Hi all,
The MassLNC Development Committee met earlier this week to ascertain
what we need to move forward with some of our development projects this
year. With PINES' assistance, we are close to moving forward with two
development projects, but we still need a small amount of funds for each
project.
Alert development: This project has three components that give Evergreen
sites more control over their alerts: 1)The ability to designate copy
alerts as either checkin alerts or checkout alerts 2)The ability to add
temporary alerts to copies, primarily so that staff in one library can
add alerts to copies belonging to another library (e.g. "patron says
this DVD needs cleaning"), and 3)the ability for a library to suppress
some system alerts, such as the alerts that tell staff they have checked
in a lost, missing, long overdue, or claims returned item.
Our libraries believe this project is important because, although alerts
are sometimes necessary and relay critical information, many of our
libraries find that some alerts do not provide information they need to
know at certain points of the circ transaction. These alerts, therefore,
add unnecessary steps to the workflow. Although clicking through one
unnecessary alert may only add a couple of seconds to the workflow,
those seconds add up throughout the hundreds or thousands of circ
transactions that occur throughout the course of the day. Also, if we
remove the alerts that are unnecessary, staff are more likely to pay
closer attention to the alerts that provide important information.
MassLNC needs just $5,000 to proceed with this development project.
The Message Center project will provide a central area where patrons can
view library messages. An Evergreen site can configure which notices
will appear in the message center (e.g. overdues, cancelled holds,
pre-due notices). The center will also display any public notes added to
the patron record. These notes now display in the account summary area,
but can easily be missed if the patron isn't looking for them. Logged-in
users will get a visual cue, similar to those used in many other web
sites, that lets them know when they have a new message (see mock-ups at
http://masslnc.cwmars.org/node/2927).
Our libraries believe this project is important because users have come
to expect web sites to provide important information, not just through
e-mail, but also through the user account area of the web site. E-mail
communication for notices is not always reliable, and the message center
provides another means for communicating important information to the
patron. This project also takes a piece of information currently
available in the patron account area (public patron notes) and provides
a needed visual cue that lets patrons know the note is available.
MassLNC just needs $2,900 to proceed with this development project.
If your library is interested in either of these projects, but cannot
contribute the full amount required, please let me know. If we get
enough libraries that can only contribute a portion of the funds
required, those funds will quickly add up.
Please contact me directly if you have any questions on either of these
projects.
Thank you!
Kathy
Kathy Lussier
Project Coordinator
Massachusetts Library Network Cooperative
(508) 343-0128
kluss...@masslnc.org
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kmlussier
On 7/25/2014 5:32 PM, Kathy Lussier wrote:
Hi all,
I'm pleased to announce that Georgia PINES has joined MassLNC to help
to fund the Enhancements to Evergreen Alerts and Message Center
projects. Thank you Georgia PINES!
We have also received some interest from Evergreen sites on the
activity metric project.
MassLNC would really love to see all three of these projects
implemented in a future release of Evergreen. If anyone is interested
in the projects and can contribute some funds, even if it's only a
small amount of money, please feel free to contact me at
kluss...@masslnc.org with your questions.
What do you get out of being a partner on one of these development
projects? Putting funds to a development project is your opportunity
to make a contribution to the future direction of Evergreen. It's a
great feeling to see a new feature in Evergreen and to say to yourself
"I helped to make that new feature happen." Budgets are tight
everywhere, but by pooling our funds together, we can see some great
new functionality at a lower cost for each partner. The recent MVC/CRA
project (aka icon project) is a great example of a development
project where many small development contributions, combined with a
couple of contributions from some larger sites, resulted in some nice
improvements for the whole Evergreen community. Being a development
partner also ensures that you will be part of spec discussions and
testing, allowing you to watch out for the needs of your users while
the project is being shaped.
But, wait, there's more! If you participate in a MassLNC development
project, your organization will be added to the MassLNC Wall of Fame
where we acknowledge and thank all of the sites that have worked with
us on development projects over the years -
http://masslnc.cwmars.org/node/3067. The large number of libraries and
consortia listed there is a testament to the great community we have
and the fact that there are so many sites out there that want to
contribute what they can to help make Evergreen better for everyone.
But that's not all! For a limited time only, if your organization
decides to help fund one of these projects, you will receive a batch
of cookies made by MassLNC coordinator Kathy Lussier (that's me). The
cookies will be hand-delivered to you at the next Evergreen conference
(or, if we're both there, at the next Evergreen hack-a-way).
Please take some time to look over these projects and let me know if
you're interested.
Have a nice weekend everyone!
Kathy
Kathy Lussier
Project Coordinator
Massachusetts Library Network Cooperative
(508) 343-0128
kluss...@masslnc.org
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kmlussier
On 7/1/2014 2:45 PM, Kathy Lussier wrote:
Hi all,
Today marks the first day of the new fiscal year for MassLNC, and our
development committee has identified a few new enhancements we are
hoping to sponsor over the next year.
We have received proposals from Equinox for all three projects, but
MassLNC needs help to fund these projects. I am sending out this
e-mail to see if there are other Evergreen sites interested in
helping us fund any of these projects. For more details, you can
e-mail me directly at kluss...@masslnc.org.
Also, if you are already working on a similar project or just want to
provide some feedback for our proposed projects, please feel to share
your feedback on the list.
These three projects are listed on the new Proposed Development
Projects wiki page at:
http://wiki.evergreen-ils.org/doku.php?id=evergreen_features:proposed_development_projects
ACTIVITY METRIC FOR RELEVANCE RANKING
The goal of this project is for a title's activity (circulations,
number of holds, etc.) to affect the relevance of that title when
retrieving search results. Google and Amazon use popularity with much
success when ranking search results. I think Evergreen would see
similar success if it were to incorporate activity into its relevance
algorithm.
As an example, if a user were conducting a keyword search on "abraham
lincoln," there are many books, movies, etc. in most US libraries
where the words "abraham lincoln" show up in the title. There would
be no way to tease out the titles that are getting the most attention
by readers. In fact, a title like "Team of Rivals" ranks very low in
our search results even though there is a fairly high likelihood it
is the title the patron is seeking. By applying a metric based on
activity, we might be able to see those more-recently popular titles
floating higher in the search results list.
The current proposal is to make factors like circulation and hold
activity, record and item age, and item ownership counts available as
an activity metric. Each factor will embody a "popularity badge" that
a bib record can earn, and each badge will have a five-point scale,
where more points indicate a more popular record.
The average of the badge points earned by each record will constitute
a "popularity star rating". The number and types of badges will break
ties for average popularity.
A new sort axis of popularity will be created to sort first on the
cumulative popularity of each record, followed by the query-specific
relevance available today.
ENHANCEMENTS TO EVERGREEN ALERTS
I mentioned this project in the recent thread on problems with items
not checking in properly - http://markmail.org/message/rnm5s7wdxjgy3tym.
This project would give Evergreen sites more control over which
alerts appear during check-in and check-out. The project has three
components:
- Separate checkin and checkout copy alerts
- The ability to add temporary copy alerts from the checkin,
checkout, and item status screen
- A library setting that allows sites to determine if some system
alerts should appear at checkin and checkout.
MassLNC's full project requirements are available at
http://masslnc.cwmars.org/node/2764.
This project is not slated to begin until Fall 2014 after sprint 1 of
the web client project is complete.
MESSAGE CENTER FOR THE PUBLIC CATALOG
This project would create a message center that communicates
important messages to patrons. Public patron notes will display here,
and sites will have the ability to configure any action/trigger
notice to also deliver a notice to the message center.
MassLNC's full project requirements are available at
http://masslnc.cwmars.org/node/2927.
Feel free to let me know if you have any questions!
Kathy