James, Awesome. Really nice work!
…adam On May 8, 2014, at 14:29, Van Mil, James (vanmiljf) <[email protected]> wrote: > My colleague Sean Crowe and I have written a simple Rails engine with models > for the Postgresql database backend to Innovative Interfaces Inc. Sierra ILS. > Within a host rails app, it can be used to spin up mediated access to the > database via Ruby objects. With a few additional controllers, it would also > be straightforward to enable the serialization of database contents over http > via json or xml. Though there is a pending release of API functionality for > Sierra, this gem offers broader and more granular access to the database. > > See the github repo: https://github.com/uclibs/active_sierra/ > > We’re both primarily tech services librarians, and our first use cases for > this gem have focused on back-end workflow. For example, we’re developing a > Rails app to track and report lost, missing, or long-overdue items in Sierra. > With a rake task, a webapp will query Sierra monthly and build a local > database of targeted item record numbers and values, which will be served to > a site for use in making decisions about replacement. Other possible use > cases could be record quality control reports. > > Out of security concerns, we've purposefully excluded models for patron > tables but we haven’t ruled out adding these once we can ensure the security > of this data. > > We still have some short-term development planned, but we noticed that the > repo was getting some attention yesterday, and thought it would be a good > time to share. Some of our planned work includes: > > - Developing tests for the models and methods > - Adding more scopes and methods to abstract the tables (we have a goal of > making our testing application backend as friendly as possible to other tech > services staff, and so we’d like the code to be readable to anyone who is > familiar with both MARC cataloging and III system conventions) > - Modeling additional tables > > Please feel free to use, fork or contribute. We are very open to comments and > suggestions (especially from experienced Rails developers who may be able to > offer some perspective on our direction – we both started learning about > Rails at Code4Lib2013). > > And of course we welcome any questions. > > Thanks! > James > > James Van Mil > Collections & Electronic Resources Librarian > University of Cincinnati Libraries > Telephone: (513)556-1410 > [email protected]
