CARLI News September 29, 2016

Register Now for the 2016 CARLI Annual Meeting and Directors′ Meeting

The 2016 CARLI Annual Meeting will be held Friday, November 18 at the I Hotel and Conference Center in Champaign. Staff at any CARLI member library are invited to attend. The meeting will feature an overview of several of the 2016 CARLI Committee projects in the morning and an interactive small group discussion about your ideas for the CARLI 2020 Strategic Plan in the afternoon.

To view the full agenda for the Annual Meeting and to register, visit the event page. 

Space is limited. Lunch will be served. You must register by Thursday, November 10 if you would like to attend. 

A meeting of the CARLI Library Directors will precede the Annual Meeting. Directors should register for this meeting if they are planning to attend. A separate registration is required for each meeting.

Resource Sharing Statistics: Navigating the Numbers, Harnessing the Data

Are you trying to pull those ″hard-to-find″ interlibrary loan statistics that really show how your collection is being used, but you’re not sure where to locate them? Do you need ideas for making interlibrary loan numbers more meaningful and interesting, not just to fellow library staff, but also to other departments and administrators on campus? Be sure to attend the ″Resource Sharing Statistics: Navigating the Numbers, Harnessing the Data″ webinar series, presented by the CARLI Resource Sharing Committee. 

The first webinar, covering I-Share, will take place from 10:00 to 11:00 AM on Wednesday, October 26.

The second webinar, on both WorldShare and ILLiad, will take place from 10:00 to 11:00 AM on Wednesday, November 9, with a half-hour devoted to each ILL system. 

You will have the opportunity to not only to learn or review the technical skills for manipulating the data, but also see reports and other examples of how your fellow librarians have applied the information collected. Registration for both webinars will be available soon; check CARLI calendar listings for each event. Both webinars will be recorded if you cannot attend in person. 

Collaborative Collection Development: Education and Unique Purchases

The Collection Management Committee is holding two open conference calls for collaborative collection development pilot projects in Education and Unique Purchases (one-time pledges to purchase unique print books available in I-share). During these calls, we will discuss collaboration within these subject areas. All are welcome to call in.
  
Education meeting information: Wednesday, October 12, from 3 pm to 4 pm (CST)

Join online to share documents/video: http://webjunctionillinois.adobeconnect.com/collectionmanagement/

Join by phone, conference ID: 28211261

+1 888 983 3631 (toll-free)
+1 217 332 6338 (local Urbana-Champaign number)
+1 312 994 8410 (local Chicago number)

Unique Purchases meeting information: Wednesday, October 19th from 1 to 2 pm (CST)

Join online to share documents/video: http://webjunctionillinois.adobeconnect.com/collectionmanagement/

Join by phone, conference ID: 1829716

+1 888 983 3631 (toll-free)
+1 217 332 6338 (local Urbana-Champaign number)
+1 312 994 8410 (local Chicago number)

If you have questions about these projects, please contact Chris Diaz. You can also find more information about this project at our Google Group web page.

The Collection Management Committee will be holding additional conference calls for other subject areas in the future.

I-Share 

Introducing Web Reports Beta

CARLI is pleased to announce Voyager Web Reports Beta, a new web-based reporting tool designed by CARLI IT staff to provide an easy way for I-Share library staff to run reports against their Voyager databases without the need to install the Oracle/ODBC client and Microsoft Access. A CARLI Voyager Oracle Account and a web browser are the only requirements to use Voyager Web Reports Beta.  

There are currently over 60 reports available on the site with more reports on the way. Please view the current list of reports. The reports come from the I-Share Shared SQL for Voyager Reports, or from the stock set of queries provided by Ex Libris in Voyager's default Reports.mdb file.

Results can be viewed, sorted, and searched directly in your web browser, or they can be downloaded in CSV format for local manipulation.  
 
Log in using your existing CARLI Voyager Oracle Account username and password, the same one that you currently use to run reports and queries against your Voyager database in Microsoft Access.  I-Share Liaisons can request new Oracle accounts for staff members who do not already have one by filing a WRO for a ″Voyager Oracle Account Request″.

See our Voyager Web Reports Beta web page for more details, including site screenshots.  

If you have questions, feedback, or suggestions for new reports to add to the site, please email CARLI Feedback.

Voyager Reports Tip: Using Shared SQL

If you have ever requested a Voyager report from CARLI, you may also have received the query code for the report. Have you considered why the query sent by CARLI looks long, while other queries in the database look compact?

Structured Query Language, or SQL, provides users of relational databases—like the Oracle system used by Voyager—with a standard way to add, retrieve, and manipulate data. While powerful, SQL also supports a very simple structure comprised of one or more statements (e.g., SELECT, FROM, WHERE) and details on which database objects to use, and each statement has an expected syntax. At a basic level:

A SELECT statement includes one or more field names, which are separated by commas;
A FROM statement includes the names of tables containing those fields, and in Access SQL, tables are connected by a JOIN to other tables ON a given value that both tables share;
A WHERE statement includes one or more fields that you're using as criteria for choosing results, with criteria separated by boolean operators.

This simplicity makes SQL very portable, which is great for CARLI, in that we can share SQL to you without it losing meaning from one machine to another. As long as each statement follows the rules above, Access will run the SQL. 

There are some times when SQL is less portable than others. These are cases where the database object has a name that contains spaces. For instance, many queries contain prompts for you to enter "begin date" and "end date." Circulation queries frequently rely on the query named, "Circulation Transactions (charges)." Inside Access, where these objects appear in square brackets, as part of a single statement, they behave normally. 

However, when we send the SQL, another program may change the format of the message and break the syntax. Frequently, email software may automatically insert line breaks after the end of a word when wrapping text across lines. For instance

[Circulation Transactions (charges)].CHARGE_DATE 

could be transformed into

[Circulation Transactions {line break}
(charges)].CHARGE_DATE

The line break makes one object appear to be two separate objects. Thus the query fails to run and gives you an error. This is partly why CARLI staff may insert numerous line breaks in SQL that we send to you. (Readability is the other reason!) By reducing the number of characters on each line, we hopefully keep the line breaks from appearing in unfortunate places. That said, we want you to be aware of this because sometimes the line break may get in the wrong place anyway. Knowing this, you can now watch for this kind of situation on your own.

OCLC’s Transition of Batchload Services: Data Sync Collections Updates

Backloading Bibliographic Record Data Sync Collections:

On August 31, 2016, CARLI shared instructions with I-Share liaisons and Technical Services staff on reviewing your institution′s backloading data sync collection in Metadata Collection Manager. 

If your backloading project still needs to be reviewed, please do so now. 

OCLC experienced a system delay in their ability to view CARLI′s initial backloading test records sent on September 1, 2016. This delay was resolved on September 23rd. The initial backloading tests will process as soon as OCLC analysts complete their review. 

Local Holdings Records Data Sync Collections:

For I-Share libraries with ongoing local holdings records (LHR) projects, OCLC has migrated your projects to local holdings records data sync collections in OCLC′s Metadata Collection Manager. CARLI contacted all I-Share libraries with LHR projects and shared a guide for reviewing the collections by October 14th.  

Please email CARLI Support with any questions.

Preservation Tip: Watch Out for Midwest Disasters

Melanie R. Schoenborn, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and Joseph (Joe)Feigl, III, LIS graduate student at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Midwest disasters can strike at any time. They can pose dangers to buildings, staff and collections. The most common occurrences include thunderstorms, floods, power outages and fires. Libraries and other institutions of cultural heritage need to be ready to implement recovery efforts from any of these types of disasters as well as others.  

Knowing what may occur in each type of disaster can help in the planning. The newly created document Watch out for Midwest Disasters can help. You can also view this information in html format.

All institutions need resources, trained staff, and a disaster plan ready to implement when a disaster strikes. Preservation web resources are available for free through the CARLI website, including links to expert advice, assessment, coordination of recovery efforts, referrals, creating a formal disaster plan, and more under the Specific Topics blind.

Other Library News

Survey on SimplyE for Consortia

RAILS is a partner organization for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) SimplyE for Consortia: Three Clicks to All Your E-books grant project. SimplyE is a library-developed e-book application designed by the New York Public Library to improve e-book discovery, check-out, and reading. It will offer single sign-on access to multiple e-book platforms (Overdrive, Axis 360, and Bibliotheca Cloud Library). The project will develop and pilot the features required for consortial use.
 
The project′s partners request your feedback via a short 10–15 minute survey. The survey will help determine which app features to develop first, sample awareness of SimplyE within the library community, and learn more about e-book systems used in libraries and consortia. Please complete this survey by Tuesday, October 4.

Upcoming CARLI Events and Meetings

Important Dates

November 24–25       CARLI Office Closed for Thanksgiving Holiday

Forums, Workshops and Training

October 12                Collaborative Collection Development Open Conference Call
October 13                SFX Open Conference Call
October 19                Collaborative Collection Development Open Conference Call
October 26                Resource Sharing Statistics: Navigating the Numbers, Harnessing the Data
October 27                Intermediate Access Reports Training

November 9              Resource Sharing Statistics: Navigating the Numbers, Harnessing the Data
November 10            Intermediate Access Reports Training
November 18            CARLI Directors’ Meeting, I-Hotel Conference Center, Champaign
November 18            CARLI Annual Meeting, I-Hotel Conference Center, Champaign
November 22            CARLI Executive Committee Conference Call

Meetings   

October 4                   Commercial Products Committee
October 11                 Preservation Committee
October 11                 Created Content Committee
October 17                 Instruction Committee
October 17                 Collection Management Committee
October 18                 Resource Sharing Committee
October 26                 SFX Committee
October 26                 Technical Services Committee
October 28                 Public Services Committee

November 1               Commercial Products Committee
November 7               Collection Management Committee
November 8               Created Content Committee
November 14             Preservation Committee        
November 15             Resource Sharing Committee
November 17             Public Services Committee  
November 21             Instruction Committee
November 30             Technical Services Committee

Consult the CARLI calendar for the most current list of meeting times and locations.

Contact Us

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