Your best bet, IMHO, would be to write an app that pulls the info, formats it
and sends it to the printer. The Datacard software would not likely be a good
candidate for modification.
You might want to contact Datacard, but I don't think that you will get very
far. They make and sell printers. The software you have is a sideline and not
very well supported.
The other option would be to contact ExLibris and see what they can do for you.
Some of the other Alma libraries my have solved this.
Of course, if they haven't, and you create an open-source app to connect
printer and ILS, you will win the good karma award.
Cary
On Sep 29, 2014, at 12:58 PM, Fitchett, Deborah
<deborah.fitch...@lincoln.ac.nz> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Apologies, have got distracted from mailing lists and missed these replies
> last week...
>
> The existing app is called Datacard and I know very little about it -
> installed before my time by another department, etc. But basically it prints
> our library cards, so it needs the appropriate user data (name, barcode,
> other ID details). Previously it pulled these from PeopleSoft over ODBC, but
> with our migration things are different and decisions were made so now for a
> class of users the data is only available in Alma.
>
> A nightly extract of data to a Koha (or other) install wouldn't work because
> we're needing the data at the point of sign-up to the library so the card can
> be printed.
>
> It sounds very much like it comes down to seeing if there's an upgrade to
> Datacard we can write a business case for and in the meantime continue to
> type or copy/paste the data by hand at point of need. Not the ideal situation
> but at least it's a relatively small class of users affected.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Deborah
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Cary
> Gordon
> Sent: Wednesday, 24 September 2014 3:59 a.m.
> To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] REST vs ODBC
>
> Could you reveal anything about what the existing application (EA) is and
> what it does?
>
> We don't know what the EA was connected to, so there can't know if Koha would
> work as middleware. It might be simpler to write your own middleware in
> Symfony (I have grown fond of Guzzle), or some other framework and just pull
> the data into a database that has the same structure as your old system.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Cary
>
> On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 3:01 PM, Fitchett, Deborah <
> deborah.fitch...@lincoln.ac.nz> wrote:
>
>> Morning, all,
>>
>> We have a small dilemma:
>>
>>
>> 1. Our brand new Alma system provides access to a bunch of data via
>> RESTful API. It’s on The Cloud so we’re not going to be getting direct
>> access to the database anytime soon.
>>
>>
>> 2. We have an existing application that would be more efficient if
>> it could get that data, but which only uses ODBC. (I’m told other
>> available drivers are:
>> - Microsoft Jet 4.0 OLE
>> - Microsoft Office
>> - Microsoft OLE DB Provider
>> - Microsoft Datashape
>> - OLE DB Provider
>> - SQL Server Native Client 10.0)
>>
>> Does anyone know if there’s any middleware out there that could make
>> these two things talk to each other, or do we give this up as a “Would
>> have been nice, but <shrug>”?
>>
>> Nāku noa, nā
>>
>> Deborah Fitchett
>> Senior Advisor, Digital Access
>> Library, Teaching and Learning
>>
>> p +64 3 423 0358
>> e
>> deborah.fitch...@lincoln.ac.nz<mailto:deborah.fitch...@lincoln.ac.nz>
>> | w library.lincoln.ac.nz<http://library.lincoln.ac.nz/>
>>
>> Lincoln University, Te Whare Wānaka o Aoraki New Zealand's specialist
>> land-based university
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
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>
>
>
> --
> Cary Gordon
> The Cherry Hill Company
> http://chillco.com
