For this week's Key Note, I wanted to highlight a reply that James Burts recently posted to the forums--it's exciting news and we don't want you to miss it!
"We will be adding support for Gutenberg from KLAS. Time will tell if Scribe has any purpose beyond being a valuable testbed for our duplication efforts, but we have certainly heard loud and clear that you all want us to integrate KLAS with Gutenberg.
However, in order to be able to do this, there are some foundational parts that must be in place first. The biggest and most important of them is what we are calling the "Duplication Queue". The Duplication Queue is just what the name implies-- a prioritized list of titles to be duplicated to cartridges. We are adding to the nightly routines to make sure every patron's Duplication Queue is automatically filled with books that the patron would want. This automatic selection will function with similar rules as the current nightly auto-select to allow KLAS to pick books to be added to the duplication queue, but with a few very important differences from what nightly currently does.
- The duplication queue will be books that the system has selected in advance.
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- The system re-fills the queue the night after a patron receives a duplicated cartridge.
- Once titles are on a patron's duplication queue, entries can be added, re-prioritized, or deleted whenever you want. This will allow the RA's (or the patron themselves) to modify the items queue as they want--- like you can adjust the items in your NetFlix wishlist.
- The selection of items in the duplication queue will be based on the full BARD collection, not just the titles you have available in inventory (which is how the current nightly programs operate).
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- We are basically needing to create a process very similar to our nightly selection routines, but with some significant differences. The two processes are having to be somewhat aware of each other, and make sure they don't step on each other's toes. (for a simple example, if a patron returns a cartridge and is now due for service, we don't want both systems sending both a book from inventory/turnaround as well as a cartridge from Duplication on Demand.) Weaving these systems around each other is the cause of much of the difficulty in the Duplication Queue.
Having the automated selection of books for the duplication queue is a huge step. It takes away the current need to manually click the "Serve Patron" button, and pick the books that will be written to a cartridge. Having a manual step to select books would severely hamper the ability for Duplication on Demand to scale to support a collection-free workflow."
We want to make sure that KLAS' Gutenberg integration doesn't just work, but works well. That means a smooth workflow for selecting titles and duplicating the cartridges, and it also means tracking what actually happened at each step along the way. As part of our integrating with Gutenberg, we will be making sure that enough information is recorded to be able to track down issues, troubleshoot bugs, and answer patrons' questions, such as "Why didn't I get this title?" and "What was on that cartridge?"
The developers are hard at work, and we expect that the Duplication Queue should be finished in late September / October. Then they will work on tying that piece into the Gutenberg itself, which could take another couple of months. The current estimate is that they should be done sometime in December / January.
We expect to deliver a robust process that will work with Gutenberg (or other hardware) to provide your patrons with the right titles at the right time--with the right amount of work needed to run it.
In the meantime, please continue to contact us with your questions, workflow preferences, and suggestions!
