Hello everyone. The public library system that I work for has just recently joined the Koha family. I am loving the versatility of the system. We are using the Patron Messaging Preferences for the standard overdue and circulation notices. We wonder if there is room for an enhancement that would allow customers to select and receive periodic lists of newly accessioned items they are interested in? In our case I was thinking of basing lists on Koha Item types for the adults, and possibly more encompassing lists for the junior and teen books. How I envision it working is patrons would be able to see what lists were available by logging into the online catalogue and select individual lists that meet their borrowing interests. They would be able to select how often they would like to receive the lists; with weekly, fortnightly or monthly options. I would think the emailed list would include the author and title of the item and a small cover image. By being able to push this information out to customers via email we may increase our patronage. Has anyone done something like this? Regards Susan McMillan Acquisitions and Systems Librarian South Taranaki District Libraries 06 278 0555 or freecall 0800 111 323 ext 8706 ,sue.mcmillan@stdc.govt.nz http//:www.southtaranaki.com This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential and privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this e-mail and destroy any copies. Any dissemination or use of this information by a person other than the intended recipient is unauthorised and may be illegal. Please note that this communication does not designate an information system for the purposes of the Electronic Transactions Act 2002. <p><b>CAN'T OPEN ATTACHMENTS?</b></p> The Council has upgraded to Microsoft office 2007 suite. This may mean you cannot open attachments if you have older versions of office. <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=941B3470-3AE9-4AEE-8F43-C6BB74CD1466&displaylang=en"> Click here to access Microsoft Office 2007's compatibility website.<a/>
Anything is possible of course! I wanted to point out that every search in Koha has an RSS feed and you can subscribe to RSS feeds as emails using the right tools. That means you could set up canned searches for the lists of new items you want to notify people of and teach them about RSS feeds. Hope that helps for now, Nicole C. Engard Documentation Manager 2011/4/17 Sue McMillan <sue.mcmillan@stdc.govt.nz>:
Hello everyone.
The public library system that I work for has just recently joined the Koha family. I am loving the versatility of the system.
We are using the Patron Messaging Preferences for the standard overdue and circulation notices. We wonder if there is room for an enhancement that would allow customers to select and receive periodic lists of newly accessioned items they are interested in? In our case I was thinking of basing lists on Koha Item types for the adults, and possibly more encompassing lists for the junior and teen books.
How I envision it working is patrons would be able to see what lists were available by logging into the online catalogue and select individual lists that meet their borrowing interests. They would be able to select how often they would like to receive the lists; with weekly, fortnightly or monthly options.
I would think the emailed list would include the author and title of the item and a small cover image. By being able to push this information out to customers via email we may increase our patronage.
Has anyone done something like this?
Regards
Susan McMillan
Acquisitions and Systems Librarian
South Taranaki District Libraries
06 278 0555 or freecall 0800 111 323 ext 8706
,sue.mcmillan@stdc.govt.nz
http//:www.southtaranaki.com
This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential and privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this e-mail and destroy any copies. Any dissemination or use of this information by a person other than the intended recipient is unauthorised and may be illegal. Please note that this communication does not designate an information system for the purposes of the Electronic Transactions Act 2002.
CAN'T OPEN ATTACHMENTS?
The Council has upgraded to Microsoft office 2007 suite. This may mean you cannot open attachments if you have older versions of office. Click here to access Microsoft Office 2007's compatibility website. _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
I believe that Sue was talking about the explicit "lists" feature, what used to be called "virtual shelves". My understanding is that this feature now uses the same display code as search results (without XSLT). Does this mean that patrons can subscribe to these lists via RSS? I think a Koha-managed "RSS feed to email" facility tied to patron-controlled preferences (digests) would be a great future enhancement. On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 6:18 AM, Nicole Engard <nengard@gmail.com> wrote:
Anything is possible of course! I wanted to point out that every search in Koha has an RSS feed and you can subscribe to RSS feeds as emails using the right tools. That means you could set up canned searches for the lists of new items you want to notify people of and teach them about RSS feeds.
Hope that helps for now, Nicole C. Engard Documentation Manager
2011/4/17 Sue McMillan <sue.mcmillan@stdc.govt.nz>:
Hello everyone.
The public library system that I work for has just recently joined the Koha family. I am loving the versatility of the system.
We are using the Patron Messaging Preferences for the standard overdue and circulation notices. We wonder if there is room for an enhancement that would allow customers to select and receive periodic lists of newly accessioned items they are interested in? In our case I was thinking of basing lists on Koha Item types for the adults, and possibly more encompassing lists for the junior and teen books.
How I envision it working is patrons would be able to see what lists were available by logging into the online catalogue and select individual lists that meet their borrowing interests. They would be able to select how often they would like to receive the lists; with weekly, fortnightly or monthly options.
I would think the emailed list would include the author and title of the item and a small cover image. By being able to push this information out to customers via email we may increase our patronage.
Has anyone done something like this?
Regards
Susan McMillan
Acquisitions and Systems Librarian
South Taranaki District Libraries
06 278 0555 or freecall 0800 111 323 ext 8706
,sue.mcmillan@stdc.govt.nz
http//:www.southtaranaki.com
This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential and privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this e-mail and destroy any copies. Any dissemination or use of this information by a person other than the intended recipient is unauthorised and may be illegal. Please note that this communication does not designate an information system for the purposes of the Electronic Transactions Act 2002.
CAN'T OPEN ATTACHMENTS?
The Council has upgraded to Microsoft office 2007 suite. This may mean you cannot open attachments if you have older versions of office. Click here to access Microsoft Office 2007's compatibility website. _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
_______________________________________________ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
You are right that the lists now look like the search results, but they do not have the RSS feed by default. There are however custom RSS feeds that you can create for any types of content: http://koha-community.org/documentation/3-4-manual-en/?ch=x11425#customrss Also, Sue mentioned she wanted new titles of specific types - you can easily get that with just search on the type and sorting it by acquisitions date so that was my thinking as a way to offer what she wants right now without a new development. Nicole On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 12:28 AM, <hansbkk@gmail.com> wrote:
I believe that Sue was talking about the explicit "lists" feature, what used to be called "virtual shelves". My understanding is that this feature now uses the same display code as search results (without XSLT). Does this mean that patrons can subscribe to these lists via RSS?
I think a Koha-managed "RSS feed to email" facility tied to patron-controlled preferences (digests) would be a great future enhancement.
On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 6:18 AM, Nicole Engard <nengard@gmail.com> wrote:
Anything is possible of course! I wanted to point out that every search in Koha has an RSS feed and you can subscribe to RSS feeds as emails using the right tools. That means you could set up canned searches for the lists of new items you want to notify people of and teach them about RSS feeds.
Hope that helps for now, Nicole C. Engard Documentation Manager
2011/4/17 Sue McMillan <sue.mcmillan@stdc.govt.nz>:
Hello everyone.
The public library system that I work for has just recently joined the Koha family. I am loving the versatility of the system.
We are using the Patron Messaging Preferences for the standard overdue and circulation notices. We wonder if there is room for an enhancement that would allow customers to select and receive periodic lists of newly accessioned items they are interested in? In our case I was thinking of basing lists on Koha Item types for the adults, and possibly more encompassing lists for the junior and teen books.
How I envision it working is patrons would be able to see what lists were available by logging into the online catalogue and select individual lists that meet their borrowing interests. They would be able to select how often they would like to receive the lists; with weekly, fortnightly or monthly options.
I would think the emailed list would include the author and title of the item and a small cover image. By being able to push this information out to customers via email we may increase our patronage.
Has anyone done something like this?
Regards
Susan McMillan
Acquisitions and Systems Librarian
South Taranaki District Libraries
06 278 0555 or freecall 0800 111 323 ext 8706
,sue.mcmillan@stdc.govt.nz
http//:www.southtaranaki.com
This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential and privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this e-mail and destroy any copies. Any dissemination or use of this information by a person other than the intended recipient is unauthorised and may be illegal. Please note that this communication does not designate an information system for the purposes of the Electronic Transactions Act 2002.
CAN'T OPEN ATTACHMENTS?
The Council has upgraded to Microsoft office 2007 suite. This may mean you cannot open attachments if you have older versions of office. Click here to access Microsoft Office 2007's compatibility website. _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
_______________________________________________ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
Op maandag 18 april 2011 23:46:28 schreef Nicole Engard:
You are right that the lists now look like the search results, but they do not have the RSS feed by default. There are however custom RSS feeds that you can create for any types of content
RSS feeds are great, but most people don't know about them or what they are. A cron job that runs weekly, bi-weekly & monthly, looks up the people who have mentioned that they want to receive new items at that frequency of a set of types, takes the output similar to that made by the RSS generator, and fires it off to them would a) be worthwhile and b) a fun project to implement, I think. You could also roll other things into it, e.g. news that's been published to the OPAC within the selected timespan, or have a special notice section for emails to make it really easy for libraries to set up newsletter-style things with news and new items, customised to what that user wants to see. Bonus points if there is also added the feature to do librarian reviews and have these included with the items if they're available (as STDC does here: http://libraryplus.blogspot.com/ but actually attached to the record.) Of course, now it's becoming less of a medium-sized project and more of a big one :) As much as I wish everyone would just use RSS, I don't see it happening (hell, I have an RSS reader open pretty much all the time, and forget to check it more than once every week or two.) However, everyone (almost) understands email and knows how to work it. -- Robin Sheat Catalyst IT Ltd. ✆ +64 4 803 2204
I completely agree about the geek-factor of RSS, but would argue that such a project should go for the best of both worlds. Have Koha "publish" such "newsletter/new accessions/librarian reviews/lists/recommendations" etc. fundamentally as an RSS stream so it's available in that more user-friendly and elegant format for those savvy enough to make use of it. And then allow patrons to set their preferences to have the stream emailed to them, for those that like email.
From here none of this is a "little project" but I wholeheartedly agree it would be way cool, fun and a very valuable addition to Koha's value from "customer relations" POV.
2011/4/18 Robin Sheat <robin@catalyst.net.nz>:
Op maandag 18 april 2011 23:46:28 schreef Nicole Engard:
You are right that the lists now look like the search results, but they do not have the RSS feed by default. There are however custom RSS feeds that you can create for any types of content
RSS feeds are great, but most people don't know about them or what they are.
A cron job that runs weekly, bi-weekly & monthly, looks up the people who have mentioned that they want to receive new items at that frequency of a set of types, takes the output similar to that made by the RSS generator, and fires it off to them would a) be worthwhile and b) a fun project to implement, I think.
You could also roll other things into it, e.g. news that's been published to the OPAC within the selected timespan, or have a special notice section for emails to make it really easy for libraries to set up newsletter-style things with news and new items, customised to what that user wants to see.
Bonus points if there is also added the feature to do librarian reviews and have these included with the items if they're available (as STDC does here: http://libraryplus.blogspot.com/ but actually attached to the record.)
Of course, now it's becoming less of a medium-sized project and more of a big one :)
As much as I wish everyone would just use RSS, I don't see it happening (hell, I have an RSS reader open pretty much all the time, and forget to check it more than once every week or two.) However, everyone (almost) understands email and knows how to work it.
-- Robin Sheat Catalyst IT Ltd. ✆ +64 4 803 2204
_______________________________________________ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
participants (4)
-
hansbkk＠gmail.com -
Nicole Engard -
Robin Sheat -
Sue McMillan