Integrating III/Sierra with ILLiad and Relais/BorrowDirect Eric Bivona, Senior Programmer Digital Library Technologies Group, Dartmouth College Library (design by Dennis Grady, Library Web Team)

Eric Bivona, DLTG, Dartmouth College Library OVERVIEW Innovative Interfaces, Inc. is our ILS provider: Sierra, previously it was Millennium. Dartmouth is part of BorrowDirect, which is powered by Relais. Dartmouth also uses ILLiad, from OCLC. Long history of loading records into III programmatically. BorrowDirect uses NCIP. ILLiad does not. Eric Bivona, DLTG, Dartmouth College Library

Eric Bivona, DLTG, Dartmouth College Library OBJECTIVES Simplify workflows. Make workflows more consistent. Limit (human) copying of data. Limit (human) interaction with systems. Most of these are different versions of the same sentiment. … interaction with [multiple] systems… Eric Bivona, DLTG, Dartmouth College Library

WORKFLOWS ILLiad Borrowing Receive item in ILLiad Create item record in III ILLiad notifies patron Item sent to pickup location Item on hold shelf for patron Eric Bivona, DLTG, Dartmouth College Library

WORKFLOWS BorrowDirect Borrowing Receive item in Relais III NCIP creates ”virtual” item record III notifies patron Item sent to pickup location “Virtual” item records are painful to deal with! Item on hold shelf for patron Eric Bivona, DLTG, Dartmouth College Library

WORKFLOWS ILLiad Lending Choose transaction in ILLiad Find item in the stacks Create borrower in III (if needed) Checkout item in III Also returns; key point: scan item at least twice, into two different systems. Mark item in ILLiad Ship item out Eric Bivona, DLTG, Dartmouth College Library

Eric Bivona, DLTG, Dartmouth College Library THE PLAN Create an ILLiad addon (in Lua) to convey transaction number and item barcode(s) to a web service. The web service will use NCIP to a second web app that will create bib and item records in III. With III/Sierra’s APIs we can also place holds on (new) items. Lua is a light-weight, multi-paradigm programming language that is easy to embed. Real, albeit small item records. Eric Bivona, DLTG, Dartmouth College Library

Eric Bivona, DLTG, Dartmouth College Library ILLIAD ADDON Code written in Lua, an embeddable extension language.  Addons are installed into each ILLiad client. After this code, a URL is constructed and the ILLiad/Lua runtime context is used to make the web request. Eric Bivona, DLTG, Dartmouth College Library

ILLIAD ADDON Item barcode(s) are scanned in, then submitted. Eric Bivona, DLTG, Dartmouth College Library

Eric Bivona, DLTG, Dartmouth College Library ADDON WEB APP Takes data from ILLiad, plus the barcode(s), and makes an NCIP AcceptItem request. $xact->update() is an ORM call to cache barcodes in the ILLiad transaction record. Eric Bivona, DLTG, Dartmouth College Library

Eric Bivona, DLTG, Dartmouth College Library NCIP WEB APP Processes NCIP AcceptItem requests, loading bib/item records into III, with patron holds. Test NCIP AcceptItem request. Eric Bivona, DLTG, Dartmouth College Library

Eric Bivona, DLTG, Dartmouth College Library THE REALIZATION Local NCIP server only supports AcceptItem requests. All other NCIP requests are passed through to III (LookupUser, LookupItem, CheckoutItem, CheckinItem). BorrowDirect NCIP traffic can be routed through our NCIP server. 1: we have a long history of automatically loading records into III. 2: ILLiad addon web service can generate the Check{in,out}Item requests based on transaction statuses. 3: Slight addition in latency versus much less staff time dealing with “virtual” item records. Eric Bivona, DLTG, Dartmouth College Library

Eric Bivona, DLTG, Dartmouth College Library THE OUTCOMES Simpler, more consistent workflows (items only need to be dealt with in one system at any major point). More consistent item handling at each circulation point. Same notification system for all item handling (III). More consistent hold shelf management. Eric Bivona, DLTG, Dartmouth College Library

Eric Bivona, DLTG, Dartmouth College Library QUESTIONS ? Eric Bivona, DLTG, Dartmouth College Library