monkey5s

So there is still a great deal that isn't working with the new ILS. We are managing to break more things, even as we work to get the errors fixed. I am still unable to catalog the ILL materials, because Evergreen hasn't changed my permissions to allow it. But the assistant director has been slamming her way through the 2-week backlog of ILL arrivals, and I spent time today placing the items on hold for our patrons.

It turns out it is not easy to place holds. There are two main ways to work it, when you have the patron's account number and the item to be held for them right there in front of you. The faster one requires pressing a function button, waiting for it to load, then clicking in a window and scrolling to the last item on the list, clicking again, then either zapping the item barcode or keying the number in. Then you wait, again, and when the item details finish loading, you have a button to click to place hold. That takes you to a screen to key in the patron number, and press enter. When the system loads the patron, there is no confirmation of the patron number, which... since I have problems with numbers, I found I had to open a second tab and key in the patron number there, so I could confirm the name of the requester. Then you scroll down to the bottom of the screen to the PLACE HOLD button, and click it. And then the system has to check to see if it CAN place the hold. If it can, it prompts you that it did so- and the screen reverts to the original search.

That's the fast way. The slow way, going in from the patron side? Takes about twice as long and more typing and clicking.

The system we left behind? Clickable PLACE HOLD buttons on both levels of the item entry, if it's in the OPAC for the public to see. For ILL (invisible to the public), you had to either key in the patron number or their name, click one button and zap or key in the item, click OK to confirm the item was to be held, then hit SAVE. We honestly had no idea we would miss this feature in the old system.

The bigger problem, though? About half of the items we tried to place on hold today could not be held. Turns out, if you have overdues, you cannot place holds. Oh, the block, when you went to the OTHER screen and keyed in the patron's number and waited for it to retrieve the patron, noted that it was "maximum overdues exceeded". But, a day overdue on three NON-FINE-GATHERING items triggered a block on one card. The Evergreen party line is that this is non-negotiable, and HOW DARE YOU question this feature, but supposedly there is a workaround being set up.

Another recurring error? We don't charge fines on books or magazines. And our ILL system is set up so that items go out on the borrowing library's policy, not the lending one's. So, the ILL books should not ever have a fine. Guess what? All the ILL books are actively gathering ten-cent-per-day fines. Which also blocks a person's card with "owes bills".

And, the thing we seem to have "broken" today, is the loan length on ILL books. Instead of 4 weeks, one book that someone called to renew by phone tonight only gave her 2 weeks. The original loan length on the book was 4 weeks. Worse, someone came in to pick up his just-arrived book (i.e.: just-added-to-the-system-so-he-can-check-it-out book), and he only got ONE WEEK on the loan period. That's what we use for videos. I checked the cataloguing that the AD had done, and I could see no error in item type or loan period. So, yeah. I hope we can stop generating new problems before we get the old ones fixed.

The open source ILS is very robust, you can do all sorts of fancy things with it. But, there are NO EASY WAYS to do the basic tasks that constitute 90% of your time in the system. Tired. We are all very tired.