Hello,
Is there any news about this yet?
Chris Jones
Bangor University
PHILLIPS M.E. wrote:
> Hello Lee,
>
> It's true that the BL say you can carry on exactly as before, but unfortunately that's just not true: they were forgetting the impact of systems like Millennium not sending the requests through in the preferred order. I suspect that the software developers for the new system were working to the published specification, and expected that everyone observed the "preferred" field order, which has never been obligatory.
>
> Although the ARTEmail guide we've been referring to in this discussion is dated November 2011, the preferred field order was defined quite a number of years before that. My first involvement with ILL was implementing the Aleph ILL module in the summer of 2006 at Dundee, and the preferred field order was the same then. I had the impression from my ILL colleagues at Dundee that the preferred field order had been in place for a number of years before that. It could even date back to ARTTel days, or to the dial-up system which preceded it.
>
> Here's a document from 2004 showing exactly the same field order:
>
> http://www.nii.ac.jp/CAT-ILL/about/infoill/pdf/artguide.pdf
>
> So Millennium has been sending the messages in a non-preferred format for at least eight years. I doubt that the preferred field order has ever been changed by the BL, but it's possible that there didn't used to be a preference stated.
>
> There are quite a number of statements in what you have quoted from the BL which suggest that the system will be more lenient and reject fewer requests. I think, however, that the lenience only extends to things like the 40 character limit per line, and the 11-line limit for the request, which Millennium is complying with anyway. We're still getting some requests rejected because Millennium has put too many blank lines in the middle of the request.
>
> Judith Walton, who's in charge of ILL here, tells me that we set up Millennium ILL in 2000. During the set up the library can choose what order the fields appear in the ILL forms, so potentially all of us Millennium users could have different fields defined and a different ordering. The messages Millennium sends to the BL simply follow the field ordering in the Millennium system and do not make any concession to the BL's preferred order. Judith thinks that the BL had a preferred field order back then, or soon after, at least, as we were aware we were deviating from it.
>
> If you were canny, therefore, you might have set up your fields to match the BL's preferred order. We did this for book requests, and have not had half so many problems with them under the new system. However, for journal articles, because of the large volume of ILLs being handled at Durham in those days, and the fact that they all had to be hand-keyed by staff, we set up the field order to match the common citation order. So our ARTEmail requests look like this:
>
> TXDR99999 S SED99
> Smith, Charlene M.
> Scripts: A Tool for Cognitive Rehearsal
> JOURNAL OF CONTINUING EDUCATION IN
> NURSING
> 2011
> vol 42 pt 12
> pp 535-536
> 0022-0124
>
> This is slightly different from what Leeds are producing: we have a combined volume/part field, whereas theirs are on separate lines. At some stage we looked into getting our fields into the order preferred by the BL but we were told by Innovative that the module would have to be set up from scratch again.
>
> The BL tell us they can always spot the ISSN, wherever it appears, so requests with ISSNs tend to work better. Their recognition software has been improving during the beta testing period, but we're still getting more rejections than we used to. I expect their software will spot things like "vol" and "pp", but these are not guaranteed to be present: it depends whether the user has keyed them into the request form, and whether our staff adjust the request before transmission. One sticking point is that the BL prefer the journal title to be on the first line after the request header. In our case it's on the third line, or (if the article title is long) the fourth, fifth or sixth line. Obviously it's rather hard for the BL to spot it, especially as many journals do not have the word "Journal" (or Revue, Zeitschrift etc.) in the title. It's far easier for their software if the journal title is in the right place.
>
> I notice that Millennium puts a space at the start of any line which is a continuation from the previous line, so this could in theory be exploited at the BL's end to re-join and identify the fields. But that would require a Millennium-specific development on the BL's part, and would not be in accordance with their specification.
>
> I think we need to approach this from as many angles as possible:
>
> 1. The BL may be able to improve their software still further. I don't suppose they would be keen on per-customer configuration, so it's going to have to be a more general approach. The question is, how general can we be about Millennium systems when the field order can be completely different?
>
> 2. Lobbying Innovative is most likely to yield results. I am told it worked (after a lot of lobbying) for Secure Electronic Delivery. Putting in calls to CS Direct as individual institutions, and talking to Graham and any other contacts, would be worth doing. But I think an approach by the EIUG committee would be useful too.
>
> 3. Can't think of any other angles! Except the desperate one of redirecting our ARTEmail requests to a local e-mail address, and reprocessing the files ourselves using a cunning piece of scripting. Technically possible but very much the last resort!
>
> At some stage, we need to agree a specification for the improvements we would like from Innovative. It would be useful to understand the range of Millennium request formats out there. How much variety is there among our systems? I think the approach has to be along the lines I outlined yesterday, with a template for each request type under the customer's control, allowing us to position the fields exactly as required.
>
> While we are about it, I would like to see a problem fixed in the request generation. I mentioned that we sometimes see blank lines in the middle of our requests. For example:
>
> TXDR99999 S FXBK99
> MAXFIELD, M
> SOLUTION AND SOLID-STATE STUDIES OF
>
>
>
> MOLECULAR CRYSTALS AND LIQUID CRYSTALS
> 1981
> vol 65 3-4
> pp 161-178
> 0140-6566
>
> In this example, the article title was quite long, and would have spanned four lines in total. However, the word after "OF" is a very long name of a chemical, which exceeds 40 characters. It seems that Millennium has worked out that four lines are required for the title, but when it is filling the buffer with the title text it bombs out when it hits this word which won't fit, and we end up with a gap in the middle of the request which the BL's system objects to. In this case it rejected the whole batch of 11 requests.
>
> Matthew
>
>
>
> From: This list is for current and potential users of the Innopac system [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Leo O'Neill
> Sent: 27 February 2012 11:27
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: ARTEmail, BLDSS and Millennium ILL
>
> Matthew,
>
> Thanks for that, but this excellent bit of marketing by the BL (below) does seem to be saying in more than 1 place that I can continue sending ARTEMAIL requests in the same format I have been?
>
> Do you know when the field order changed (fields merged)? The ARTEMAIL guide below is dated Nov 2011, is this when BL changed the field order for ARTEMAIL to accomodate the new system?
>
> http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/atyourdesk/docsupply/help/bldss/replycodes/BLDSSguidetoARTEmail.pdf
>
> 2. Preparing for the new system
> 2.1. What do we need to do to use the new system?
>
> Nothing initially, and if you want to continue using ARTEmail to make requests to us you can still do this.
> However, if you wish to take advantage of the full range of benefits our new online interface will offer: searching, ordering, tracking and administrative tools… then there will be a number of processes involved to get you and your users ready to take advantage of all benefits.
> 2.2 Will it require any IT changes at our end?
> No IT changes are necessary.
> If you want to take advantage of the new web based interface, it should be noted that the site uses Adobe® Flash® Player.
> 4. Placing an order
> 4.1 Will I still be able to use ARTEmail to request items when the new system is launched?
> Yes! If a user would like to continue to request using ARTEmail they can. In fact requesting via ARTEmail has also been improved, thanks to improved back office systems fewer ARTEmail requests will be failed. Additionally, if your administrator chooses the ‘Fix Format’ option, when sending in batch requests if one request is formatted incorrectly the entire batch will no longer fail - only that particular order.
> If you request by ARTEmail you will still be able to track your orders using the administrative interface, and you can continue to receive daily intray reports by email.
> 4.2 Will the formatting restrictions for ARTEmail be less rigid?
> The formatting rules for ARTEmail requests remain the same though the rules have been relaxed so that the new system will reject fewer request.
> Regards Leo
> Leo O'Neill
> Head of Library Development
> University of Bedfordshire, UK
> Tel: 01582 743404 (fax 489325)
> Mb: 07912 999012
> [log in to unmask]
>
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