[OPEN-ILS-DEV] Opening Spine labels again...

[Hardy, Elaine]

Jason can certainly correct me if I am wrong, but one of the reasons the functionality is so basic for spine and pocket labels is that they just ran out of time. We had many discussions about creating the ability to easily print spine labels to any printer using most any label stock. But, the timeline along with the complexity around everything we wanted necessitated falling back on just being able to print on the standard Okidatas that we knew every PINES library had for spine and pocket label printing. We knew the pain of not being able to directly print spine labels at all since it took some time to develop the interface in our previous ILS when PINES first started. 

One thing that we really like about printing spine labels in Evergreen is that changing the call number to format the label does not change the call number on the item record. Some libraries are still cleaning up call number indexing problems because of the spaces they had to insert to get the call number to wrap on the label in our old system. And printing one label at a time to the Okidata machines functions fairly well. 

What we would like is (taken from the draft of our cataloging module requirements doc) : 



Ability to create, format, and print spine labels and pocket labels, including: creating labels based on item call number by default; modify labels without altering item call number; print spine and pocket labels individually or queue to print in batch; labels have at least 6 lines of 16 characters per line at Arial 10 bold. Ability to change font style, boldness, and font size as needed; change text alignment to center vertically and/or horizontally; change text orientation to horizontal or vertical on a line-by-line basis. Ability to print multiple copies of individual labels. Automatic production of labels into a variety of template configurations corresponding to available labeling stock from major library supply vendors. Ability to batch and print on 8.5” x 11” sheets of labels; ability to print from all types of printers. Ability to create, save, modify, and use label templates. 


For pocket labels -- Ability to create pocket labels from user specified item and bibliographic fields (e.g. call number, author, title, etc.) and add library information (name, branch, etc.) as template or direct adding . 






Elaine 


J. Elaine Hardy 
PINES Bibliographic Projects & Metadata Manager 
Georgia Public Library Service 
1800 Century Place, Ste 150 
Atlanta, Ga. 30345-4304 

404.235-7128 
404.235-7201, fax 
ehardy at georgialibraries.org 
www.georgialibraries.org 
www.georgialibraries.org/pines 




From: "Grant Johnson" <fgjohnson at upei.ca> 
To: open-ils-dev at list.georgialibraries.org 
Sent: Friday, June 25, 2010 10:39:36 AM 
Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-DEV] Opening Spine labels again... 

The comments from Jason and Elaine are right on the money. 

Basically we need the ability to "wrap" the cutters in specific spots. 
The problem arises with the "exceptions" and lack of standards because 
of Legacy labeling techniques. 

We tried to work it out with 1.2 using nested reg_ex conditionals but 
it got REALLY messy. 

Perhaps some catalogers could chime in but ... 

What I envision is the ability to select a "template" easily (created 
based on local needs) correctly "most of the time". 
The generated string with CR/LF would auto open into a text editor as 
Jason indicated he's done to be modified if required before printing to 
the label printer. 

Glad that there is some renewed interest in this... I think we may have 
some cycles to provide. Right Alexander? :-) 





F. Grant Johnson 
Systems Coordinator 
309 Robertson Library 
University of Prince Edward Island 
902-566-0630(w), 902-393-4920(c) 




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