It's that time of year again, and Paging Lists for schools will be turned off as of Monday, April 10, 2017. As of that date school library materials will not be holdable until Paging Lists resume in the fall. Schools will still be able to request materials to fill last requests for the school year. But, everyone should work on getting school materials returned before the end of the school year, and likewise school staff should work to ensure that materials are returned to other PrairieCat libraries before the end of the school year. Thanks for your cooperation.
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.
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.
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.
The following PrairieCat training sessions are offered On Demand and in-person at the three RAILS Service Centers (Bolingbrook, Coal Valley and Rockford):
Sierra Cataloging Item Entry
Sierra Serials Basic
Sierra Serials Intermediate
Sierra Create List
The following PrairieCat training session is offered On Demand via GoTo Training:
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.
If you upgrade to Windows 10, you may have to reconfigure your receipt printer settings in Sierra.
The attachment will instruct you how to reset your receipt printers configuration. This will have to be done on all PCs that have receipt printers attached.
This month's Tip of the Month reviews best practices for managing holds for library book clubs. A common problem is not allowing enough time for holds to fill if you place book club holds in advance, and then use a Not Wanted Before Date in the hold record. More tips are included in the attached document.
