Locked Records in Millennium

Remember how you would sometimes see "Record is locked." in Geac PLUS? You may have thought the days of locked records were behind us, but they exist in every ILS, even Millennium. The phrase in Millennium, is the more gentle, "Record in use".

What do we do when we see this message?

1. Make note of the record number involved. You'll see it in the message that appears. Include the letter and the number (for example, i51493002).
2. Consider the possibilities: could someone else be legitimately using the number right now? If so, wait a while and try again. You can write down a transaction if the situation is time critical.
3. Contact Barb Jarvis (x159) or Pam Skittino (x157), and tell them the record number and problem.
4. They will release the record for you.

What does "Record in use" mean?

To preserve data integrity, an item, patron, bibliographic, or order record can only be changed by one user at a time. Records are changed for many reasons, such as when items are checked in, when a patron is checking out, a cataloger is making changes to an item record, or Millennium is recording a transaction. When a record is being changed by a staff member or patron and someone else tries to do something else to it, you'll see the message, "Record in use".

Occasionally, records get hung up in the system and must be released.

Improved Patron Searching

Thanks to Innovative and Pam Skittino, we have more ways to search for patrons with Millennium.

You can now search for a patron by phone number and address!

It is pretty easy to do and you can do it anywhere you search for a patron in the Millennium staff applications. Here's how you do it:

In Circulation Desk mode:

1. In the Scan or type patron barcode box, type the code letter of they type of search you will be doing. At a patron search screen, select the desired search index from the drop-down menu.
   n - name
   h - address
   j - phone number
2. Type the search terms immediately after the code. For example,
   nolsen, kat
   h34451
   j847-362-2330
3. Press the Enter key or click the Search button.

Notes:

• Remember that Millennium automatically truncates a search, so typing nolsen, kat will find all the patrons with a name field that begins with olsen, kat and ends with anything else. So this search would find Olsen, Katie; Olsen, Kathleen, or Olsen, Katherine.
• When searching for an address, Millennium is simply searching alphabetically for exactly what you type. So if an address is entered 413 N. Milwaukee Ave. and you search for 413 North Milwaukee Ave. you won't find the address, so you may have to try a few alternatives with address searching to find what you want.
• Always verify a patron's address to make sure you have the right person when you search by anything other than patron barcode number.

Word of the Week : MARC

WOW: MARC

Here’s a term that is neither new nor Millennium-specific! MARC is an acronym for “MAchine-Readable Cataloging” and is a term known by librarians around the world. It refers to the format of the data stored in most library catalogs including ours.

“Machine-readable” is a relatively old-fashioned term meaning “encoded in a form that can be interpreted by a computer’s hardware or software.”

Everything in our computer catalog – whether it’s a book, a DVD, or an art print bag – is represented by a computer record referred to as a “MARC record.” Your friendly catalogers in Technical Services use the precise, standardized MARC coding to create records so that an ILS (such as GEAC or Millennium) and its associated OPAC (such as GeoWeb, WebPac Pro, or Encore) can read and display information about library items consistently and quickly.

As you know, the title of an item appears many places in Millennium (such as in the patron record (checked out items), in the catalog, when checking in or renewing items in the Circulation mode, etc.). Because of the standardization, each part of the ILS that needs the title knows where to find it.

Speaking of titles, here’s a Millennium hint: To increase access in the catalog, titles are drawn from several MARC fields representing the title page, cover and spine (if different), alternate spellings (e.g. “2” and “two”), titles of songs, television programs. These various titles sometimes cause unusual search results in Millennium’s staff side. If you don’t find your title, expand the multi-entry selection at the top of the results list – it may be there!

The MARC records in our catalog originate in a variety of places. Some are delivered with newly purchased items, some are copied from a shared catalog (OCLC/WorldCat), and some are created here (“original cataloging”).

By using the MARC standard when creating records, library systems are built using a common, nonproprietary record format (making records transportable) and catalogers share records (saving cataloging time). “Hurrah!” say the catalogers, and the people awaiting new items say, “Amen!”

"Amen" to Barb Jarvis for telling us about 'MARC'.

Word of the Week: Status Bar

WOW : Status Bar

The Status Bar is an information area typically found at the bottom of a window. It is often divided into sections, each of which shows different information. In Millennium, the Status Bar is the last line of the window, and it contains supplementary information about the data displayed in the window. The Millennium Status Bar is divided into three zones.

Zone 1 (the left section of the Status Bar)
Contains information such as the record number of the displayed record, or whether a limit is applied to searches.

Zone 2 (the middle section of the Status Bar)
Contains informational messages about the displayed record such as Not checked out.

Zone 3 (the right section of the Status Bar)
Contains information such as the number of records attached to the displayed record or the number of titles and entries retrieved in a search. In some windows, Zone 3 specifies whether you are in edit or view-only mode.

If the content of a zone has multiple lines of text, or if a zone is not wide enough to display its entire contents, an arrow will appear at the right end of the zone. Click anywhere within the zone containing the arrow to display its entire contents.

Thank you to Lori Carnes for putting us in the right 'zone'.

Millie will be arriving Wednesday!

Don't faint! Millie has arrived early!

After a lengthy selection process (we started looking in July 2006), we signed the contract for Millennium in July 2007. So we were "pregnant" for about 8 months. Millie was expected February 14, but she's arriving early on Wednesday, February 13th! And with less than 2.5% errors so she has all her fingers and toes.

Various ILS committee members will be working hard today to prepare for tomorrow. Don't use Millennium until Wednesday, February 13. We'll be going live with the following applications:

• catalog
• Circulation
• ILL
• Research Pro

Make an extra effort to help patrons at the catalogs over the next few weeks. Many departments have plans already in place to have staff manning the catalog stations during busy times to help introduce patrons to the new catalog.

Each department will receive sheets for reporting problems that may crop up.

Put on the"Discover the power of Library Search" buttons and welcome our wonderful Millie!

Word of the Week - License

Licenses

Millennium is a lot like a fair. First, you pay an admission fee to get into the fair (your username), and then you buy tickets to ride the rides (your initials). Just like a ride at a fair, though, the rides on Millennium have a passenger limit, only a certain amount of people are allowed on the ride at one time. These limits are called licenses. Millennium is currently set up with 50 licenses, meaning that 50 Millennium applications can be open at any given time.

There are a lot of things to do in Millennium, so what uses a license and what doesn’t use one?

The following applications use a license:
- Circulation
- Serials
- Acquisitions
- Cataloging
- ILL
- Reports
- Administration
- Telnet
- Millennium Toolbar, when opened alone

The following programs do not use a license:
- Web Pac Pro (My Account and Advance Search)
- Encore
- CS Direct
- Express Checkout
- Millennium Toolbar, when opened inside a running application (like Circulation)

In order to help conserve license groups, Millennium has several features in place. One such feature is the time out- at the Circulation Desks, after 30 minutes of inactivity, the Millennium sessions time out, freeing up a license. On the Public Service Desks, the Millennium sessions time out after 15 minutes. There are also Contention groups in place. Contention groups limit the amount of licenses Usernames can have opened at one time. For example, TS has 13 licenses allotted to it, so if someone wants to open a 14th license in TS, they couldn’t. A Contention group does not, however, give priority to a Username; licenses are still used on a first come, first served basis. You can help conserve licenses, too, by logging out of Millennium whenever it is not in use.

Thank you to Heather Beverley for explaining this so well!

Goodbye Geac, Hello Migration!

8:45 am today (Monday, Feb. 11) marked the end of Geac. We are using the Millennium Migration System from Feb. 11 to 13 while Geac takes all our transaction data out of their system and we give it to Innovative to put into Millennium. Here are some things you should know:

• You cannot do any transactions on any Geac PLUS program or on Millennium. No Checkouts, Checkins, Holds, Cancelling Holds, NOTHING.
• The Millennium Migration System can only do checkouts. All materials returned over the next three days will be stored until we go live with Millennium.
• Checkout items at the Circulation Desk. They have the Migration system up and running and they know how to use it.
• You can search the Geac PLUS catalogs (CL-CAT or Geo Web). Just be aware that shelf status is unreliable.
• Items that are checked out ARE definitely unavailable.
• Items that are ON SHELF may or may not be on the shelf.
• You may or may not be able to use the new catalog, http://cmpl.cooklib.org/. Just be aware that the shelf status is unreliable.
• Items that are checked out may or may not be available.
• Items that are ON SHELF may or may not available.

If you have questions, ask! Our migration will take only 3 days and we have the promise of Millennium in sight!

Word of the Week: My Account!

Word of the Week: My Account is new and improved in Millennium!

As with our current system, My Account is a convenient way to check, well, your Account! Like we are already familiar with, in My Account patrons can see what items they have checked out and what they have on hold and ILL, but with Millennium, patrons can do so much more!

Patrons can:

-View all items checked out, and clearly see when they are due
-Easily renew items and receive clear messages regarding if the renew was successful
-See all ILL requests
-See all holds
-Freeze holds
-See where their place is in the hold queue
-Update their phone number and email information
-Choose to keep track of their Reading History
-Save a favorite search, and have updates to that search emailed to them
-Save favorite databases for customized research
-Coming Soon! The ability to pay fines online!

Want to test it out? Just click on this link: http://cmpl.cooklib.org/patroninfo , enter a training barcode number, the password “patron,” and have fun exploring!

Thank you to Heather Beverley for this weeks WOW!