Shutting down Voyager systems, library catalogs, and SFX

June 4, 2020

Background

On June 24, 2020, all I-Share institutions "go live" with Alma and Primo VE.  On that date, Alma becomes the institution’s system of record for data and ongoing work by staff users, and Primo VE becomes the discovery interface for your end-users.  Alma and Primo VE also contain link resolver functionality that replaces SFX.

Access to Voyager systems and library catalogs after June 24, 2020

From June 24, 2020 until October 30, 2020, CARLI plans to provide a static copy of Voyager for staff clients, MS Access reporting, and Voyager Web Reports, and a read-only version of local library catalogs and the I-Share union catalog that are derived from Voyager data (including New VuFind, VuFind 0.6, and Classic WebVoyage).  All services will be retired after Oct. 30, 2020.

• I-Share library staff will be able to log into Voyager to consult it for bibliographic, patron, and other data questions. Any edits made to Voyager will not be applied to Alma or Primo VE.
• I-Share library staff will be able to run reports against Voyager via MS Access or Voyager Web Reports.
• Library end-users will be able to log into and reference their static accounts in New VuFind, VuFind 0.6 or WebVoyage. For example, they can view items saved to account Favorites or Saved Items in the three library catalog interfaces. CARLI will provide reports of users with saved items for each institution should they wish to contact their end-users.
• New VuFind, VuFind 0.6, and WebVoyage data will be frozen. Users will not be able to request items or renew items.
• New VuFind, VuFind 0.6, and WebVoyage will have a banner at the top informing users that the catalog is frozen and read-only as of June 18, 2020 and that it will no longer be accessible after Oct. 30, 2020. We also plan to include a link to a CARLI webpage that will have links to Primo VE.
• The existing connection information and URLs to all services will remain the same, but CARLI reserves the right to change them, if necessary, before the services are retired on Oct. 30, 2020.  Any such changes will be communicated to the I-Share community in advance.

While this is our intention, it is dependent on the ongoing health of the server systems and hardware in our Urbana data center.  After June 24, 2020, if one of the systems should suffer a catastrophic failure, CARLI staff may not be able to fix it quickly, if at all.

Access to SFX after June 24, 2020

CARLI will continue running SFX until October 30, 2020. This is dependent on the ongoing health of the physical server systems in our Urbana data center.  After June 24, 2020, if one of the systems should suffer a catastrophic failure, CARLI staff may not be able to fix it quickly, if at all.

• After June 24, there will be no more weekly updates to SFX, so the underlying data will become less and less useful as time goes by.
• Plan to use the Alma and Primo VE link resolver as soon as possible after June 24, 2020.
• As previously announced, CARLI will run reports for each SFX library in July 2020 to produce the last three years usage data for selected queries.

Reports of users with saved Items in their Library Catalog accounts

To assist I-Share libraries in helping their end-users during this transition to Primo VE, CARLI will provide I-Share libraries with reports of users’ email addresses who have saved titles to their catalog accounts (in each of the three library catalogs that are derived from Voyager data) as of June 1, 2020:

• New VuFind Saved Items – report is named XXX_newvufind_saveditems.csv
• VuFind 0.6 Favorites – report is named XXX_vufind06_favorites.csv
• Classic WebVoyage Bookbag – report is named xxx_webvoyage_mybookbag.csv

CARLI will upload these reports to each institution’s XXX Box folder and the xxxftp folder on the CARLI Files server by 5pm on June 5, 2020.  (Note: Your institution may not have a file from every catalog.)

The New VuFind Saved Items and VuFind 0.6 Favorites reports will contain:

• The user’s Voyager barcode (if known)
• The user’s email address (if known)
• A count of the number of saved items/favorites
• The last date that an item was saved to the account

The Classic WebVoyage MyBookbag report will contain:

• The user’s Voyager Patron Record ID
• The user’s Voyager barcode (if known)
• The user’s email address (if known)
• A count of the number of saved items in the bookbag
• The last date that an item was saved to the account

You may open a .csv file with Excel or a similar program in order to further sort or edit the file.  For example, you may wish to resort by the date that the users last saved items to their account.

I-Share institutions may wish use these reports to contact library catalog users who have recently saved items to their accounts to let them know that these catalogs are being discontinued and replaced with Primo VE.  

If you have any questions or concerns, contact us at CARLI Support. Thank you.