Special Alert! No More New Materials Until We Go Live

Beginning Monday, January 21 no new materials (books, magazines, DVDs, CDs etc) will be cataloged or added to the collection.*

New items will be available after our migration to the new Millennium system is complete, on or after February 14th. This means that if a patron asks for the new, [insert new title here], it won't be available until after we go live with Millennium.

Why? Because on Monday, January 21 our bibliographic and item data is being exported to be moved to the new Millennium system. Cataloging is the first application that will go live in Millennium so it is the first department to stop working in Geac PLUS.

Also, no more withdrawals can be done until further notice (they stopped on 1/15). Please don't bring any items to TS to be withdrawn.

You'll be seeing a lot of important dates and timelines appearing here on the I Luv Snacks blog. Visit and read it often!

* There are a few exceptions. The items on the lists below have been precataloged and will be released on time.

DVDs
Saw IV
Sydney White
Hunting Party
Game plan
Invasion
Canvas
Comebacks
Feel the Noise
Desert bayou
King of Kong
Daddy day camp
rocket science
Nines
King of California
Bordertown
Comebacks
Moolaade
Across the universe
Elizabeth the golden age
brave one
Feast of love
Assassination of Jesse James
Jane Austen Book Club
Aristocats
2 days in Paris

Books


AUTHOR ISBN TITLE RELEASE
Woods 9780399154690 Beverly Hills Dead 1/15/2008
Delinsky 9780385518680 The Secret Between Us 1/22/2008
King 9781416552512 Duma Key 1/22/2008
Rice 9780553805116 Light of the Moon 1/29/2008
Grisham 9780385515047 The Appeal 1/29/2008
Krentz 9780399154454 Sizzle and Burn 1/29/2008
Patterson 9780316017701 7th Heaven 2/4/2008
Parker 9780399154607 Stranger in Paradise 2/5/2008
Higgins 9780399153808 The Killing Ground 2/12/2008
Scottoline 9780060833206 Lady Killer 2/19/2008
Robb 9780399154706 Strangers in Death 2/19/2008
Palmer 9780312343538 The First Patient 2/19/2008
Steel 9780385340243 Honor Thyself 2/26/2008
Kinsella 9780385338721 Remember Me 2/26/2008

The Shoemaker and the ILS

Do you remember the story of the Shoemaker and the Elves? While the shoemaker slept, little elves visited his workshop and made shoes from the materials he had left on his workbench.

While we are snacking and blogging and learning bits and pieces about Millennium, there are elves working hard among us! Today's I Luv Snacks update brings you an all-access pass to the behind-the-scenes of the migration project.

From the "enough to make you go cross-eyed" department, Julie A. recently combed through 50,000 (yes, 50,000) patron records to look for problems. Among the amusing typos she found were "Libertyvile" and "Vernon Ills."

Katie has been hard at work on an Introduction to Millennium class. There's a lot to learn, but with Katie as our guide, I think we can all be pretty confident that we will be pros at this!

A whole battalion of elves (Mary A., Carol H., Dave, Sonia, Heather, Jan H., Eileen, and many others) have begun spot-checking the data in the Millennium online catalog. The first load of all of our bibliographic records and item information resulted in all the call numbers displaying backwards. That's just one example of why we need to check lots and lots of records to make sure everything's correct. Since Geac PLUS and Millennium are different programs from different companies, they don't do everything in exactly the same way. Innovative (the company that makes Millennium) has had to do some guessing about the best way to "translate" our Geac data into Millennium-ese. Sometimes the guesses are right and sometimes they result in things like backwards call numbers, and need to be fixed. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000 records (just a tiny cross-section of our database, which I believe has over 200,000 records) will need to be gone over with a fine-toothed comb between now and the end of next week. Yikes!

Lauren has been working with elves from all departments to determine the circulation parameters for the new system. Every detail, from the loan period for an item, to the fine per day overdue, to the statistical categories we use to analyze library use by different parts of the community, must be confirmed, and then entered into Millennium.

Pam Sk. has been doing more than I can possibly describe. She is keeping us (and Innovative) on schedule, assigning tasks to committees and committee members, reading lots and lots of user manual pages, and trying to ensure that our bibliographic records, item information, and patron data get plugged into Millennium properly so they will work properly.

Erin has been working on the December Ins & Outs newsletter, which will contain our first official notice to patrons about the change to a new system.

Laura H. and Andrea J. (oh, wait... that's me) have been creating make-believe item records and pretend patrons for trainees (that's you) to use in the Millennium training classes that begin next week. Lots of cutting and pasting for me... I tried to choose titles that would keep you entertained in class. The Penguin Who Knew Too Much, anyone? How about How Do You Spank a Porcupine?"

We're getting there, but there's a lot left to do! Stay tuned for more updates.