From: Karla S. <sm...@wi...> - 2012-02-07 18:15:48
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Hi Gary, I *think* I heard that if one uses SirsiDynix Web services to interface with Symphony, it might be able to place multiple holds at a time. I am pretty sure multiple holds are a feature of the newest release of SirsiDynix Enterprise. I just meant that, for those of us still using the Unicorn/Symphony API transactions, as far as I could tell, they need to be sent to the ILS transaction server one at a time. I tried slipping in 2 item IDs into one place hold transaction. It didn't work. So, even if the user checks the 5 copies they want and then clicks ONE "place hold" button, something has to break that one click down into 5 separate transactions with 5 different item IDs while still keeping the user ID and authentication and all the rest of the required info. I think it *ought* to be doable within VuFind w/o too much problem. And maybe Unicorn/Symphony is the only ILS which has this particular limitation. I just didn't want it to get overlooked in the discussion. --Karla Karla Smith -----Original Message----- From: Harris, Gary [mailto:gar...@se...] Sent: Tuesday, February 07, 2012 11:33 AM To: Karla Smith; Demian Katz; Osullivan L.; vuf...@li... Subject: RE: [VuFind-Tech] Placing Holds on Multivolume Sets We are using Unicorn/Symphony. I did not know that it could not handle multiple hold requests in a single command. Many thanks Karla for pointing this out. Gary -----Original Message----- From: Karla Smith [mailto:sm...@wi...] Sent: Tuesday, February 07, 2012 12:20 PM To: Demian Katz; Harris, Gary; Osullivan L.; vuf...@li... Subject: RE: [VuFind-Tech] Placing Holds on Multivolume Sets > Would it be safer to offer checkboxes for placing multiple holds at the same time? That would be great! With one possible caveat... Not all ILSs can handle placing multiple holds in one command. Unicorn/Symphony, for example. So, one of the technical challenges would be extracting the correct item IDs for the checked copies and then handing them off in a form the ILS can handle. Some ILS's would require the IDs one at a time while others can accept a list. FWIW, what we do now in our ancient OPAC (DRA's Web2) regarding Title vs Item level holds is to have essentially 2 buttons/links. Big obvious "Place Hold" button takes user to screen to login and then re-displays holdings with another "Place Hold" button. This button places a hold on the first available copy. At the bottom of the holdings list is a link to "Need a specific part or issue?" which takes the user to a screen displaying all holdings with checkboxes. User checks the boxes for the copies she wants, and then the form sends an email to staff which actually place the various holds for the patron. Problem with our current method is a) it's too staff intensive to have to manually place all those holds; b) the link for copy-level hold is buried too deep--users don't see it. On my "someday" list was to move the "Need a specific part or issue?" link out to the main record display alongside the "Place Hold" button. > but it might have a better chance of matching user expectations I think so...many users already have the (false) expectation that they will be able to place simultaneous holds on selected titles in their saved lists. But that's another discussion! :-) --Karla Karla Smith -----Original Message----- From: Demian Katz [mailto:dem...@vi...] Sent: Tuesday, February 07, 2012 9:04 AM To: Harris, Gary; Osullivan L.; vuf...@li... Subject: Re: [VuFind-Tech] Placing Holds on Multivolume Sets I think the main problem with your request is that it may be difficult for VuFind to determine which copies constitute a set, especially in cases where cataloging is inconsistent or multiple copies of a set exist on a single record. I have a feeling that if we gave the user a "place hold on entire set" button, it would not always behave as expected. People might end up with extra copies of things or the wrong volumes. Would it be safer to offer checkboxes for placing multiple holds at the same time? This has its own technical and UI design challenges -- the current HMAC security verification would need some adjustment, and I'm not sure exactly what kind of form we would need to display to the user after they submit the checkboxes -- but it might have a better chance of matching user expectations. - Demian ________________________________________ From: Harris, Gary [gar...@se...] Sent: Tuesday, February 07, 2012 9:47 AM To: Demian Katz; Osullivan L.; vuf...@li... Subject: RE: Placing Holds on Multivolume Sets I've been keeping track of the discussion, but it's gone a bit over my head. I just wanted to make sure that you guys understood what we were hoping for: IF ALL of the volumes in a set are checked out THEN We want the user to be able to place a hold on any one volume OR all of the volumes at once. ELSE IF only some of the volumes are checked out THEN We want the system to work as it does now with the user only being able to place holds on the checked out items. Many thanks for addressing this issue. You guys are great. Gary -----Original Message----- From: Demian Katz [mailto:dem...@vi...] Sent: Monday, February 06, 2012 12:03 PM To: Osullivan L.; Harris, Gary; vuf...@li... Subject: RE: Placing Holds on Multivolume Sets Okay, makes sense. I guess next step is a patch! - Demian ________________________________________ From: Osullivan L. [L.O...@sw...] Sent: Monday, February 06, 2012 11:58 AM To: Demian Katz; Harris, Gary; vuf...@li... Subject: RE: Placing Holds on Multivolume Sets The "Big Button" places a hold on every copy - Voyager then cancels the hold on every other copy when one is fulfilled... I may be wrong but I'm not sure placing holds on all copies of a multi-volume set is likely to be a high priority for most institutions. What Gary is asking is a little different to the Title vs Copy Holds issue. I can't see it every being desirable in the case of Journals or Serials but only for small multi-volume works. With that said, if we were to implement Title vs Copy Holds, it would certainly make Gary's task a lot easier and I'd be happy to help with it... Thanks, Luke -----Original Message----- From: Demian Katz [mailto:dem...@vi...] Sent: 06 February 2012 16:44 To: Osullivan L.; Harris, Gary; vuf...@li... Subject: RE: Placing Holds on Multivolume Sets What exactly is the behavior of the "big button"? Does it just get the first available copy? I was also thinking about this a little more -- Gary's original request was the ability to get all copies of a multi-volume set in one go. That seems potentially problematic -- what if a single bib record has multiple copies of the entire set attached? If we just grab all items, that could have very undesirable side effects... but trying to get smarter than grabbing all items could be difficult due to inconsistent cataloging, missing items, etc., etc. - Demian ________________________________________ From: Osullivan L. [L.O...@sw...] Sent: Monday, February 06, 2012 11:31 AM To: Demian Katz; Harris, Gary; vuf...@li... Subject: RE: Placing Holds on Multivolume Sets Hi Demian, I've been asked for this functionality for a while now and have very rough code "beta" here. In answer to your questions (based on what I've half implemented here): 1) We need to know what type of record we're dealing with - monograph vs serial (journals, collections, serials etc). As I understand it, copy vs title holds is only relevant for monographs - All other items need copy based requests. This is therefore something we should add to the Solr schema as it's quite a fundamental item attribute. 2) We plan to use the concept employed by KEVEN which has a nice big "Place Request" in the "Core" metadata section of each item (Individual Copy Links will be listed as usual) 3) As we may use the Core Meta Data "Big Button" without listing all copy links for monographs, the behaviour should be customisable. We could have: showMonoTitleHolds with options of always, never or availability (for when all borrowable copies are unavailable) and showCopyHolds with options of always, never, Serials Only and Monographs Only. These settings could then be used in conjunction with checking for driver methods for determining which behaviour is employed. Thanks, Luke -----Original Message----- From: Demian Katz [mailto:dem...@vi...] Sent: 06 February 2012 16:07 To: Harris, Gary; Osullivan L.; vuf...@li... Subject: RE: Placing Holds on Multivolume Sets First of all, I'm moving this thread from vufind-general to vufind-tech, since I think it runs the risk of getting technical at this point! I'm hoping Luke can take the lead on this -- he's done most of the work on holds in VuFind, and I think he'll have the best idea of how to fit new features into the existing scheme. However, I also realize that Luke is currently very busy on a different VuFind-related project, so it may be a little while before he can get the ball rolling on this one. To get the brainstorming started, here are some things we need to think about: 1.) How do we know when to offer title-level vs. item-level holds? That is, how do we tell a multi-volume set from ten copies of the same thing? Is this something the driver can figure out based on flags in records? 2.) What do we want the user interface to look like? Right now we have a link on every item that is eligible for a hold. Do we need new links at the top of the holdings tab? (Hold all / hold first available / ... something else?) 3.) Where do we want this to be switched on or off? Should title-level holds be a globally configurable option? Should it be determined on a driver by driver basis? (Obviously there are always going to be limitations by driver -- not every driver will be able to support this). - Demian ________________________________________ From: Harris, Gary [gar...@se...] Sent: Monday, February 06, 2012 10:56 AM To: Demian Katz; Osullivan L.; vuf...@li... Subject: RE: [VuFind-General] Placing Holds on Multivolume Sets I'm ready...I think. You'll have to guide me carefully! :-) Many thanks, Gary -----Original Message----- From: Demian Katz [mailto:dem...@vi...] Sent: Monday, February 06, 2012 10:29 AM To: Osullivan L.; Harris, Gary; vuf...@li... Subject: RE: [VuFind-General] Placing Holds on Multivolume Sets I'll be happy to work with you on developing the details of this whenever you're ready! The ILS drivers are nearly the same between 1.x and 2.0, so it doesn't really matter when we decide to develop the functionality. - Demian ________________________________________ From: Osullivan L. [L.O...@sw...] Sent: Saturday, February 04, 2012 9:49 AM To: Demian Katz; Harris, Gary; vuf...@li... Subject: Re: [VuFind-General] Placing Holds on Multivolume Sets Hi All, In theory, it shouldn't be too difficult to place title rather than copy based holds as you can specify that the recordID is passed to the driver. You'd then have to create a method which gets all the copies associated with that record ID & place a hold / recall on each one. I think title vs copy holds is definitely something which should be added to VuFind 2.0. Cheers, Luke Sent from my Sony Ericsson Xperia arc Demian Katz <dem...@vi...> wrote: >Unfortunately, VuFind's hold capability is not that sophisticated. However, you might be able to implement it by customizing your ILS driver. > >- Demian >________________________________________ >From: Harris, Gary [gar...@se...] >Sent: Friday, February 03, 2012 11:47 AM >To: vuf...@li... >Subject: [VuFind-General] Placing Holds on Multivolume Sets > >I know this is a long shot, but is there a way to set VuFind such that if all of the volumes in a set are checked out then the user can place a hold on all of the volumes at once? > >Thanks, > >Gary > >----------------------------------------------------------------------- >------- Try before you buy = See our experts in action! >The most comprehensive online learning library for Microsoft developers >is just $99.99! Visual Studio, SharePoint, SQL - plus HTML5, CSS3, >MVC3, Metro Style Apps, more. 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