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SAN JUAN ISLAND LIBRARY |
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Millennium Working to Serve You
As promised I am following up this week with more great news about our new catalog system, Millennium. But before I get to that I want to sneak in a word about a short survey (I promise, it really is short) we are conducting about library programs. It’s been a little over a year since we have been offering our adult programming series, and we want to gather a little more information on how it’s going and how we can continue to improve. You can access the survey through our website or directly at: www.surveymonkey.com We appreciate any feedback you can provide! Okay, now back to Millennium. In this column I will highlight a few of the behind the scene benefits that will improve patron services by increasing staff efficiency. I realize this may not seem particularly interesting at first from a patron perspective, but believe me the result is very exciting. Three important ways staff tasks are streamlined in Millennium relate to cataloging of new materials, ordering new materials, and circulation duties. In Millennium staff can easily edit records when putting new materials into the catalog. They can effortlessly move between the staff catalog view and the public catalog view to see if a record displays the way the patron expects. Staff can also more easily obtain catalog records for new materials that are not available from our main supplier. Creating original catalog records, although personally enjoyable, takes a lot of time. Therefore the more records we can find elsewhere, the better for everyone. Ordering in Millennium will reorganize our workflow by integrating ordering and cataloging. This will allow all on order items to instantaneously show up in the catalog when we place the order. This will allow patrons to then place holds on any of these on-order items. This has not been the case before. We will also have up-to-the minute statistics and reports showing how the collection funds have been spent. Millennium also makes basic circulation tasks easier with its functionality and flexibility. Although there may be an initial learning curve for staff and volunteers because of the change, they will find they will be able to do more with Millennium. They will be able to access all circulation activities from the one screen. Additionally new staff and volunteers will find it easier learning this system than our old system, as it offers a familiar web-based interface. So clearly what all of this equals is improved library service. Next week I will write about the new special features in the patron web catalog that we are all excited about. And remember we are scheduled to go live next week!!
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