Hi all,
I just wanted to announce that we have three new development partners
for these two projects. Hagerstown-Jefferson Township Library (Indiana),
Union County Public Library (Indiana) , and the Consortium of Ohio
Libraries (COOL) have joined Georgia PINES to help MassLNC fund one or
both of these projects: more control over Evergreen alerts and a message
center in the catalog.
We're still a little short on our goal for both of these projects. If
there are any other Evergreen sites that are interested in co-sponsoring
these projects, let me know. Our development committee is meeting this
week to decide whether to move forward on one or both of these projects.
Thank you!
Kathy
Kathy Lussier
Project Coordinator
Massachusetts Library Network Cooperative
(508) 343-0128
[email protected]
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kmlussier
#evergreen IRC: kmlussier
On 8/15/2014 10:06 AM, Kathy Lussier 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
[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] 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
[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].
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
