Wot’s in a Name?Enterprise/Portfolio & the Discovery Layer Experience in the Swift Consortium

Lloyd Brady – Swift Systems Administrator

Prologue: Naming (un-)conventions of SirsiDynix

• Unicorn – Symphony

• iLink – iBlink – iBistro – e-Library

• Hyperion – Enterprise - Portfolio

The Swift Environment

• Two database instances – VIC & NSW

• 22 library services (20 have purchased the Discovery Layer, but only 6 are live)

Naming Conventions

• Profile for each library service (at least one)

• Unique domain names for each profile (swft.xxxx.ent.sirsidynix.net.au). EG:– http://swft.cprl.ent.sirsidynix.net.au

– http://swft.cobb.ent.sirsidynix.net.au

– http://swft.gvrl.ent.sirsidynix.net.au

– http://swft.hclc.ent.sirsidynix.net.au

– http://swft.chrl.ent.sirsidynix.net.au

– http://swft.wrlc.ent.sirsidynix.net.au

Initial Implementation

• “Global” policies:

– Hit List and Detail Display fields

– Naming conventions for profiles, images and other files

– Custom content directories

• Harvesting schedules

• “Federated” searching – NOT

• Configuring Display Codes

Implementation (cont.)

• HCLC migration from EPS Rooms

• CPRL launch October 2010 - Enterprise 3.1

• 6 Profiles currently live

• Other libraries wait for features/bug fixes promised in future release

To Share or not to Share

• Creating and sharing Rooms?

• Search limits – where are the search groups?

• Custom content files and directories:

– /custom/web/content/xxxx

E-Library Integration

• Moving between interfaces

– Mirror the look & feel?

– Separate My Account logins

– Possible confusion for users

• Online User Registration

– Different URLs for each library needed

Version 4.1 – The Good

• Simple content management system

• Fuzzy Logic Searching & Facets

• Federated targets (sort of)

• Web Services & My Account Display

• Static URLs for results and RSS feeds

• Gutenberg e-books

• Syndetics display and Google Books (“accordion” panels)

• Custom Roles (almost)

Asset Stuff (Portfolio)

• Asset Administration

• Metadata standards

• Searching for Assets (Asset search limits)

• Asset (in)security

• Harvesting other databases

• Hyperion data import

Statistics

• Google Analytics

– E-Library v Enterprise/Portfolio

– Counting Searches (sort of)

• Syndetics Statistics

– Inflated content hits due to “pre-polling” of Syndetics data

Version 4.1 – The Bad

• My Account Hold Dates

• Custom roles not quite there

• New Titles display

• Volume Holds not working

• Library Favourites

• Databases tab/icon

• No security for Assets (without Accountability)

• Pickup Libraries – a MESS

New Titles Lists

• Display nice – Function poor

• Does not use pre-existing Information Desk policies/Bulletin Lists

• “Custom” lists very limited options

• “Library group” limit does not seem to work

Volume Holds

• Unable to select Volume in most instances

• Where you can select Volume, the hold doesn’t necessarily get filled by that volume

• Cannot place more than one hold on a title, even if volume is selected

Asset Security

• All assets are searchable, whether they have a security level assigned or not

• No easy way of assigning assets to a particular profile

• If you have the URL to a particular asset, you can access it no matter the security level assigned

Pickup Libraries

• Libraries display as policy codes, not descriptions

• No order to the list of Pickup libraries

• No way of re-ordering the list

• No “blank” field at the top of the list (i.e. “Choose a Library”

What’s Needed

• Pickup Library fixes

• My Account hold dates

• Email alerts when System Tasks fail

• Requests integration (display in My Account)

• More Language label sets

What’s Needed (cont.)

• Change the way Syndetics content if pulled

• Rooms management – make only available to the Profile the room is created for

• Reconfigure the New Titles lists to work with the Information Desk policies

• Asset improvements

– Real security

– Assigning particular assets to particular Profiles

Spin over Substance?

• Good product, with many excellent features

• Some basic functionality missing or mismanaged

• Marketing and promotion seems to have taken precedence over care functionality

Epilogue: Enterprise or Portfolio? –Why the name change?

• Enterprise

– To boldly go...

– Too Trekky?

• Portfolio

– “Arty” for the cultured UK/European market?

– Bureaucratic?

What they should have called it...

• Temporal

• Archival

• Repository for

• Digital

• Images &

• Stuff