ILL is Back

Customers are able to place ILL items on hold as they have done in the past. The system is back up and running.

Pedro

SMM Computers

Good day Team,

Some issues have been identified with Smart Money. According to the Financial Services Department, Jeff Robin is working on the problem. The expectation is that most of the issues that have been identified have been fixed; however, some updating will be done tonight.

We are requesting that you leave your computers that have Smart Money on them on after you have exited Smart Money so that Jeff can update them tonight.

Please let me know if you have any questions or need more information.

Take care.

Theodora.

Sirsi Update

From Syma:

We’ve just completed our 2^nd week on Symphony and many of our initial problems have smoothed out. 

·        Customer concerns and confusion about accessing their accounts online have declined. 

·        Some customers are still upset about the change in how the system renews items and we appreciate your efforts to explain how the new system works. 

·        We continue to work on database clean-up issues, particularly related to uncataloged paperbacks and periodicals. 

·        We successfully transmitted two small orders to Baker & Taylor and hope to have new title orders appear in the catalog and new materials start to arrive by the beginning of August.

·        The Enterprise catalog software is scheduled for an upgrade on Monday night that should solve the problem for customers trying to place holds on a particular volume of a series. 

·        We are working on removing the personal customer information that has been printing on the receipts.

·        Felicia Brisco sent out detailed instructions on how to place circulating items in “discard” or “repair” status.  Please be sure all staff are familiar with these procedures.  There is a slight difference in dealing with reference materials and Felicia will be getting that out to you next week.

·        Felicia will be sending detailed instructions for Item On the Fly procedures.  This was covered in training but we realize that written procedures will be useful to everyone. 

·        Final testing is going on for Interlibrary Loan so we hope that will be live sometime next week.

Enterprise Catalog Features:

·        We have tried to make the language in Enterprise a bit more customer friendly.  For example:

·        In Transit = Being Transferred Between Libraries

·        On Hold = On Hold for Someone

If you have suggestions to improve other terminology, let me know.  It may not always be possible but we can try.

·        When an item is checked out to “Discard” or in another lost/missing type of status, it is automatically shadowed (suppressed) in the catalog so customers do not constantly see them.

·        The new titles lists are generated automatically and actually update daily (while we are still in start up, don’t expect to see much change).  Because of this automatic updating, they are not sorted by author or title.  Once you have pulled them up, you can change the sort.

We will be posting a revised version of the hold wrapper to the Intranet.  It is an improvement from the current version but it is still not as good as what we had in Millennium.  This is on our enhancement request to Sirsi but, it is not likely to happen soon. 

Let me know what concerns and issues you are facing and continue to contact the IT Helpdesk for assistance.  Thank you for your hard work every day.

Pedro

Symphony Running Slow

Symphony is running very slowly today.  We believe this is due to the fact that data from other libraries (Pasadena, Bellaire, Pt. Neches, Pt. Arthur, and Nederland) is being loaded into the system.  We are checking with Sirsi to see if they can make some adjustments to improve response time.  Thank you for your patience.

Syma

PEDRO

Sirsi Procedures Update

I’ve got lots of procedural updates today so please read this email carefully and if you do not understand something, let me know.

On Shelf Holds (Paging) list:  Fred is working with IT to develop a report that you can download from the staff Intranet on a daily basis.  He hopes to have it in place by the end of the month.  In the meantime, if you are comfortable using the On Shelf Items wizard to retrieve your paging list, please feel free to do so.  However, Fred can email you a report on a daily basis with this same information.  Since we do not have email accounts for each Neighborhood Library, he needs an email address (or two) for each location to send the reports to.  If you would like to get these reports emailed to your location, please identify one or two individuals that these reports will go to.  Send that information in an email to Fred Schumacher with the Subject Line:  [your NL name] send holds report.

Clean Holds Shelf:  Items on the hold shelf have been extended through July 25 so these reports will not run until that date.  These reports will also be downloaded from the staff Intranet on a daily basis but until that solution is active, Fred will email them to the same person/s he sends the On Shelf Holds list to.

Felicia Brisco will be sending out detailed instructions on procedures using Workflows to discard items or put items on the “repair” shelf.  Look for that email Tuesday.

We have discovered that the set of barcodes sent to each location to use with the Google Docs spreadsheet to handle periodical check-ins while offline (and which you should continue to use until notified differently) did not migrate into Symphony properly.  We are working on a temporary solution and should have it out to you shortly.  In the interim, you can circulate them as an Item on the Fly.

I’d like to remind you that when you are checking in an item and you are notified that there is a hold on that item, if that item needs to another location for pick up, select “PLACE IN TRANSIT”.  Do not select “make hold available.”  If you select “make hold available,” the system automatically generates a message to the customer that their hold is ready for pick-up when it is actually still in transit to their pick up location.  This procedure is the same as we had in III Millennium; it’s only the way the screen looks and some of the words that have changed.

Lastly, please do not give out PINs to customers over the phone.  This is a security issue.  Provided we have their correct email address in their account, it is quite easy for them to go online and select “Forgot PIN?” which is visible when they click on “My Account.”  They will be asked to enter their library card number.  An email will then be sent to them with a link to re-set their PIN.  I’d suggest you try it yourself so you can better explain it to our customers.

We continue to work on finding a solution for the holds wrapper issue. 

It has been suggested that we create a blog where staff can share their experiences (good and bad) and maybe find solutions from other staff members.  Let me know what you think of that.  I believe we could set that up fairly quickly if there is interest.

Please continue to notify us of problems you find.  And thanks again for all you do.

This email has been approved by Meller Langford, Deputy Director of Customer Experience

Thanks,

Syma

Syma Zerkow

Chief of Library Materials Services

Houston Public Library

832-393-1484

Pedro

New Items Received

From Felicia Brisco 7/19/13:

This is to inform you that with the new SIRSI system you will notice a couple of changes in new items received. New items received will have one of two designations for Current Locations:

Items processed by vendors will have a Current Location designation of “INSHIPPING.”

Items processed by Inventory Control will have a Current Location designation of “INPROCESS.”

Please proceed to “DISCHARGE” (formerly known as “CHECKING IN”) new items as you normally do. Contact Inventory Control if you have questions.

Pedro

Pay Increase

The 2011 Meet and Confer Agreement between the City of Houston and the Houston Organization of Public Employees (HOPE) provides that beginning the first full pay period after July 1, 2013, every bargaining unit member with the exception of Police and Fire Trainees will receive a 3% increase in base pay. Employees covered by this provision should see the pay increase in their July 26, 2013 paycheck. 

Pedro

Door Count Week

DOOR COUNT
JULY, 2013
WHEN: Door Count is taken three times each fiscal year, the third weeks in July, October, and April. The count begins on a Sunday and ends on a Saturday. This Door Count will run from Sunday, July 14th through Saturday, July 20th.

WHAT: The July, 2013 Door Count will measure 2 things:
1. Visitors by the hour, through gate counts
2. In-House materials used, by the day
Gate counts are measured by recording the P number on your gate each hour. This way we get a general idea of what times of the day are busiest at your location.
In-House material counts are counted manually but we only need a daily total. This count is used by libraries nationally to measure use of print-based materials.

HOW:
Please review the Door Count template before Door Count begins.
 Count any item that is removed from the shelf or stacks, by staff or the public. All formats are counted and each physical item is counted as one.
 Enter your gate’s P numbers hourly and materials use, daily.
 If your location closes before 5, or 8pm, enter your closing P number for each of the remaining hours. And, your closing P number should be the same as the opening number for the following day.
 If one or more of your locations has a broken gate or no gate, your staff or a volunteer will need to count visitors manually, and will enter the hourly visitor counts into the spreadsheet’s P number section.

Carol will have the door count sheet for Acres Monday morning.

Thank you all.

Pedro

Symphony Update

From Syma 7/12/13:

Items now stay on the hold shelf for 7 days instead of 10.  We had a number of people ask about this and I’m sorry I forgot to include it.

Thanks,

Syma

From: Zerkow, Syma - HPL
Sent: Friday, July 12, 2013 6:57 PM
To: HPL - All Employees
Subject: Symphony Go-Live Update Day 2

As promised, the offline data was loaded into the system overnight so everything seemed to work much more smoothly today.  A number of issues have been resolved and we continue to work on others.

Resolved:

·        Blocks for fines under $10.00 should no longer appear beginning tomorrow.

·        IT Helpdesk has a list of staff PIN numbers and can assist if you cannot find your email message with this information.

·        Most of the website glitches have been corrected.

·        Access to the databases, both in-house and remotely, is now functioning properly.

·        Clean hold shelf reports will be available daily, starting Saturday morning.

·        Pull holds reports (title paging lists) will be available daily, starting Saturday morning.

·        Multiple receipts/length of receipts:

o   Go into Preference

o   Then peripherals

o   Then receipt printer

o   Deselect "cut paper supported"

Ongoing:

·        Holds wrapper

·        Strange check-out periods somehow related to a card’s expiration date

New:

·        Holds queue needs to be re-sequenced.  SirsiDynix is working to correct this.

·        If a customer had suspended a hold, this information did not carry over.  We will post this information to the public blog but, if you are aware of customers who frequently use this feature, please alert them.  They can go into their accounts and suspend them in Symphony.

·        Some fine information related to items declared lost/overdue did not migrate properly.  We are working with SirsiDynix to correct this.  If you encounter a problem that seems to be related to this, please contact Circulation Administration.

Also, a reminder:  all fines should be paid using SmartMoney and, after you scan a customer’s card, you MUST select one of these:

An individual fine

                Fine Payment Partial

                Advanced Fines or

                Pay All

If you do not do this, SmartMoney defaults back to what it was last used for.  So, if you used it to accept booksale money and do not select one of the above, the receipt it issues will be for booksale, not fines paid.  When you reconcile your funds, you will to explain any errors caused by this to Financial Services.

Overall, we have made good progress though we still have away to go.  I hope you feel likewise.  Thank you for alerting us to various issues you encounter.  Please do not stop.  This is crucial to our getting the system functioning properly.

Pedro

Migration Issues

From Judith 7/11/13:

An update on databases:

Many but not all of the of the databases are working.  We continue to work on access.

However a barcode is needed both internal and external access.  If your customer’s barcode, does not work, you can give them this temporary barcode that will work until further notice:

55477999999999

Welcome to SirsiDynix Symphony.

The processing of offline circulation data that was started last night has still not completed. If customers notice discrepancies in their accounts related to item transactions since 7/3, please explain to them that we are still processing data.

The databases are currently down.  Shortly they will be available inside the library only.  We hope to have them available remotely by the end of the day.

I will update you as soon as these situations change.

Thank you for your patience as we solve remaining issues throughout today.

Pedro

Hold Wrapper

From Fred 7/10/13:

Good afternoon everyone.

As you may already have learned, the Symphony system will not print hold wrappers automatically.  We will work toward regaining this functionality in the future.  In the interim, please use the attached editable template to create hold wrappers for the items that go onto your hold shelf.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Circulation Administration Department at 832-393-2222 (option 3).  We will be happy to assist you in any way that we are able.

The following is the link to the template:

https://cohowa.houstontx.gov/owa/attachment.ashx?attach=1&id=RgAAAADMoulUvUHRSoH4N56aqb17BwCHKRnWc1dvTKFzlflnjTfyAABonAO0AACf4OBHoJWARpbT7dX1QPBlAh3AD0x%2fAAAJ&attid0=EAD64j7dWZfpTqLVkXEGodeh&attcnt=1

Pedro

Remote Access to Databases

From Syma 7/10/13:

Our new method of authenticating users for remote access to our databases is not yet working.  We expect it to be functioning by this weekend.  The only customers who will be affected by this delay are customers with brand new cards that were created in Symphony (either offline or online).  If a new customer reports a problem in logging in to a database remotely, please refer them to Telephone Reference (832-393-1313).  The staff in TR will have a temporary access code that the customers can use.

Thank you for your assistance.  We are working on resolving this problem as quickly as possible.

Pedro

Computer Reservation System

From Judith Hiott 7/10/13:

The computer reservation system will be  authenticating using the Sirsi Dynix Symphony as of today.  The only difference is that there may be two times that you have to click an OK button. Currently you only click OK once.

As you use the system this week, it is very important that you contact the IT Helpdesk immediately if there are any issues.

Thank you for your cooperation and patience as we make this transition.

Pedro

Computer Updates

From Robert Bliss 7/9/13:

I started the Update this past Saturday.

It does not have an expiration date, so whenever you can do this, it will start the update.

I am going to be using this system to update all the public computers, I know everyone will not be able to do it the same day of the week, but if we can do this within the same week, that would work. This is a much better program to use since all the computers are not on at the same time. I will let each of you know, when and what updates I will be pushing out to them.

Also a heads up, the new public reservation computers will have Deep Freeze on them, so you will be leaving them on at night when you leave, and after updates to windows and the anti-virus completes it will turn them off some nights. So please leave all public and staff computers on at night. The staff ones do not need to be logged in, just left on.

Again thanks for your help with this.

I know we will be getting fewer complaints from the public, when we get all the computers up to date.

Pedro

Staff Lockers

Hello everyone,

Pedro found some locks in his office that are intended to be used by staff at each location on the lockers.  If you would like to use one, please email Pedro.  You’ll be given a key, and he’ll have the spare.

Thanks,

Carol

Offline Update

From Syma 7/5:

Any items that you receive in Delivery to fill holds should be held until we go live in Symphony next week.  Until that time, we have no way to update the system with their status or notify customers that they are ready to pick up.  So please keep them in your work area for the next week.  Once we are live on Symphony, you can scan them in so that a hold slip will print and the notices to the customers will be generated.  Thank you for your cooperation.

The Print Shop is working on signs as well as handouts that highlight our change in circulation periods.  You should receive these by July 11, our “go-live” date.  In the meantime, the information has been posted on the Library’s public blog.  You may want to print out some copies of page 2 of the blog (according to the print preview on my computer, the blog runs 20 pages) and refer customers there, if there are any questions.

I have also heard that staff would like a sign indicating we are not accepting fines while we are offline.  I am sorry but I did not think to request that ahead of time and, with the holiday, you would probably not receive it until we were ready to start accepting fines again.  If a customer asks, please explain that we do not have access to their accounts.  We certainly do not want to accept their money and not have the ability to actually clear the fines from their accounts. 

I hope everyone made it through the first day of offline circulation with relatively few problems.  Have a wonderful 4^th of July holiday. 

Pedro

SirsiDynix User Names and Passwords

From Syma Zerkow, 7/1:

You will soon be receiving an email from Erin Cody that will have your new SirsiDynix user name and password.  Please do not lose this information.  Starting July 11, you will need it to log in to the live Symphony Workflows system.

If you have not received an email with this information by Friday, July 5, please contact Erin at erin.cody@houstontx.gov

Pedro

ILL Holds

ILL holds can be checked in while offline but you must contact the customer to let them know that it is here for them to pick up.

Pedro

SirsiDynix Symphony Offline Circulation Procedures

From Fred 7/2/13:

Greetings everyone.

Tomorrow is the day we begin conducting all circulation transactions (check outs, check ins, registrations) in the Sirsidynix Symphony Offline Circulation.  Instructions for opening and setting up the Symphony Offline Circulation module is:

https://cohowa.houstontx.gov/owa/attachment.ashx?attach=1&id=RgAAAADMoulUvUHRSoH4N56aqb17BwCHKRnWc1dvTKFzlflnjTfyAABonAO0AACf4OBHoJWARpbT7dX1QPBlAh2%2fLqgKAAAJ&attid0=EACduf9isDpbQbwY7A%2bgGOhN&attcnt=1 

You will need to follow the procedures in the attachment for each computer on which you conduct offline circulation transactions from 07/03/13 through 07/10/13.  

The following are the due dates to set for “Default due date” in step 6 d:

on 07/03/13, set the default due date to 07/24/13

on 07/04/13, we’re closed for the holiday.  Do not set a default due date.

on 07/05/13, set the default due date to 07/26/13

on 07/06/13, set the default due date to 07/27/13

on 07/07/13, set the default due date to 07/28/13

on 07/08/13, set the default due date to 07/29/13

on 07/09/13, set the default due date to 07/30/13

on 07/10/13, set the default due date to 07/31/13

For sites with Self Check and Materials Sorters, you need to also do the following:

Self Checks – leave the self check units turned on, but put Out Of Order signs on them and direct customers to Symphony Offline Circulation stations for service.

Materials Sorters – turn them off at the close of business today (07/02/13).

Thank you for your assistance with this.  If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Circulation Administration Department.  We will be delighted to help in any way that we are able.

Pedro

Limited Patron Database Access

From Fred 7/2/13:

Hello everyone.

We have some good news to share with you regarding patron database access during the offline migration period – 07/03/13 through 07/10/13.  Along with our colleagues in HALAN, we have figured out a way to make a stripped down version of the III database available to you during the time we will be circulating in Symphony Offline Circulation. 

Between on 07/03/13 and 07/10/13 (inclusive), you will login to Symphony Offline Circulation to provide basic circulation services to customers – Registration, Check Out and Check In.  You will not conduct any financial transactions with customers during this period.  Since the Symphony system will be operating in Offline Mode, you will not be connected to the Symphony server and will be unable to search the user database for customer accounts.  While the III system will no longer be available for circulation services, however, it will still be available to search to determine whether a registering customer already has an HPL account, to see whether a customer has fines owed and, if so, how much is owed.  This will also provide a means by which you can look up a customer’s library card barcode number,  which will be required to circulate to the customer in Symphony.  Keep in mind, though, the III system will not be available for conducting circulation transactions of any type during this period.  It will ONLY be available for informational purposes until the Symphony system becomes fully operational on 07/11/13.

We are delighted to be able to offer this limited access to the III patron database from 07/03/13 through 07/10/13.  I hope this additional tool alleviates some of the frustration and inconvenience of the offline migration period for you and your customers.  If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact the Circulation Administration Department at 832-393-2222 (option 3) or email us at circinfo@hpl.lib.tx.us.  We will be happy to assist you in any way we are able.

Pedro