worry about any of this um extra maintenance.

B

Does it also delete records once they leave cloud library.

C

It does not, so you do have to manually kind of maintain that side of it and I think that our plan for that is just to go, go in and like delete all the records out twice a year or something and then let them come back in again, oh okay, that makes sense, because if it's.

B

Fetching records every sunday you could just I mean you could potentially have another crime running to delete all those records every saturday.

C

Right yeah, but it's not that big of a concern for us, so we're just kind of playing that one by ear but yeah it it doesn't have any way to know which which items were deleted.

C

um So what else on in the catalog like, I said, if you do a search, they're just records in there, like the physical item record, um one kind of cool thing that this gave us that we didn't have before is a little more back end knowledge.

C

Since the state administers our platform. We don't really have any sort of back end access to that, but the plugin is able to pull in actual information copy information. So we can see that this one has we, um the state, owns four total copies and one's on loan. No none are on hold down here. I can see that the audiobook version of this has six copies. Six on loan 54 on hold so a little insider information there, which is handy um when you click into the record, it's again fetching availability at the point.

C

You click that so it's just using the apa api to talk back and forth so you're getting live data. Every time there and then in the opac it's the same deal.

C

C

Search, um they don't see as much since I'm logged into my account and my account's already synced up. I just get a checkout button here because that one's available, as we saw on the or the staff side, and then this one since it's not available, I can place the hole and get put on a wait list um and.

B

I imagine if you're not logged in it'll it'll, give you something. It'll show you something else there.

C

Correct, yes, if I log out and do the same search, it's.

A

Going to say please log in I.

C

Think something to that effect, I assume log into cloud availability. Okay,.

A

I assume that, with the placing the hold it's pulling, information from a cloud library account not from your coho account correct.

C

Yes, okay, yeah.

A

So it doesn't know whether or not you have an email address in your cohort account is whether or not you have it set up in there, and so each patron is going to have their own credentials and information uh profile set up in in cloud library. Then.

C

Correct yes, so when you're, when you first set up cloud library, I think you have to set up for us. It's just a matter of logging in with your um state library card number and password, and that gets you right into the cloud library service um so yeah, so so that that's all that it takes to sync that up and then it's it's linking based on the card number to the account and then pulling that information back in. So um on my account summary, you can see that there's that hold I just placed.

C

I can cancel it from here when that's ready, it'll, move down to ready for checkout, and I can check it out directly from here and then, if I had current checkouts it would. Let me also return.

A

Them from here.

C

B

So that seems like a pretty pretty slick system. I.

C

Especially like that it'll pull the records.

B

In and out, you know that there's different ways to do that, either through the task in the in the tool or if there's a lot of stuff, you can set up that crime.

A

Yep, you said that the um the tool for um pulling or getting the uh the records uh times out on you because of how much content there is. um Is it just the webpage that times out where, if you let it time out and- and you still, you know, use the tool, does it do it in the background or because I know that some some tools will continue working, even though the the web page times out.

C

So when you hit fetch records on this page, it's all like it's not reloading the page at all it just it. Does it in little chunks, so it'll say like so many records added, so many records added, so many records added, um and I think that does work for smaller sites and it may work for us now, since we would just be pulling the most recent.

C

But when we tried to pull everything um that jaw it just took too long. Basically- and I let it run overnight at one point- and I'm pretty sure that like when it hit the overnight crown job processes and that's really resource intensive on our system that it just gave up and didn't it couldn't complete.

B

Never finished.

C

Right um but the cron job did did work um got past all those barriers and made made everything easy peasy and nick is the one that developed this plugin so he's he knows all, and he can help you if you can't get it working. um One thing that we did run into is every once in a while. We'd have a record pop up.

C

That said, something like can wish in all caps um in the opac, which we didn't think was very user friendly and those are records that could be suggested for purchase when you're on the cloud library side of things like actually logged into that platform. But cohad didn't really know how to handle them. So um nick went in and set it up so that those are at least hidden, um so that your patrons aren't getting confused and you're, not rubbing it in their face that we don't have it. But.

B

You can wish.

C

For it, so um that's really the only major kind of weird hiccup we had when we implemented it other than getting it working. um It did take a little bit to get it working just because it hadn't we didn't, have the latest version or we didn't.

C

There were some tweaks that needed made, but it is fully functional for us at this point.

B

It's very cool. I I like all these things and integrate things into into the public catalogs that you don't have to search, so you don't have to search 3m cloud library and then and then leave that catalog to search the other catalog it's having everything in one place is is great, so.

C

Yeah, it definitely increases access to the resources available and that's that was our main goal, because otherwise I mean the patients have to go to four different places to get physical records, digital records from cloud digital records from hoopla. So if we can bring that all into one one single search um and they can see everything available to them, just in cohai, I think that's great customer service.

C

B

Think the one the one thing that I can see is being the difficulty. You know I, and how did you handle this where you have to add the state library card to everybody's account, yeah.

C

We're doing it as a sort of moving forward type thing: okay,.

B

C

Go back through and um populate that information, uh just if the patron wants to set it up, then the librarian can go in and add it. We also did set it up on the opac, where, if a patron self registers um or not.

B

Self registers sorry.

C

I need to be logged in they can go into their account information and- and they can add the card number they can have.

B

C

Number themselves: okay, that's cool uh that still needs approved on the staff side, because it's a pending modification, but but that's one way for the librarian to say: hey, go put this in and then I'll I'll upgrade your account so that you can have 3m access and synchronization.

B

A

If, if I had a can wish link, I would click it and say I wish that uh overdrive worked the same way and incorporated the records rather than having to go through its own little module. But that's that's pretty cool. You know it would be nice if other resources worked this well.

B

Well, that that would be a problem I think with hoopla, because, like I said when we talked about the hoopla plug-in, the reason that we don't add those records directly to co-op is because there are so many of them. Our catalog would only be like 30 physical items and 70 hoopla items. If we added all the hoopla records, uh but cloud library is only you know, for the state of kansas is only 30 000.

B

So that's not a significant number compared to the rest of our system. Right.

A

B

With some services it might be overwhelming.

C

Yep we used to upload hoopla records, import, hooper records and we would just do like the top 500 or whatever, but it's also nice to not have to worry about that. um It's nice that we can just have hoopla bear on the side and when the search is done, it pops up so.

B

Yeah yeah that.

C

B

Chore every month for me: yes,.

C

It was like an hour an hour and a half.

B

B

A

C

A

C

Yeah definitely recommend the crown job if you're going to start using the cloud library.

A

Plugin jason, thank you so much for sharing uh this. I I had not seen this plug-in before and it's always great to learn about new tools and new plugins and it's you know, certainly something that's helpful to those that uh have cloud library and I hope people will take advantage of using that plug-in.

A

B

I know I'm gonna ask jason some questions later about to get this stuff in our system, because we're also in kansas.

A

All right well, thank you for joining us and uh we'll see everybody again in two weeks, see y'all.

B

Later, thanks for having me thanks, jason.

B