Textbook and Inventory Enhancements

Although LibraryWorld.com wasn’t designed as a heavy hitting inventory control or textbook management system, many of our customers use the service for just those purposes.   The combination of ease of use, great circulation features and low cost makes the service attractive for tracking material well beyond traditional library holdings.

We’ve asked our customers how we could make these tasks easier and created a set of features to that end.  Most are minor improvements in the service’s display and reports, but two are worth highlighting. 

When adding holdings, it is often time consuming to save a holding and return back to the catalog page just to add another holding to the same record.  A new ‘Save and Add Another Copy’ button has been added in the holding page to allow you to quickly add multiple copies.  

A new command in the circulation module called ‘Location’ now allows you to change the location of one or more items quickly by scanning in their barcode numbers.   This is extremely handy if you want to move holdings from a Textbook storage area  room to individual classes without checking out to specific students.   By using both the change Location and Checkout features you can track textbooks or items in a two layered approach.  First moving a set to a classroom and then checking out to a particular student.  Of course this works just as well for moving and tracking equipment to different locations.  

If you have any questions on how to use LibraryWorld.com for textbook management or inventory control, please do not hesitate to call our sales office at 1-800-852-2777.   

The LibraryWorld Team

New Catalog Duplicate and Replace Features

When cataloging new records using the Z39.50 searching feature, the service will now check for duplicates when displaying the set of of found records.   Duplicate matching is done by ISBN values.

If you already have a catalog record that matches your search, then two additional commands are displayed: Edit Matched Record and Replace Matched Record.

You can do four actions at this point:

1. The matched record may not actually be something you are looking for so you can just ignore and move on.
2. You can edit your matched original record and simply add one or more holding records instead of adding a another catalog record.  Or, you may simply want to edit to view the record to see how complete it is.  After viewing the record you can click on  the 'Add a New Record' link to return to the 'Adding New Catalog Records page'.  There is a new link provided to redisplay the last search you performed. The matched record should be there.  You can decide now what is the best course of action.
3. You may decide that the original record was not up to your standards or was done with a brief record on purpose.  Use the Replace matched record link to replace your original record.   This will replace the ENTIRE original catalog record but will not touch the holding records or digital files attached to the record.   It will also provide a new control number value in field 001 and new date in field 005.   One warning.  Links to web pages are stored in 856 fields and they will be replaced along with other MARC fields.  
4. Lastly, you might decide, for various reasons, to add the matched catalog record again as a new record.  

We hope you enjoy the new duplicate checking and replacing features.   They should make it easier to catalog multiple copies of volumes and update MARC records that were briefly cataloged.

Sincerely,

The LibraryWorld Team

Changing the Ownership of a Library

There are occasions when you might want to transfer the ownership of a library to another user.  The owner of the library is responsible for paying the annual subscription service fee.   Sometimes larger organizations want one user to pay for all the libraries at once.   Transferring ownership to a single user makes this task much easier to manage.  There are other occasions when the original user who created the library would like to transfer the ownership to another user.  

A new feature in LibraryWorld allows this to be done quickly, easily and with full security.  To transfer ownership of a library from one user to another, access the library and click on the Settings link, then click on the Subscription link.  This will display the subscription information.  If you are the owner of the library, a link will display allowing you to transfer the ownership.   Next, click on the ‘Change Owner of the Library’ link to display a page that prompts for the new owners username.  Enter the new owner’s username and click on the Change Owner button.  A confirming page will appear displaying the new owner’s username, personal name and organization.  If this is correct, enter your own password to confirm the transfer and click on the ‘Confirm Change’ button.

If there are no errors the ownership of the library will be transferred and both you and the new owner will receive confirming emails.   

Once you transfer the ownership of the library, the library will not appear on your list of libraries.  If you continue to want access to the library, the new owner will need to setup permissions for your username and you will then have to join the library with the Join command on the My Home page. 

Only the user who owns the library subscription can transfer ownership to another user and that transfer must be confirmed with the correct password.   Emails are sent to each user and internal records are kept at LibraryWorld logging the change.

Using the Z39.50 Search Feature to Add Catalog Records

One way to add a new catalog record to your library is to search the Library of Congress z39.50 database of over 14 million records (or one of the other available z39.50 databases) and copy it into your collection.

Steps to search for a record:

1. On the Catalog page, click on the New Record link.
2. Select the database you want to search.
3. Enter an ISBN, or Title and Author last name and click the Search button.
   Note: If you have a bar code scanner, you may be able to scan in the ISBN bar code number usually found on the back cover of books.
4. If matching records are found, click on the divot to the left of each title to see the ISBN, author and publication information to make sure you select the correct record.
5. If you want to add a record to your collection, simply click on the title.
6. The record is added to your collection and displayed with other recently added records.
7. Click on the pencil icon to the right of the title to edit the record. You'll want to do this to add copies and other local holding information.
8. Click the Add a New Record link to return to the New Record page and continue adding records.

General Database Information

• The Library of Congress catalog does not include records for every book published – only those that they have added to their catalog.  Also, not all of their records contain an ISBN.  Sometimes you will get better results if you search by Title.

• Most books published before 1971 are not in the Library of Congress catalog.

• Many, if not most, of the books published by Scholastic are not included in the Library of Congress catalog.

• Many users have reported getting better results when searching the OhioLINK Central Catalog.  If you’re having trouble finding records in the Library of Congress catalog, try using the OhioLINK catalog for some searches to see if you get better results.

• Occasionally one of the databases may be unavailable (offline). This becomes evident when you do several searches and get no results.  When this happens, try searching one of the other databases for your titles and then you can try the original database again the next time you are adding records.

Searching Tips

• When searching by ISBN, do not include hyphens.
• You don’t have to enter the entire title or author when searching.
• If the title contains very common words, enter the title and the author’s last name.  This will speed up the search.
• Enter author names with last name then first name.  Punctuation is not necessary.
• It’s best not to search by author alone.  Searching by author and title will provide faster results.

How LibraryWorld Keeps Your Data Safe

One important question that we work hard at LibraryWorld to address is the security of your data. For a cloud-based automation company, security of our customers data is of paramount importance to us, and we have gone to extensive measures to ensure that things stay that way. Users who are accustomed to storing their data locally on software drives often wonder how we can ensure that their data stays safe off-site. When we discuss security with our staff, we speak about three main areas of focus: the physical security of the drives themselves, data security as it relates to how the data is backed up, and access security, which limits access to data to only authorized viewers.

Physical security

LibraryWorld servers are housed on the 14th floor of a regional federal government offices building, which includes a Tier III Data Center protected by on-site officers, mantraps, biometrics, CCTV, key card controls and a Pre-action fire suppression system. Data centers house an organization's most valuable and irreplaceable information, so obtaining a secured environment with robust connectivity to colocate customer data was paramount. This is why we chose to partner with CoreSite and house our servers at an Internet Exchange Point, known as MAE-West.

Data Security

Library data is stored on RAID 1 Mirrored Solid State Drives. Backups are performed each night with archival backups kept for 4 days and monthly backups kept for 6 months. Backup data is stored off-site for location redundancy. This means that even if an unexpected event were to restrict our access to the main servers, your data would still be backed up and safe at an offsite location.

We believe our security provides as good or better privacy than most locally stored systems. In some ways, by the mere fact that the data is physically removed from local hands, there is a built-in level of security over locally stored, and locally tempted unauthorized access. This is an inherent benefit to cloud computing.

Access Security

Each library has a separate database where all records are stored. Records are not shared between library databases which might allow a user to access patron data in a library other than their own. You have to have a username and password that has rights to a specific library database to see the patrons and collection information for that library. Since the data is hosted in separated databases, even buggy code would find it extraordinarily hard to accidentally access patron information the user doesn't have read access to.

One final question that is often asked is whether or not LibraryWorld will restrict access to catalog and patron records if a membership is terminated.  There are no removal fees, no hidden loop holes--we keep your data safe as long as you are member of LibraryWorld and immediately release it back to you when you discontinue service. You can always export your catalog and patron records in standard formats. If your subscription times out and you do not want to renew, we will reactivate the subscription for a short time so you can export your data. We will allow access to catalog and patron information for up to one year after your subscription ends.

We are always open to feedback and questions, especially around the safety of your data. If you have any questions regarding the content discussed in this e-mail, please address your question to custserv@libraryworld.com

New LibraryWorld Report Shows Average Age of Catalog

A new report is now available which shows users the average age of their collection. This report is a useful tool for libraries looking to keep their print material up-to-date respective to their individual collections. The report may be run on the entire catalog, or a find set can be defined to view the average age of a specific subject or catalog type. When run, results will display the total catalog records reported on, how many records contained a year in their publication field, and the average age of the collection.

To access the report, log in to your LibraryWorld account and access your library's page. Click Reports->Average Age of Collection Report (located in 'Other Reports').




Location of Avg. Age of Collection Report


If you would like run the report for a specifc find set, be sure to define that find set by executing a search on your main page before navigating to the Reports page. NOTE: this is a batch report which touches every catalog record. Please be patient as this type of report takes longer to run than most reports.

The LibraryWorld Reports Application: Tips & FAQ's

The LibraryWorld Reports application provides valuable information on the status of your library's circulation records, patron records, and a host of other information. There are over two dozen reports available to users, so getting to know the ins and outs of our comprehensive reporting structure takes time and a bit of finesse. While we are constantly striving to increase the plasticity of these reports, understanding common challenges and basic navigation pathways can increase your efficiency and the accuracy of your reporting. LibraryWorld's Director of Customer Service, Susan Angley, knows these reports in and out and has contributed the following Tips and Frequently Asked Questions for your reference.

TIP:  Have you tried running the Library Status Report?
 

This is a great report that gives you a snapshot of your library. It provides separate counts of catalog vs. holding records, a collection valuation amount based on the prices in your holding records and counts of holding records by status(IN, OUT, etc). If you are using the Location and Collection fields in the holding records you will also see counts of holdings by location and collection. The report also includes a count of patron records by patron type. Lots of good information on one page!

 Top 2 Frequently Asked Questions

How do I designate which records I want to include on a report? 

If you don’t want to include all of the catalog or patron records on a report you must create a “find set” first.  A find set is simply the set of records that are the result of your last search.  You must create the find set before you go to the Reports page and select the report.  After the selecting the report you want, the next page will offer 3 options:

 All Records  means include all of the records on the report.

Find Set Only  means include only those records for which I searched on the Catalog or Patrons page.

None – Return to Reports Page  means don’t run the report.  Return to the previous page.

How do I manipulate a report outside of LibraryWorld? 

You can easily manipulate a completed LibraryWorld report by doing a copy/paste into a spreadsheet program like MS Excel.  Here are the step-by-step instructions:

 1.  After the entire report is displayed to the screen, copy the ENTIRE contents of the page – including the title of the report.  If you don’t include the title when copying, it will not paste correctly.

2.  Paste the contents of the report into an empty spreadsheet.  As long as you included the title of the report when copying, the data will go into separate columns as expected.

3.  Now you can manipulate the data any way you want.