This month's Tip reminds how everyone can help PrairieCat maintain a clean database by reporting duplicate records or other needed cleanup to the PrairieCat Cataloging Services Team. Click here for more details!
The Administrative Council approved restructuring of the PrairieCat standing committees at their February 2017 meeting. Bylaws changes to reflect a new structure for the Circulation Users Group, the Technical Services Users Group, the Training Committee and a new Technology Users Group will be presented at the April 2017 Delegates Assembly for approval. PrairieCat is also instituting regional Member Update meetings to be held twice a year in seven locations across PrairieCat. Read more about these changes in the attached overview document.
Please Act Now & Stay in the Know!
Our current PrairieCat emergency notification tool, PC Chat, is being replaced. The new product is called NetSupport Notify, or in short, NSN.
NSN will be PrairieCat’s staff emergency broadcasting tool. PrairieCat staff will use this tool to send out emergency messages that pertain to system issues/outages that could affect multiple locations.
April 15, 2017 is the date we will shut down PC Chat. Please have NSN installed by then on any workstation that has Sierra installed, so all staff can be informed of any critical PrairieCat issue.
Please see the attached pdf for install instructions.
Strategic planning helps to chart the way forward for our organization. Let your voice be heard by participating in a Planning with PrairieCat meeting in March. Register in L2 for one of the seven sessions.
This month's Tip of the Month reviews tips for adding a “web message” to a patron’s account in My Account. This is a useful way to let the patron know they need to provide library staff with updated information, or they have forgotten something at the library, etc. Click here for a document on how to add a Web Message to a patron’s record.
A change has recently been made to the categories on the Resources page of the PrairieCat support website, at the suggestion of the Training Committee. They asked that the Tips of the Month be separated into their own category and arranged alphabetically by topic instead of by date. They also asked that the “official” PrairieCat training manuals be put in their own category so they are easy to find. Check out all the resources available at: https://support.prairiecat.info/documentation. A big thank you to the Training Committee for their continued work on training resources for staff and patrons!
The following PrairieCat training sessions are offered On Demand and in-person at the three RAILS Service Centers (Bolingbrook, Coal Valley and Rockford):
The following PrairieCat training session is offered On Demand via GoTo Training:
On Demand training classes are scheduled based on the needs of the member requesting the class, but will then be added to L2 and announced to the PrairieCat membership for any other interested attendees to register.
To request On Demand training, visit the PrairieCat Support website to find the On Demand training form.
Did you miss Delegates Assembly? Or want to review what happened? Check out this one page Delegates Assembly brief. The minutes will be approved at the next meeting, then posted as usual.