Word of the Week

WOW: Serials

Yes, the word might make you think of Corn Flakes or Lucky Charms, but the serials we get here at Cook Memorial Public Library District aren’t that crunchy (though some are that sweet).

Simply defined, “serials” is a general term describing repeating publications such as magazines, newspapers, and journals. Other familiar terms used to refer to them are “periodicals” or “continuing resources.” Annual travel books such as Fodor’s are examples of serials, too.

Our new Millennium ILS has a very powerful Serials application and some slick ways of handling the many new issues we receive on a daily basis. Since we don’t subscribe to the Journal of Cereal Science, maybe it’s easier to think about the weekly People magazine. The Millennium Serials application is used to add the new issues about Brad & Angie, Britney, etc. to the catalog when they arrive each week. It also lets us know if an issue is late or a copy is missing, and it reminds us when our People subscription is about to expire.

A cataloger creates a single catalog record (using that MARC coding we talked about last week) to handle all of the People magazines that the library might get. Each copy of each issue is a Millennium item associated with that record. If we get five copies of People magazine this week, we add five items to the catalog. The cataloger is involved in a major way only when a subscription is new; the Periodicals department does the work each time we receive an issue.

Hopefully, Millennium will make it easier to handle the workload of dealing with our many serials. After things get settled down, you might want to see if Virginia has time to give you a quick tour of Millennium’s “Serials in action” – snap, crackle, pop!

Thanks to Barb Jarvis for starting our day out right while explaining 'serials' to us.

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'.

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!

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!

Word of the Week

Applications

As we’ve already used Applications in some earlier Word of the Week definitions, it’s time we defined this term. Applications are computer programs or software designed for a specific use. In Millennium, each application is a piece of software that forms part of the overall system. The Millennium system is comprised of eleven applications, as follows:

Circulation – Performs Circulation-related functions such as check out, check in, placing holds, creating and updating patron records.

Serials – Maintains serials, including periodicals, journals, newspapers, government documents, monographic series.

Acquisitions – Manages orders, processes invoices, maintains accounting and vendor information.

Cataloging – Creates, updates, and deletes bibliographic, item, authority, and other records in the Catalog database.

ILL – Requests, receives, and maintains Inter-Library Loans.

Web OPAC – Provides the online catalog used to access materials in the collection and in online databases through Advanced Search options, as well as access to “My Account” for patrons managing their accounts. It is the face behind Encore’s mask.

Reports – Provides graphical management reports analyzing transaction-based information from the system.

Administration – Offers centralized access to Millennium programs used for system administration, reports, and statistics.

Telnet – Allows access to the text-based programs (mostly for administrative functions) on the Millennium server.

User Manual – Provides information on and instructions for all aspects of Millennium.

CS Direct – Acts as the customer service site for Millennium, providing news, manuals, and answers to frequently asked questions.

The eleven Millennium applications are accessed from the Millennium Control Bar, which allows staff – depending on the username entered – to move from application to application. When you are in any Millennium application, the name of the application is displayed at the top of the screen in the Title Bar.

Thank you to Lori Carnes for this weeks WOW!

Word of the Week

Toolbar

In Millennium, the Toolbar is located on the upper right hand of your screen. It displays various icons that represent different actions you can perform in the current mode or record that you are in. For example, if you were in Circulation Desk Mode, you would have icons showing for New, View, Edit, Browse, Print, and Close. These icons mean that you could create a new record (New), view more details of the current record (View), edit the current record (Edit), browse other records (Browse), print the current record (Print), or close the current record (Close). If you were to switch to a different mode or record, different icons would appear. Sometimes, icons will appear on your toolbar grayed out. This means that you cannot currently perform the action the icon represents.

Word of the Week

Mode

A Mode is a specific state that allows us to perform certain functions. In Millennium, each application (Circulation, Cataloging, Acquisitions, etc.) offers its own selection of modes providing these functions. For instance, in the Circulation application, the available modes include Circulation Desk, Check-In (No Patron), Renew (No Patron), Fines Paid, Search Holds by Title, Notices, and more. Some of the modes will allow several functions; in Circulation Desk Mode, for example, staff can check out, renew, place holds, and pay fines for a patron account. In other modes, the functions are more limited; Check-In (No Patron) Mode only permits a check-in function, and Fines Paid Mode only allows viewing of fines paid within a specified period.

Other Millennium applications have different modes. In Cataloging, for example, some of the modes include Catalog, Global Update, Delete Items, Create Lists, etc. Each of these modes has its own functions. The type of record accessed is also determined by the mode selected.

In each application, Millennium displays a handy list of the available modes in the Navigation Bar along the left side of the screen. This allows the user to easily move from one mode to another by clicking on the icon to select a mode. The Current Mode (the one in operation at the time) is always displayed above the Navigation Bar.


Thanks so much to Lori Carnes for her very well described definition!

_____

Word of the Week

Navigation Bar

A navigation bar provides an easy way to move around among a web site's main sections. It usually extends along the top or side of a web page and contains buttons that link to various pages in the site. The navigation bar provides a quick reference for the contents of the site and a way to navigate through various levels.
In Millennium the navigation bar runs down the left side of the page. It’s headed by the Millennium logo. Click on that to open the Millennium Control Bar if you want to switch to a different Application (Circulation, Cataloging, Serials, etc). Below the logo is a button indicating the mode (function or task) currently displayed, followed by buttons identifying all the various other modes available in the active application.

This weeks WOW is courtesy of Jane Trump.

Word of the Week

Usernames and Initials

Have you ever visited a fair? First you have to pay an admission fee to get into the fair and then you have to buy tickets to ride the rides.

Well, Millennium is just like the county fair except the admission fee is called a username and the tickets are called initials!

In Millennium, the username identifies who you are to the system. Are you with Circulation? Reference? Technical Services? That’s what your username tells the system, and helps link you up to the appropriate applications.

Initials are what Millennium uses to determine what you have permission to do within a given application. They grant you access to view information appropriate to your profile (like viewing patron records within the Circulation application); make changes within a given application (like adding new patrons in the Circulation application); and limit access to certain features, such as re-ordering the hold queue or deleting records, that not everyone should be able to do.

Now, are you eager to ride the rides at the fair? Why don’t you test out this username and initials and have some fun!

Username: Training
Password: Training

Initials: Train
Password: Train

Guest WOW-er Heather Beverley brought you this week’s WOW. Thanks, Heather! Heather says: “Thanks to the great Katie Olsen for the awesome fair analogy!”

Word of the Week

Index

The word index can mean a lot of things to a lot of people – even in library land!
In the new Millennium system Index refers to the criteria you search by. If you go back a few Words of the Week to the word Record you can see that each record contains certain types of information. The information in each record is organized or “indexed” in a way that allows Millennium to easily search for specific types of information.

This leads us to Indexing. Indexing is the process that Innovative Interfaces, Inc. (the maker of Millennium) went through to set up our database. Innovative’s data analysts took a look at the data from our GEAC system and figured out which part (or “field”) of each bibliographic record was the title, which was the author, and so forth. Then they took the information from certain fields (author, title, and call number, for example) and made a list of every piece of information from every record for each of those fields – in other words, an index!

When you do a search in the Millennium database (whether using Encore, WebPAC Pro or the Millennium staff client), Millennium looks for your term in one or more indexes. If you do a title search, Millennium checks for your terms in the title index. An author search checks the author index, and so forth. Other pieces of information you can search (also known as indexed fields, because they are pieces of data – a.k.a. “fields” – that are included in an index) are the subject headings, ISBN, and call number.

Indexes are important in our patron data, also. Because our patron records are stored in a database, and we need to retrieve a particular patron record when that patron is standing in front of us at the circulation desk, fields like the patron’s name and barcode are indexed, so that we can search for one of those pieces of information to find the right patron’s record in the database.

Mary Andrew contributed to this week’s WOW. Thanks, Mary!

Word of the Week

OCLC
People in Library Land toss this term around quite often. But what is OCLC? OCLC is actually a non-profit organization who exists to give libraries greater access to information while reducing costs. What does this mean to us chickens at Cook Library? Lots! This is where the library gets most of its catalog records. Why start from scratch when cataloging a book or DVD when it’s already been done and ready to go? After all, OCLC owns the Dewey Decimal System! These are uniform records all set up to work with computer systems.
But there is much more to OCLC than just cataloging. OCLC maintains NetLibrary, our eBook and eAudiobook provider. OCLC provides access to online indexes of journals, and documents. We might not subscribe to The Journal of Parasitology, but we can quickly retrieve complete articles from the journal through OCLC. OCLC gives our Interlibrary Loan Department access to material across the country, and this brings us to Worldcat. Worldcat is just what it sounds like; a library catalog including holdings from libraries around the world! We can see titles owned by libraries from Fremont to Freiberg, Germany!

This week’s WOW is brought to you by guest WOW-er Mary Andrew. Thanks, Mary!

Word of the Week

Parameters:

Perhaps you’re wondering what’s going on with Millennium. We ILS folks talk about it a lot, but not much seems to be happening yet. What’s taking so long?

Although it seems like a lot of “hurry up and wait,” right now, the ILS Committee is hard at work setting up the parameters for Millennium. Parameters are rules that must be spelled out to tell the system exactly what to do in any given situation.

Parameters are used to determine everything that Millennium does automatically, such as:
· Assigning a due date (and making sure it’s the right one) when a patron checks out a DVD
· Printing overdue notices after the appropriate amount of time has elapsed, in the format we’ve specified, with the text we’ve specified
· Determining whether or not an item can be renewed
· Maintaining a list of patron holds
· Assigning an item that’s been ordered to the proper library, shelf location, and fund
· Printing a purchase order with the information we want to have on it

Think of our transition to Millennium like building a new library. Not only would we have to build a building, but we also would have to buy shelving, carpet, computers, tables, chairs, and copy machines. We’d have to hire staff and create a work schedule for them. We’d have to put in telephones, hang up signs, buy books, catalog the books, and put spine labels and barcodes on them. We’d have to put the books on the shelves and make sure they were in order. We’d have to do some publicity so the public would know about the new library and what its hours were.

Some of the parameters being set up are customizations — changing from the Millennium default to the specifics for our library district, so that they match the way we do things. Others are blanks to be filled in — meaning that until some information is entered, that part of the system will not function at all. All of them are essential to making Millennium work for us!

Word of the Week / Snacker of the Month

First, the fun stuff -- Barb Jarvis has been selected as December's Snacker of the Month! She has elected to receive "something with chocolate in it." Congrats, Barb!

And now, the learning stuff (which is also fun, right?)... We're moving to a new format for the Word of the Week. From now on, check the I Luv Snacks blog for the new word of the week. A link to the most recent WOW, as well as (eventually, as I get them entered) to older WOWs, will appear in the right-hand sidebar.

So, without further ado, here's the Word of the Week!

Record:

A unit of information in the Millennium system. There are records for patrons, titles, items, and orders in Millennium.

Patron Record: contains identifying information for a patron, such as name and contact information, library card barcode, checked-out items, holds, fines and overdues.

Bibliographic Record: contains bibliographic information about a title in the library’s collection; that is to say: author, title, publication information, subject, and physical description.

Item Record: contains information about a specific copy of a title the library owns, such as the barcode, call number, and location.

Order Record: indicates that something has been ordered. This record includes information about how many copies were ordered, for what location, from which vendor, when, and with which funds.