| Public Libraries |
- Problem:
|
Horizon's circulation
processes do not support two key policies
of the library:
- Charging a fee for patrons who do not
pick up items that were placed on hold
for them
- Aging claims-returned items to lost
|
- Solution:
|
Create two new day-end
steps to implement these policies;
include full integration with the Horizon
borrower block and fine payment
functions.
|
| |
|
More Public Library Solutions:
Community oversight body wants reports
that are not available from Horizon. Create
report templates that can be run when
needed and match the format the library
wants to use in dealing with its community
government.
Staff needs a simple
way to weed items and when appropriate, now
itemless bibs. Moreover, they need to get a
list of the OCLC numbers (properly
normalized) of the deleted bibs to submit
to OCLC. Alpha-G's Weed Collection utility
handles the deletions; a new day-end step
e-mails the properly formatted OCLC numbers
to the head cataloger.
|
| |
| Special Libraries |
- Problem:
|
Partners
and employees in a law firm need to know who
has a book checked out (they may need it
now); iPAC can not display
that. |
- Solution:
|
Add a Show Borrower
function to the appropriate screens of
the customer's iPAC display.
|
| |
|
More Special Library Solutions:
Stock screen layouts for iPAC do not meet
patrons' needs; library staff's normal
workload does not allow them to learn to
make the changes themselves. Alpha-G's
restructuring of the screens helps them
achieve better service for the library's
patrons.
It is time to migrate
to a new server, but the tech staff are not
experienced with Sybase. Alpha-G assists
and advises to ensure a successful,
low-cost transition and resolves
configuration problems that would have
crippled the performance of the new
server.
An inexperienced
cataloging staff member has entered
hundreds of titles into the bibliographic
data in all capital letters. Alpha-G
develops a customized tool to convert
titles to conventional capitalization. The
tool also properly handles acronyms (which
should remain in all capitals) and proper
names (which should be capitalized even
when not the first word in the title).
|
| |
| Academic Libraries |
- Problem:
|
By-hand
changes to update fixed-field MARC tag data
are tedious and potentially error-prone.
These changes simply do not get made because
the normal workload takes precedence.
|
- Solution:
|
Modify existing
Alpha-G Replace Tag Text utility to
handle fixed-field tag updates as well as
updates of subfield-delimited
tags.
|
| |
|
More Academic Library Solutions:
Tools for checking 856-tag URLs fail on
some unusual, but valid, characters.
Alpha-G's Link Checker handles the unusual
characters and produces a particularly
helpful report which allows browser-based
verification and searching to simplify
updating any bad links.
The library staff
needs to import data from the campus
purchasing system, so expenditure of funds
is handled exclusively through the campus
system, but they still want to use the
tracking, claiming, and processing
capabilities of Horizon Acquisitions.
Alpha-G creates generic tools that can
solve their problem (as well as those of
libraries with similar needs but different
data sources).
The library needs to
periodically export MARC records with
serial holdings to facilitate sharing of
serials articles among members of a
cooperating library group. Alpha-G creates
a utility that exports serials holdings
along with MARC bibliographic data.
|
