[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Life lessons

[George Tuttle]

When Evergreen was developed in 2006, time was of the essence and staff in
the various Georgia PINES libraries were not always clear on how features
should work. I know because I was part of the original testing of Evergreen.
Testing was done on a piecemeal basis and many features didn't get fully
tested. Time was the problem. Because of the lack of time and the lack of
testing, there were definitely some surprises when Evergreen went live. I
remember when we first realized that canceled hold shelf items were going to
"Available" without being transited back to their owning library. Another
example, how it is possible for an item to go from "In Transit" to
"Available" without it reaching its destination.

 

This second problem occurred because we asked for it. We knew we needed the
ability to abort an item in  transit. What we failed to mention to
developers was the circumstances when an item could or could not be aborted.
We wanted the feature to work the same way it worked in Sirsi Unicorn,
Dynix, and the popular ILSs of that time, but saying that isn't the same as
providing a detailed flowchart on how a feature should function. 

 

In Dynix, you can't convert an item from "In Transit" to "Available" without
checking it in at its destination.  Also in Dynix, the main instance where
an "In Transit" item is aborted is in Check Out and that is the only
instance available to frontline staff. Dynix also allows for an operations
manager to conversion old "In Transit" items to "Missing" or some sort of
pre-delete status.

 

Now, I not writing this e-mail to sing the praises of Dynix. With any ILS,
there are certain features you like and certain features you don't like.  In
Georgia, there is a saying: "Evergreen isn't the software we wanted. It's
the software we asked for."  I am not saying this to be critical of
Evergreen, I am just saying when you ask for something that it is smart to
include a flowchart. Don't assume the developers can read your mind.

 

Life lesson: When asking for something, it is smart to include a flowchart.
Just saying.

 

George Tuttle

Computer Services Librarian

Piedmont Regional Library System

770-867-2762 x113

770-891-0654 (cell)

770-867-7483 (fax)

 <mailto:gtuttle at prlib.org> gtuttle at prlib.org

 

littleone

 

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