[Evergreen-general] Novelist and record harvesting - API vs. holdings uploads

[Kathy Lussier]

Hi!

I don't have answers to Dan's questions, but to add on to what Lindsay was
saying, from the perspective of making Evergreen appealing to new libraries
considering a system switch, I think it would be a worthwhile investment
for the community to do whatever work is needed to remove notes like these
from vendor web sites. There are so many benefits to using Evergreen, but
this note could stop a library from even investigating Evergreen as an ILS.

Cheers!
Kathy
--
Kathy Lussier
https://kmlussier.com
26 days away from having an official reason to weigh in on Evergreen issues

On Wed, Jun 7, 2023 at 8:51 AM Lindsay Stratton via Evergreen-general <
evergreen-general at list.evergreen-ils.org> wrote:

> I think we should be looking very seriously at Evergreen's APIs and
> improving the documentation, functionality, performance, etc. More vendors
> and services are moving to APIs, not just for holdings, but user and
> transaction data as well. Speaking personally, I run holdings uploads for
> Novelist and Syndetics (which also now offers API uploads but not for
> Evergreen) and would love to shift them over to an API method. We also use
> a discovery layer where user data conections needs some improvement. And we
> have libraries interested in analytics platforms that would also benefit
> hugely from API connections.
>
> Lindsay
>
> *Lindsay Stratton*
> *Systems Librarian*
> Westchester Library System
> 570 Taxter Rd., 4th Floor
> Elmsford, NY 10523
> lstratton at wlsmail.org
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 6, 2023 at 6:15 PM Dan Moore via Evergreen-general <
> evergreen-general at list.evergreen-ils.org> wrote:
>
>> Heyo all,
>>
>>
>>
>> Our collections group is looking to tweak our Novelist implementation to
>> make use of On The Shelf functionality, info here:
>> https://connect.ebsco.com/s/article/Setting-up-On-The-Shelf?language=en_US
>>
>>
>>
>> There’s a curious (if not perhaps a little rude) note at the bottom of
>> the page that states: “There is an Evergreen API that supports automatic
>> harvesting of your collection. However, we were unable to obtain a complete
>> harvest for any customers during the testing of this functionality, as
>> Evergreen’s Web Services API was not built for such a wide-scale
>> application. We discourage Evergreen customers from utilizing this feature
>> for collection harvesting.”
>>
>>
>>
>> Additionally, on their KB page for the feature (
>> https://eis1.my.site.com/ebsco/s/article/ILS-Export-for-NoveList-Products-and-Features?language=en_US),
>> we can see some handy older screenshots of what I presume to be the old
>> non-browser client. Combining that with the statement above about “during
>> the testing of this functionality,” I’m presuming this was tested with
>> EBSCO/Novelist at some point but that there hasn’t been an update to it
>> since the browser client rolled out.
>>
>>
>>
>> There’s a slew of questions about this in my mind… the first being if
>> what’s written here is accurate about the Evergreen API method of
>> harvesting collection information not being robust enough (which generates
>> an immediate follow up – what would make it robust enough?). But I’m also
>> curious about the collective wisdom of the community about these
>> strategies. We’re moving toward a Lean-based purchasing model wherein
>> selectors will have a daily cap of titles to order so as not to create a
>> wave for shipping/receiving folks to drudge through later. Real-time
>> availability of holdings information would be a huge boon in supporting
>> both Lean purchasing strategies AND maximizing Novelists’ effectiveness for
>> reader’s advisory. However, if uploading holdings records is just the best
>> way of doing it due to the performance of the API as-is or the time/money
>> needed to extend it, then we’ll go that route instead – whatever delivers
>> the best, most accurate information to patrons.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>>
>>
>> All the best,
>>
>>
>>
>> Dan Moore
>>
>> Integrated Library System Administrator
>>
>> King County Library System
>>
>> Service Center, Issaquah
>>
>> (425) 369-3413
>>
>> dtmoore at kcls.org
>>
>> <https://kcls.org/>
>>
>>
>>
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