Polaris Cataloging User Group - May 2023

Agenda: 

What’s new in your library? Questions? 

• Grand Forks: Lori -They have lots going on. The Children’s Room remodel is almost completed and the big reveal is on June 3rd. It is going to be really nice, and if you get the opportunity, you have to stop in and see it. The kickoff party is June 3rd from 2:00-4:00 pm. They have added a “library of things” catalog and that is completely done. They have 33 unique items for checkout. Since our last meeting, she has cataloged some gaming units. They have 5 gaming units for check out to the public now. Bobbi – she has cataloged some hobby tryout kits, like if you want to learn how to knit or crochet or anything like that. She had fun cataloging them. There is also a water conservation kit, and a stargazing kit that comes with a pair of binoculars and a whole bunch of other things that she added. They also have about 40 radon detectors. 
• West Fargo: Dustin – The library director, Betty Adams, has left and returned to Michigan. Kirsten Henagin, Adult and Patron Service Manager will serve as interim director. The library has submitted a test order with Ingram. The big project is converting all the fiction spine labels from alphanumeric cutters to the last name of the author. Right now, they are doing new materials, and in June they will go into the stacks one collection at a time and update the spines. Lori stated that they did that about five years ago at Grand Forks. They just did the new materials and left the old ones. Cindy stated that at Dickinson they’d been working on the same project for about four years. They are doing a little at a time. Dustin stated that they are cataloging a batch of playaway launchpads preloaded learning tablets for children and adults. 
• The State Library: Stacey- For the State Library collections they catalog with the OCLC Connexion Client, but for the libraries that they gave grants to over the years, those smaller libraries, they are Cat Express subscribers. Cat Express is a web interface designed to be easier to use, and that’s how they catalog for all these libraries. Cat Express debuted about 2002. We just got word that in April 2024, Cat Express will be discontinued, and WorldShare Record Manager will replace it. Has anybody used that? Cindy stated that she started using it when she got the announcement. She learned how to use it pretty quickly. Cindy found lots of videos online on how to use it. Stacey said she thought it would be good to take some time to learn it over the summer. 
• Dickinson: Cindy- Their Summer Kickoff Carnival is on Saturday. There will be games and stuff for kids and then some booths for parents. 

Ongoing topics: 

• Polaris 7.4 was installed on the training server on May 10. Release notes: What's New in Polaris and Leap (iii.com) 
• ODIN Work Day week was April 24-28. You can find the recordings here.

New items: 

• Demo of cataloging in Leap. 
  • Keyboard shortcuts when editing a MARC record 

• Liz wanted to do a demo of cataloging in Leap because with every release the improvements are only in Leap. While there has never been an announcement that the Polaris client is going away, there are strong indications that Leap will be replacing Polaris someday. Also, she wants to get feedback from you about what kinds of functionality libraries need to have in Leap to be able to catalog with it. 
• Functionality that is important to have: 
  • Ability to update import profiles on the fly 
  • Edit records side by side 
  • Duplicate look-up outside of saving the record 
  • Create and edit item templates 
  • Ability to add subject headings to the authority file 
• Please clean up your record sets- record sets can interfere with deleting records as well as clutter up Simply Reports. 
• Grand Forks issue with overlaying Midwest Tape records – Bobbi described the problem she was having with overlaying Midwest Tape records. If anyone else notices this problem let Liz know. Bobbi was importing records last week, and the import status was “blackout.” She kept refreshing and the status changed to processing and the file was successfully imported.