Hi Michael – My responses in-line below… I’m no expert, but serial predictions are fun so I figured I’d give an explanation a try….
-Holly From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Michael Shaw Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2014 8:02 AM To: Evergreen Discussion Group Subject: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Serial entry into Evergreen 2.6 Assistance requested: Over the last several days, I have spent a fair amount of time not successfully entering several subscriptions. All of the ones I cannot get to work are of one or another type of irregular issuance; for example, published four times a year in February, May, August and November. Here’s how I would create a pattern for the above situation. In Alternate Serial Control, Captions and Patterns tab, ‘Add New’ then click on ‘Wizard…’. Use enumerations?: Check the box if you do have volume/issue/numbers for your serial. I’ll assume you do. Assuming regular volume/number, First level (v.), Add Enumeration, Second Level (no.)… left of the ‘Number’ field enter (4) and change ‘Increments continuously’ to ‘restarts at unit completion’ if the volume does change after a year, which it usually does. Check ‘Use calendar changes’ if the volume changes, and pick whatever month the new volume number shows up (maybe Feb in your case?). Check ‘Use chronology captions’… First level (Year) and ‘Add Chronology Caption’ for Second Level (Month)…. Or perhaps the second level in your case is Season. Select frequency: Quarterly. Check ‘Use specific regularity information…’ … This is the biggie! Choose PUBLISHED…MONTH…FEBRUARY, then click ‘Add More Regularity Information’ and repeat this line with the other three months. After clicking through to create the pattern, this is what you get: ["0","0","8","1","a","v.","b","no.","u","4","v","r","i","(year)","j","(month)","w","q","x","02","y","pm02","y","pm05","y","pm08","y","pm11"] Feel free to just paste this pattern code in to see if it works. I assumed you have Volume and Number for each issue, the volume changes with the February issue, you want both month and year to display in the label. Another no longer displays its publication cycle under its masthead AND the only enumeration caption it uses is an issue number. Not sure what this means…. Have tried multiple permutations of entry of patterns to no avail. When I try to generate predictions, the UI hangs at the progress meter. I have tried the cheat patterns, but it is difficult for me to discern which one applies in which case. So far, I haven't gotten a cheat pattern to work. After creating the pattern, are you remembering to first create a New Issuance before hitting the Generate Predictions button? After creating the new pattern you need to create a new issue for the pattern to work from. If you wanted to start creating predictions with the November issue of your serial, you want to make the New Issuance the August issue. The pattern will use this as a jumping off point and start creating issues AFTER the New Issuance created. In the previous system our organization used, it was not at all a challenge to manually enter receipt of periodical/serial issues. I found the Evergreen way of doing things challenging at first, but then I realized that the predictions are much more accurate! It’s picky because it’s doing it right. Now I am very happy to have FULL control over my patterns and predictions. Call me a nerd, but I find it to be fun now. ☺ Can we, in these cases, manually enter a subscription without generating predictions? If so, how? I sometimes break down and do this when a weird issue comes up. In the Issuances tab, double-click in the white area next to an issue label. As long as you edit all the info in the pop-up, including clicking on the Wizard button to update the volume/issue info, everything seems to work just fine. I know this isn’t the proper means of creating predictions, but it works in a pinch. You won’t be able to receive any issues that don’t have generated predictions, but you can edit the predicted issues however you need to. Thanks! -- Grace & peace, The Rev. Michael Shaw, MATS Research and Library Loan Specialist Florida Information Commons Prayer Chaplain Asbury Theological Seminary 407-482-7678 Look to the LORD and his strength; seek His face always. (Psalm 104:5 - NIV) And he (Jesus) told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. (Luke 18:1 - ESV)
