[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] mobile OPAC functionality in 2.0
Lisa Hill
lhill at kcls.org
Fri Jan 21 14:50:22 EST 2011
Hi All-
I feel like I am coming really late to the party.
My name is Lisa Hill and I am in charge of the KCLS catalog. I oversee the OPAC the mobile Pac and the UI of Self Checkout- self check out overall falls under our Circ Supervisor.
I apologize for not chiming in sooner- I am sure all of you know that when you migrate there are not enough hours in the day to get your work done for that first year after you go live.
My department alone has answered about 7,000 emails so far from patrons and staff alike since the OPAC went live on 09/24/10. That does not include any telephone help or the fantastic service the folks in the branches have given to our patrons.
Matt and I will send out a more detailed email about where we think the OPAC might be going- but I wanted to give you my input regarding our OPAC and Mobile Catalog in its current form- you know straight from the horse’s mouth…
Mobile PAC
This has been one of the most gratifying parts of the project.
When we were testing Evergreen in the early summer and spring we noted that it was slower than our previous system(Innovative).
It was then that we decided to devote serious time into the Mobile Catalog. The folks at Sitka did the programing piece(abandoning unAPI and rewriting the whole thing using the jquery library and not the dojo library that the full OPAC uses) Also, with our old Mobile catalog on III patrons were able to access their account. As you all know that was not a possibility with the Evergreen Mobile. It was important to my department to take away very few features from our public. We knew that it would happen given our aggressive timeline- but I worked really hard to lessen the burden on the public.
Through the hard work of Steven and Ben at Sitka the mobile not only ensured that our patrons did not lose functionality but they also gained it- our patrons could now suspend and activate holds through the mobile catalog, which they could not do before. KCLS did the UI and have worked hard to develop new skins in conjunction with our front end vendor FGI. I have attached the new skins for the mobile. On Tuesday we began promoting the mobile catalog as an alternative to the full OPAC- many of our DSL patrons can not log into the full OPAC- and the hits have gone up 200% since Tuesday. Folks really like how fast it is.
OPAC
Everyone’s experience is going to be different- the great thing about being a librarian is that your job is different depending on the community you serve. So please test your catalog with your own users- but I truly hope that our hard work helps you in some way.
We turned off faceting- initially because it was affecting speed but also because we did not collapse the filters properly (catalogers please don’t hate me- but most of our patrons don’t understand what a corporate author is). We cannot wait to bring it back since so many of our patrons liked it in our usability studies. However, since patrons did not have this in III we have not made this a priority because there are still features they had in the old catalog that they still do not have in Evergreen.
Things that we turned on that got the biggest bang for our buck- the remember me feature and the checkout history. I am not sure if your patrons would like these features as much as ours did- we had both these features with III since we went live with this in 2004. That being said- every web site has this feature- from Amazon to Bank of America- so our users expect these services- and when we brought them back on 11/19 we received less “fan mail.”
The biggest complaints currently center around speed and search results- we are working on improving these(more on that later). The third largest complaint is that our ecommerce module is not up yet. We were the second library west of the Mississippi to bring up ecommerce in 2005- and they miss it. Our staff miss it- ecommerce was handling about 26% of our total fines and fees a month. While the existing module is not perfect I have been working really hard to ensure the error messages it gives to patrons are understandable and that it does not place erroneous charges on cards.
I hope this email helps- I truly believe in the Evergreen community- I enjoy working with ESI and FGI- and I know that choosing open source was a good choice… I just wish someone could invent more hours in the day…
Please feel free to email me if you have any OPAC specific questions- lhill at kcls.org<mailto:lhill at kcls.org> and I will try to get back to you.
I am working on moving our templates to a public repository- and when that happens I will send something out to the list.
Thanks
Lisa
From: open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org [mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Lori Bowen Ayre
Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2011 11:41 AM
To: Evergreen Discussion Group
Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] mobile OPAC functionality in 2.0
Thanks for the feedback, Kathy. I'll work on getting more info on the issues that KCLS has run into so that people have a better idea of where the problem spots were for them and when it was an Evergreen issue, skin issue, or something else.
Lori
On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 11:03 AM, Kathy Lussier <klussier at masslnc.org<mailto:klussier at masslnc.org>> wrote:
Hi Lori,
I think it would be useful to see the KCLS skin in a public repository, but
it would also be helpful to know where the trouble spots have been with the
skin and with the new functionality. For example, we noticed that faceting
was turned off soon after KCLS went live. Is it a problem with the way
faceting works with the KCLS skin or is it a general problem with faceting
that will continue to appear when sites start using the default skin in 2.0?
It would help us understand which pieces of the KCLS OPAC we may want to
adapt for our own use and which pieces we may want to avoid.
Kathy
-------------------------------------------------------------
Kathy Lussier
Project Coordinator
Massachusetts Library Network Cooperative
(508) 756-0172
(508) 755-3721 (fax)
klussier at masslnc.org<mailto:klussier at masslnc.org>
IM: kmlussier (AOL & Yahoo)
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kmlussier
> -----Original Message-----
> From: open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org<mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org>
> [mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org<mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org>]
> On Behalf Of Lori Bowen Ayre
> Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2011 10:42 AM
> To: Evergreen Discussion Group
> Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] mobile OPAC functionality in 2.0
>
> Thanks, Dan. To be honest, I'm not clear what is involved in
> the "skin" or the "skinning" process and it appears my guess
> was wrong. At any rate, I'm happy to pursue publication of
> the skin that was developed if people think that would be
> useful as is.
>
> I'll let you know what I find out.
>
> Lori
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 1:35 AM, Dan Scott <dan at coffeecode.net<mailto:dan at coffeecode.net>> wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 04:03:23PM -0800, Lori Bowen Ayre wrote:
> > Hi Tara,
> >
>
> <snip>
>
>
> > So. After many attempts at fixes and tweaks, the
> KCLS and Equinox folks are
> > looking are completely rewriting the Evergreen OPAC.
>
>
> Note that it's not just the KCLS and Equinox folks,
> although they might
> have a contractual relationship. As a project we
> probably should have
> started this effort some time ago - we kicked the idea
> around a number
> of times - however, there were many other fish to fry
> and not many
> friers, and the current OPAC works well enough for most
> of us (even with
> the performance concerns) that it didn't became a high
> enough priority
> (outside of experimental efforts like the plain-HTML
> social interface).
>
>
> > This is ultimately
> > really good news because all that great new
> functionality will then be part
> > of Evergreen (no "skinning" required).
>
>
> Well, "skinning" will always be required, unless
> libraries want to live
> with the default Evergreen logo and text and colours
> and layout...
> Unless by "skinning" you mean something like "stripping
> all of the
> site-specific information from the surface of an
> interface", which is
> the opposite of what the term normally means but
> actually might be
> appropriate in the KCLS case.
>
> I'd still like to see the KCLS skin get published in a
> repository
> somewhere, as (unless the skin itself is exacerbating
> the performance
> problems at KCLS) the design elements that many oohed
> and aahed over
> so many months ago could still be a nice contribution
> to the project.
>
>
> > The bad news is that might take a while.
>
>
> If we tackle it as a high priority, rapid iteration
> effort, then we
> should be able to knock out large blocks of
> functionality relatively
> quickly. If pages and pages of formal specs need to be
> written first,
> signed off on, etc, before any code gets written, then
> that will take a lot longer.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
>
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> Lori Bowen Ayre // Library Technology Consultant The Galecia
> Group // www.galecia.com<http://www.galecia.com> <http://www.galecia.com/>
> (707) 763-6869 // Lori.Ayre at galecia.com<mailto:Lori.Ayre at galecia.com>
>
> <mailto:Lori.Ayre at galecia.com<mailto:Lori.Ayre at galecia.com>> Specializing in open source
> ILS solutions, RFID, filtering, workflow optimization, and
> materials handling
>
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>
>
--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Lori Bowen Ayre // Library Technology Consultant
The Galecia Group // www.galecia.com<http://www.galecia.com/>
(707) 763-6869 // Lori.Ayre at galecia.com<mailto:Lori.Ayre at galecia.com>
Specializing in open source ILS solutions, RFID, filtering,
workflow optimization, and materials handling
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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