Edward's blog

Working with SCRUM, customer input, become involved, and what is this new PAC about.

SCRUM is the development process that TLC uses to develop new software modules.

A new approach to customer involvement, customer feedback forum, demo and release notes, access to 24/7 LS2 PAC. http://indigopac.tlcdelivers.com

Home page for the catalog has a "Book River" feature. Can search on items that have been tagged by users. Have the ability to create a user list.

Returns results from EBSCO databases into the PAC interface.

Simon Marcus COO at TLC for eighteen months presented the corporate direction and product development in the upcoming year. Plans to become the leading ILS vendor to serve library customers now and in the future. Increasing interest in open source products. Major accomplishments was Library.Solution 4.0 and WebPac 2.0 released this year. TLC scaled the project down and shelved the cataloging module a decision that was not taken lightly. SCRUM is a method of developing new software in iterative cycles, vast amounts of software developed in the waterfall method is never delivered. Released in March of 2008, ut they found they didn't contact their customers enough. More bugs then they would have liked when it was released.

This session was presented by Doug Storer of TLC. Choose automatic authorities updating from Cataloging Utilities. The updates are received from LC weekly and TLC updates them on Mondays, one week would be sufficent. Local fields will be retained automatically if you check that choice. Controlled fields are subject to change.

OTF (on-the-fly) upgrading option will update your records if the ISBN exists on the National Biblography database.

ITS.marc changes search defaults to ISBN field, there is a new PUBmarc database. Download from the shared tips at TLC

What's new in 4.0 Pac -- Dianne Coan

New look and feel design

New search interface, new holds workflow, Graphics have been cleaned up, more modern colors. More information on the first screen, less scrolling. Mouse over effects for more infomation. Collection will be placed o the scree, rather then using mouse over effects. Can choose different themes or write you own css to customize the colors. Related searches -- Authors, Subjects, Genre. You can choose what is displayed summary rather then abstract. Cleaner graphics and icons are now available.

Largest LiSA conference began this week in Charleston at the Francis Marion Hotel, representatives from nearly 100 libraries attending. Innovations at TLC will be discussed. Chance to communicate with TLC staff and other Library.Solution customers. Nearly 50 registered users on the TLC Knowledgebase. We will learn how TLC is changing. Showed a video of TLC staff who couldn't be here in charleston this week.

Is Open-Source software a threat to TLC? Advatages: It's Better, it's free, it can be what you want it to be.

Have automation vendors dropped the ball?

Is it really free?