Kathy,
When do you need the money for this?
On Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 10:06 AM, Kathy Lussier <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
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 <tel:%28508%29%20343-0128>
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
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 [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> 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 <tel:%28508%29%20343-0128>
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
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
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>.
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
--
Ruth Frasur
Director of the Historic(ally Awesome) Hagerstown - Jefferson Township
Library
10 W. College Street in Hagerstown, Indiana (47346)
p (765) 489-5632; f (765) 489-5808
Our Kickin' Website<http://hagerstownlibrary.org> Our Rockin' Facebook
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