Koha-US The Terrific Every-Other-Thursday Training Videos, 2 Feb 2023

Previous Meeting Next Meeting

⏯

youtube image

►

From YouTube: ILL Workflows | S3E11

Description

This is cutting edge stuff here. Learn how to incorporate your ILL process into Koha without the ILL module using holds, frameworks, and statuses. If you have relied on tracking your ILL requests outside of Koha, or even within Koha using various hodgepodge methods, this is definitely worth checking out.

Contents:
0:00 - Title
0:27 - Intros
3:11 - An ILL Workflow Idea
9:42 - Create an ILL Status
11:47 - Create an ILL Framework
15:17 - Create an ILL Shelving Location
15:42 - Make Sure Records are Suppressed
18:02 - jQuery to Create Custom Call Number
19:55 - Walk Through the Process
25:48 - Enhancing the Check In Message
30:05 - Final Discussions
32:30 - A Way Around Full Cataloging Permissions Using Fast Add

Music: https://bensound.com
Audio Effects: https://zapsplat.com
Visual Effects: https://flexclip.com

A

A

George Williams I am the next search catalog coordinator at Northeast Kansas library system in Lawrence, Kansas I'm.

B

Christopher Brandon with the Coeur d'alene public library and the Cooperative Information Network. It's good and here.

A

George, yes I'm sorry I was not here for the last video recording I got sick uh and I'm still a little bit sick, but uh things are looking up.

A

This is the problem with uh for my wife's birthday, we went to Atlanta to see the very final B-52s concert uh on their farewell tour and we came home and we brought disease with us.

A

That being said, it was like the best vacation. I was saying this to my wife. This is like the best when we were leaving Atlanta I said this is the best vacation that I think we've ever had and I thought about for a second I said, since we had kids, isn't it and she said yeah I think it is nice.

C

A

Was nice to get away just by ourselves for a while, but we did you know we both got sick, so uh so here we are back again and I'm happy to be back. um Christopher is going to lead the way, though, and so first though we are part of the education committee at koha us, and so, if you go to the koha Us website at quahog.us.org and go to the learn page, uh you will find our videos under the big link that says uh well: where did it go?

A

Learn with us? It's way down here? Isn't it video playlists and uh we've got a list here of all of the different videos we've done over the over time? We've got some links to other video series by Bywater um and of course, if you go directly to uh YouTube and look for koha us, you can subscribe to the koha US videos you can subscribe to the playlist and that way, every time uh there's a new video you'll just automatically be notified, um and you can also leave comments.

A

um We like getting comments, I think. The only comment currently for the last video is an apology from me saying sorry: I wasn't there, but we try to look at the comments every week and see if they're, in the comments- and we try to answer your questions. So please leave comments or you can just email us if you email education at koha-us.org, that'll get that'll get sent to us so but I'll, let Christopher take it away. He's going to talk about a workflow that he's come up with um for handling ills at their Library Consortium.

A

B

Yeah, so this this will uh workflow and modification came about based off of a video. We did a couple videos back where we had Jason on and the two of you shared some ideas about uh letting people know that there are things building up in the in the holds queue. It's the whole cue counter that uh that you both had different takes on you.

B

Had you added a counter on the main page and Jason added it on the the holds Q button on the circulation page, and he had added some modifications to make it uh glow differently. Depending on how you know how old stuff has been uh that's sitting there and.

A

The little quaking skull was my favorite yeah. This has been on there for over two weeks.

B

So you know, following that: video when I had some time, I I uh kind of frankensteined that and uh put the two ideas together uh didn't use all the bits and pieces, but you know it took a little bit of you know from both. uh You had great notes and was able to to do some things and in fact, I sent Jason some information on how to improve his CSS a little bit um on on his coaching I love collaboration.

B

This is this, is you know the the best part of koha is collaborating and learning and building off of each other, and so let me share my screen and I'll show you what I've been doing uh in in what that led into so here's here's my little indicator, I put it on the front page only, and uh this has the account and it links to the queue that we use, uh but I I added Jason's modifications to to make it Glow uh different colors, depending on how old things are uh that are sitting there.

B

So I implemented the the counter first and I I formatted it in in the way that I I do our alerts on our page. So you know it really fits the theme of of what we're doing and um I implemented. That and I just did a soft Implement. You know I did not make an announcement and didn't hear anything from anybody and I said: okay, it's not impacting anybody. It's not really. You know causing any issues, and so then I implemented Jason's tweaks for CSS.

B

On this and uh added you know the glowing portion of it and I got comments back like they really love this, but I had one group of libraries. That said you know. You know this is a little annoying because it's always going to be red. You know, I said why is it always going to be red because we have stuff on there? That's you know. Our ills are always uh going to take much longer uh to get filled and I said.

B

huh Well, let's take a look at this here, because my my first reaction is like well shoot. You know it doesn't work for everybody, it's it's an annoyance to libraries that have a slightly different workflow, but then I I said: uh let's, let's take a look at this, and so I I dug a little bit into what their workflow is for ills and basically, when they make a request, they uh they add a record and place it on hold for that Patron.

B

So that's how they keep track of the ill and the patreon can keep track of it as well. So.

A

They add the record immediately before they even get the requested item exactly.

B

Okay, and so of course, when you add a record, it shows that it's available right, so they have these items uh uh showing is available and the whole SKU says: hey these items are available, fill them. So what ends up happening happening? Is they have these things that can sit there for well over a month until the the item actually comes in uh it's it's telling them that they have all these items available and they've got.

B

You know a lot of holds on ill items that are sitting in that queue, so they're, essentially ignoring half of their holds queue with all these items that have you know, been requested one two months ago, and so.

A

That's not the most efficient workflow. No, you.

B

A

Off that holds cue and and half of it you just say: oh, you can cross those off because they're not here yet right. That's that's not very efficient.

B

Well, it's you know: if you're printing, off your your holds cue, to go around and grab stuff you're wasting a lot of paper, yeah I mean unless you're exporting the queue and then formatting anything. That sounds like a lot of work. You know one one way around that is, you know they. They could check those items out to the the ILO manager until they come in. You know, that's that's one way that that could uh that's one way you can do it.

A

I think you might have come up with a better way, though right yeah.

B

You know it got me thinking about this, um our library we do it. We can handle that a little bit differently.

B

What we end up doing is um we make the requests, and then we put a note in the patron record uh talking about the ill request and when that item comes in then we then we uh make the record uh check it out to the patron immediately and put it on the shelf for them to pick up in the in the manager has to contact the patron manually and let them know that their request is in right.

B

So uh this method that I came up with kind of takes care of of both sides of this and allows us to to uh all follow pretty much the same workflow um our um ill manager really likes the idea and is getting ready to make the transition over to this and I just implemented this a couple days ago. So um here's what we did to address this.

B

uh The first thing is, you know, you have items uh new items that are sitting on the holds queue they're, showing it's available, and so the way that we address this is we go into koha, Administration and I'm, going to pull up authorized values and I am leveraging the not for loans we use not for loans for, for other things, things that are on order and so they're. You know this fits the bill perfectly.

B

um So we we have lots of not for loan statuses and I just added a new one called ill request and its authorized value is negative. Four, that's key to note there so.

A

Yeah the negatives mean you can. If it's a negative number, you can place requests on the not for loans. But if it's a positive number, then you cannot place or then you cannot place a request right.

B

Exactly and so you know just doing that alone- uh we were able to apply that status to uh items at a library that are in the the loan, uh the ill category. But uh you know in the holds queue we were able to apply that status and it immediately took those off of the queue so they're not showing up, as you know, uh ready to be pulled and- and you know bloating, their holds Q.

B

So we've done that, and you know we I said: okay, let's work on the process of adding that they were using a fast ad and I wanted to streamline that, because, when you're doing fast at fast ads, just generic and uh does what every Library needs it to do for fast Ed, but not necessarily for an interlibrary loan. So there were a few things. I wanted to address with that.

B

So going back to Administration, I went into the mark bibliographic framework and I created a new framework based off of fast ad and called it ill request.

B

So I have an ill request here, I'm going to look at the structure so we're you know collecting basic information off of this. uh Basically we're asking for a title and if they want to put in a personal anymore author, they can do that.

B

um So one of the things that I do on this uh particular on the the 245 for the title, if I edit the subfield is, um was that that was like it's b b. Yes, thank you on B, the remainder of title. It's always going to add on to the title uh IL request in Brackets, so it makes it very obvious. You know ill is going to be plastered everywhere in the record, but for certain places where only certain things show like the title. So we we're tagging on with our fast ads.

B

We do something similar we we do in Brackets fast ad, but um we have ill request here. So this is going to show next to the title all the time. So that was something that we added and then, if we go back into that, the other section that I add that I edit a lot of is uh 952s.

A

B

Is the item information correct so when you're adding the actual item uh record you're going to modify a few things like uh if I can remember where this is uh so, we've got yours, there's so many tabs, yeah statuses, I wish these were labeled. um Okay, here's our not for one and seven subfield, seven! So here's that negative four! This is where I tell it. Okay, when you create an ill record, always give it the status. So it's just gonna put it in this, not for loan ill request status.

A

B

You've got the.

A

Authorized value set for that. It's not for loan yeah right.

B

And then uh we have a location, I didn't I, didn't show the location, but we have a shelving location. I, think location is C, um so we.

A

B

Default value of ill or our ill shelving location, so you know that has its own unique, shelving, location and then another one we have is uh the uh subfield Y and we give it a default value of ill, which is we're using uh the item type as our loan period, and so we create a rule for that loan period.

B

Where um that item can't be renewed, uh there are certain restrictions on that and the only one hole can be placed so we're never going to have more than a hold on an ill, so we allow one hold on it.

B

So um the framework provides most of the the the quick workflow mechanism that that we need, in order to add a new record for this particular task. uh There are a couple other modifications that I made. uh For example, um I talked about the shelving location, so um they're selling location is a good one to to add so we have b-I-l-l uh and it shows up like this is the description shows that it's suppressed and then we have to go in you know. So after we've created the shelving location.

A

um So part of that framework you must have set the uh 952 and so that's suppressed I.

B

May have is it suppressed by default, I I think I I think I. Have it set there too, but it's always. You know: I I have it set up in multiple.

A

B

Yeah, but also an OPAC, hidden items, right, yeah, OPAC, hidden items, we don't want it showing on the the OPEC, so we we tell things to hide, and um so I am telling it that location. If it's in that location, it's going to be hidden. I'm. Also saying that if it's using that negative four right, it's gonna hide. So uh all my bases are covered. You know it's covered. It's covered here, two different ways, and it's also covered in the record. If, if I set that that one particular.

A

Setting 952 and or I guess it would be 942 and suppresses the bibliographic record. He has 9 52n high or I. Guess there isn't a way to do 952 and it's 942 in yeah.

B

I do have the 942 in.

A

Here 942n is the OPAC suppressed biblio, so.

B

There it is yeah yeah, that's got a default value of one yeah yep, so I have that set so I've covered my basis in three different ways. To make sure this isn't going to show up in the OPAC for.

A

For those of you out there, the 942n will suppress the bibliographic record, so you won't. So if you do a search in the OPAC, even if you have that title, you will not see the title. If you hide, if you do OPAC hidden items, uh you will still be able to search for the bibliographic record. You just won't be able to see any of the items that are attached to that public record yeah.

B

This is probably the best yeah hide it, because it's an ill and it's not your record. uh Well, it's not it's, not a record you're going to be keeping around, so you just don't want it showing up at all yeah. So this is the best way, but my other two uh hide in the OPAC for the items. uh That's just backup in case this got turned off by accident or something in the in the item record right. So now that that stuff is in place.

B

There's one other piece that that I've added uh to all of this I I have a little bit of jQuery because there's one field, that's that's customized per Library! So let.

A

Me kind of a user.

B

I have that piece right up here at the top here. This is the default ill framework to um uh to the library code in ill in the call number, so basically it'll it'll uh figure out what the, um if you're on that page and there's an ill um request in here.

B

It's going to look at what branches logged in and grab the branch code into a variable, and then it's going to put in the call number when you're adding the record it's going to update the call number with the branch code plus a space in the word ill.

B

So that's going to be the call number, because we we uh require a call number in our records and it's one less thing for the person to have to add right. um There is one other thing that you could modify in your framework. If you wanted to. uh We have the uh the item cost um on our test: server, it's defaulting to 25, but on production we actually defaulted it to like 115.. You can have that default cost. Whatever you think is going to be a good number to cover your your rear end.

B

If the item is lost, but you can always manually change any of this information on the fly as well. So if you know, if that price doesn't work for a particular library or some other setting, doesn't work for a particular Library, they can change it to to fit their needs.

A

Yeah having a default cost is not a bad idea, so.

B

Now, when we have an ill request made, the manager can actually just go into cataloging new record they'll. Have that ill request and here's the information that they fill out for the bibliographic record and I'm just going to create something here.

B

A

C

I think I've read the title.

B

A

That I've read that it's a good book.

B

So that remainder title is going in there. I don't need to put an author in this case, I'm just going to leave it as is I will save it, and then it's prompting me for a new item. So here's that not for loan status. It's automatically set there. If I need to change the collection, I can but I'll leave it. It defaults to my libraries, the shelving location here. It is, and it's in that suppressed, shelving location.

B

uh Here's the call number, so here's what that jQuery did right. Okay, uh before our libraries were just using a couple of letter, initials and ill- and you know this makes it automatic for them really simplifies it. Yeah yeah one less thing that they have to do and they didn't care. You know that it was the code as opposed to just a couple letters, so that was fine for them. Here's that cost replacement in the test server it's 25, but in production it's 115, then we have our item type.

B

That sets the the loan rules for this, and the only thing that I have to fill out on. This really is the barcode, and if you got uh it's, my understanding, I, don't know the ill world all that much, but when they get the request, um if they don't have a barcode you can put whatever in here, but if they give you a barcode and sometimes they do. uh You can put that barcode in here.

B

um So whatever it floats your boat for your library and your process, you can put whatever, but you didn't uh in our framework. You have to have a barcode, of course. So we'll add that item so now we have the item now. I can place that item on hold for the patron.

B

So this is my test: account I'll go ahead and place it so now. I have.

C

B

Hold for this Patron, here's my ill request and I can see that it's an ILO request, and this is why I had that remaining title uh added on there, because I don't have anything else that really shows uh this ill. So this is. This is the key as to why we we added that that piece, but now I, can see my ills in here, whereas our library before was putting it in a message up here and sometimes you know, and that and that worked, but sometimes those messages got forgot or were forgotten.

B

So uh uh you can have stray information left behind and this this kind of eliminates some of that issue. Well,.

A

And if that messaging is consistent on every ill request, you could even uh add some jQuery to highlight that even more yeah yeah absolutely.

B

So now this is here and the patron can track it in their.

A

B

Which is which is great- they can see that that as well and they can see that it isn't filled which isn't a piece that they had before right.

B

So that's there when the item comes in oh by the way it's here, but it's not in the holds queue because it's not available.

A

B

A

It's got that not for long status right.

B

So now, when the item comes in, we can check in the item.

C

B

It triggers the hold gives me all. The the information tells me that it's an ill uh request and who it's for I'm, going to confirm that now it's on hold for them now, depending on your library, you know our library wants to make sure.

B

Okay, first of all, this sent out a notice where the manager would normally have to contact the person manually now they're getting a hold notification on it right, um but we have one more step to do, for you know, at least for our library um the time that it sits on the Shelf waiting for them to pick it up is counting against the loan time that we have from the loaning library right. So we go ahead and check that item out to the the patron. So um we can go to that item.

B

Go to that patreon and go ahead and check it out.

B

And because it's a not for loan, it's confirming so yeah. You have to confirm on that one. But now it is checked out to the patron it's off their holds it's in their their checkout details and ready for them to pick up cool and then, when the item comes back.

B

It's checked in it will tell you that this item uh is ill and it'll show down here uh that it's an ill, and you know, if that's enough for your library to pick up on and say hey. This goes to the manager great. There are some things that can be tweaked about that. But um uh when you get that item I'll show you I'll show you the things that you can tweak about. You know how it shows up here.

B

Actually, let's go take a look at that now uh before we go through getting rid of the record right.

B

So you know in your admin under item types, if you're, if you're doing it like us, you know in our item types: are uh we have a specific item type for the interlibrary loan? You can specify how that uh is treated on check-in. uh Here's our fast ads. We have a much more robust message for our fast ads and what I can do.

B

B

Is copy this and change our other message.

B

So for our ills, I'll edit it right now, it says this is an ill item and I can.

B

A

B

And you can clean it up by.

A

Got all these asterisks.

B

Let's make it look a little bit nicer, okay, so now this message looks a little bit more noticeable, and so, if I go to check in that item,.

A

Yeah, if you check it in again, you should see the different messages.

B

That stands out a little bit differently. Another thing that you can do is below that message. You can say you know change this from an alert to a message. So if you'd rather have it come out that way, then it will.

B

A

B

Make it look different it? Doesn't it doesn't come up as a you know, it would be nice if it, you know, blocked your your your work and said you know hey. You need to do something with this, rather than just kind of up there, where you know people kind of ignore the alerts turns it to to yellow and.

A

You know I think also, uh you know we I I, don't remember if we ever done a video about the uh sounds about the alert sounds right. I.

B

Think if it's just going to mention yeah.

A

I'd probably tie this to a sound.

B

You could tie it to a sound and have it look for something specific in the message, and then you know you could have a screaming goat when it when it's checked in or you know whatever you want yeah everybody.

A

B

Yes, I have some, uh you know my last video or our last video uh was actually on the custom alerts. So it's funny. You say that um so yeah. You could definitely uh have that uh play a different audio, prompt.

A

So I watched our last video and I wasn't in it, so I didn't pay close enough attention. I do remember that now, though, well.

B

B

um So the item comes in. However, you choose to alert uh the staff that this is an ill great. It gets in the hands of the aisle manager and they can go into that item and you know because it's checked in it is ready to be deleted. So they can delete all the items and delete the record and send that item on its merry way.

A

I think this is a great workflow. It's uh it would solve a lot of problems for some of our libraries like I I was telling you before we started. Recording some of our libraries are very small and they only do like maybe 10 ills a year and they track everything just in a separate outside of the ILS.

A

They track it all like in a notebook or a spreadsheet or something, but some of our bigger libraries in particular. You know, do more, like you know, 10 ills a week and uh there's uh some things here. That would definitely probably solve some of their problems and maybe make their workflow a little better. One thing a lot of our bigger libraries do when they do. A lot of ills is when they place the hold for the patreon. They also place a hold for their ill manager.

A

So when that item gets returned, you checked in it's not relying on staff to read a message or to hear an alert it just it's just on hold for the ill manager, so koha prints the slip and sends it on hold to that person. Absolutely.

B

And you know this workflow, would you know you could add that to this workflow you know yeah.

B

um One thing I wanted to point out too: I didn't do this, but you know something if you want to make things easier for the workflows. Another uh thought is, um you know fast ad.

B

You can get it get to it through cataloging and new the drop down and go to the fast ad, but you know you can also get to uh fast at or fast cataloging through the circulation page, and another thing that you could do is just add in the add a button for ill yeah and make it easy to get to that, because it's just a link um to the to adding that record.

B

So um you could, you could do that there um I do know that if you're using the IL ill module, um it adds a button on the front page. You could put a button on the front page right to to do that. um If you wanted, you know what whatever makes your workflow uh easier. You know. That's why I did the framework.

B

You know I just wanted to make it easy for people to do this stuff and not you know, have to fill out a ton of stuff just to get the process done for a request. So I.

A

Think the one thing about the framework that would make it more complicated in our system is that um a lot our libraries that do catalog their ill items. uh They generally use the fast ad framework to do that, because the fast ad framework you don't have to have full cataloging permissions to use that framework and I, don't know if there's a way to add another fast ad framework other than just the fa framework, because.

B

A

Code, I, don't think.

B

There's any way to do that, no there isn't uh I was playing around with that and it's I was going that route and yeah. It's always going to use that one fast ad framework yeah, but what you could do is you could add a button to the fast ad framework page that modifies all of the fields to what yeah this would do so yeah. You know because all those fields are updatable you just um you could just have it.

B

You know set it to the right, not for loan status and for the um for the uh the shelving location and whatever you know, item type it needs to be at you know, so you could do all that stuff and also set it for your um go ahead and set up your uh uh your price and your call number all that kind of stuff. So you could you could do that. You could do a variation of this right.

A

Well, I look forward to thinking up ways to change this and make it work for some of our libraries because there's a lot of good ideas here. So so I really appreciate this video, and hopefully there are plenty of other people that will appreciate it and send us some comments.

A

uh Tell us if you like it. You know if you've got other ideas that fit in or if there's anything that we can clarify. Please let us.

B

Know here's the thing too I would love to get some comments on this particular video, because I would like to learn more about other library's workflows.

B

um I, don't think that there's enough information out there about people's workflows on ill, it would be great to see you know. Does this work? What do you do? Do you have something else that you do that might work better, that kind of thing I was investigating the ill module uh before I went into any of this and unfortunately, the ill module works with communicating between particular libraries or entities. Right now, who doesn't my research has is not included on this because I'm still trying to get some information about this.

B

uh You know it would be great if the ILO module allowed you to just manually enter in stuff, and it made this process. You know even more refined and quick. You know adding items, removing items, uh you know, keeping them off the holds Cube, but still making think you know notifying people and keeping uh you know that process really streamlined, yeah, um I think they're, you know, I was in my research.

B

I was I was uh finding out that there are some back in things that one of them might uh it's like something called free form. uh That's one of the other countries uh put together. You might do it, but I'm trying to find out if that actually is a thing that we can use and leverage and kind of do what we do here, but I'm you know I I'm, still trying to gather that information cool all right. Well, thank you. Thanks for watching Everybody yep and we'll see you again in two weeks.