Alexandria Tip of the Week

Start Your Engines! Helpful Tips for the New Year.

Welcome back, school librarians! Please remember to check the Library Start Up tech note for helpful hints to have a smooth start to your year. See

http://www.goalexandria.com/support/tech_notes/guides/7_lib_startup_v5.html

Some exciting enhancements to Alexandria Web

Summary: The upcoming release of Alexandria offers some major enhancements to Alexandria Web (AlexWeb), as well as the new WebLibrarian.

Easily access the new WebLibrarian features by logging into AlexWeb using an Administrative level username and password (see Figure 1). The WebLibrarian client allows users to circulate items, catalog items, add patrons, run circulation reports, and remotely start certain utilities.

Figure 1: Logging in from AlexWeb

The WebLibrarian Circulation window (see Figure 2) allows the user to utilize different circulation commands such as Check In/Check Out, Bookdrop, Renewal, Holds, etc. By clicking on the headings below the tabs at the top of the window, such as Trans Log, Cmd Help, and Hold, the user can view the correlating information — just as one does from the regular Circulation window. 

Figure 2: WebLibrarian Circulation window.

Clicking on the Management tab displays a pane allowing the user to add, modify, or remove Items or Patrons (see Figures 3 and 4). Click on the label to choose whether to view item entries or patron entries. Though the format is slightly different, the same information can be entered or modified as one does from the regular Librarian Workstation.

Figure 3: WebLibrarian Item Management window.

Figure 4: WebLibrarian Patron Management window.

The Search tab takes the user to an AlexWeb Researcher window. The user can click on the Open Web Researcher button to complete a search using Boolean, Simple, Explore (if added), Browse, Study Program, and Z39.50 (also, if added). Selected results can then be saved to the Saved Basket and then printed in the desired format (see Figure 5). Doing a search using the Boolean settings from the Search tab allows the user to select to view an item's details or to display the item in the Management tab (hand and pencil icon) or as the current item in the Circulation tab (book icon). See Figure 6.

Figure 5: Web Researcher Boolean Search ready to print to basket.

Figure 6: Boolean Search from WebLibrarian.

The Reports tab allows the user to select the desired collection and report to run remotely (see Figure 7).

Figure 7: Various reports available from WebLibrarian.

Certain Utilities can also be run from the Utilities tab. The Standard option allows the user to select either a utility to run remotely from the upper drop-down menu or a statistics report from the lower one (see Figure 8). When the Enhanced option is selected from the upper right corner of the page. The main utilities display as buttons at the top of the pane and the statistics information such as the status of the installer resource files already appear and can be scrolled through (see Figure 9).

Figure 8: Available WebLibrarian Standard Utilities.

Figure 9: Available WebLibrarian Enhanced Utilities.

The final tab is the Preferences tab. This allows the user to modify the Web Researcher settings using both the Web settings and Patron settings (see Figures 10 and 11).

Figure 10: WebLibrarian Web Preferences.

Figure 11: WebLibrarian Patron Preferences.

We hope these new features are helpful for remote circulation, cataloging, etc. Our goal is to continue to provide you with innovative, user-friendly software that assists you in being as organized and efficient as possible. We wish you all well this coming school year.

Thank you,

The Alexandria Staff Librarians