> -----Original Message-----
> From: This list is for current and potential users of the Innopac
system
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Diane C Leeson
> Sent: 24 February 2012 17:43
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: ARTEmail, BLDSS and Millennium ILL
>
> Just a comment after a little reflection - that while we do need to
ask
> Innovative to get Millennium changed to output in the desired format,
it
> appears to be the BL who are causing the problem by changing their
> system and expecting everyone to be able to comply.
I disagree. The BL specification has not changed, or at least not in
the last eight years: there has long been a recommendation for the field
order and content of the requests. The Innovative ILL module, as set up
here, has never complied with this specification.
The change is that the BL is moving from a system of handling the
requests largely manually to one which automatically matches the fields
against their systems, so it is now far more important that the requests
place the fields in the right order. The system has only worked in the
past because the BL had human beings reading the requests, and the
humans were much better at identifying the fields from their content.
Durham would also like to join in a combined petition to Innovative to
get this fixed. If we make it clear that a large number of UK customers
need this change making, perhaps it will be done outside of the IUG
enhancements process. If so far only Leeds have put in a request, it is
quite possible that Innovative have not appreciated that we all need it.
Durham has also been a beta site, and we've been having terrible
problems, not just with the automated processing. There are lots of
other teething problems as well!
I am not clear whether all Millennium systems produce their requests in
the same order. If that were the case then a fall-back position would
be to ask the BL to modify their system to cope with what Millennium
outputs. But our ILL expert here has the strong impression that
Millennium simply outputs the request to the BL in the same order that
the fields were set up in the system, and that that order was chosen by
us when we set up the module. Looking at the Getting Started Manual
seems to confirm this: although Millennium has a default order for the
fields it is possible for a library to ask for the prompts (and in
effect, the meaning of the fields) to be changed.
Even if the fields were in a different order internally, it is hard to
see how Millennium in its present state could output something like:
2007 vol 17 pt 1 pp 125-140
where four different fields appear on one line.
Asking Innovative to sort this out is definitely the way ahead. Ideally
we need configuration files similar to the system employed by Aleph
which I had experience of setting up at Dundee. Aleph had a separate
template for each request type (Conference paper, Journal article, Book,
Book chapter, etc.) in which we were able to define constant text (such
as "VOL" and positions where a field value would be inserted. This
meant that we could tune the output without having to request Ex Libris
to do major software development.
Matthew
--
Matthew Phillips
Electronic Systems Librarian, Durham University
Durham University Library, Stockton Road, Durham, DH1 3LY
+44 (0)191 334 2941
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