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  1. We at the Libraries of Malmö would like to suggest that Innovative and Lyngsoe develop an interaction between Sierra and IMMS to help clear hold shelves.

    The issue: Currently, we have hold shelves at our libraries that are numbered between, for example 100 and 120. Each day we clear the holds that have expired the previous day. When we first implemented IMMS, we noted the shelf to clear down on a paper almanac and then wrote them off a week later.

    However, we have since then coded a very simple application to keep track of this for us. The application…

    11 votes

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  2. Our consortium would like to request a feature enhancement in Sierra that allows ability to transfer volume-level holds to bib-level holds.

    Currently, when we need to move records from a multi-volume bibliographic record (with volume records) to a monographic bibliographic record (without volume records), we must manually add or copy each volume-level hold to the bib-level record and then remove the original volume-level hold. This is a very tedious and time-consuming process, especially within a consortium of more than 100 libraries.

    A streamlined method to transfer holds between volume and bibliographic levels would save staff time, reduce errors, and improve…

    11 votes

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  3. Today our Payment History file reached 9,999 records which is close enough to the 10k record capacity that the attached error message was displayed. Fortunately the staff member had the presence of mind to screen-capture this error dialog today so I could read its message verbatim, but this isn't always the case. It would be helpful for an error of this severity to be written to the System Messages log viewed using the web-based Sierra admin app.

    Given the low variety of error messages written to that log, there must be all kinds of similar messages which are not logged,…

    11 votes

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  4. Intergrating Sierra with IMMS, Sierra does not show the placement information from IMMS on item records. In particular, when the items are stored in chaotic placements such as hold shelves. This means that looking for an item on a hold shelf or other chaotic type location in Sierra, the user has to copy the barcode from Sierra to IMMS to pin point it's known location.

    With further integration, it would be great to see placement information in Sierra to assist staff with helping customers find items on hold shelves in particular.

    11 votes

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    A new field for placement information for items on the hold shelf will be added in Sierra 6.5 (planned for Q4 2025). Staff members will be able to see this hold shelf information at the Circulation Desk for items ready for pickup.

  5. Problem:
    In the current version of the Sierra system, restricted or sensitive bibliographic records can only be suppressed from the public catalog but remain visible and accessible to catalogers within the system. This visibility creates the risk of accidental editing, publishing, or mishandling of these records, particularly:

    • Restricted Records: Some records are sensitive or confidential and should not be visible to all catalogers.
    • Records Under Review: Records undergoing auditing or verification need protection from edits until the review is completed.

    • Recommendation:
      Introduce a feature that allows the System Administrator or Cataloging Supervisor to hide specific bibliographic records within the Sierra…

    11 votes

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  6. As a default suppressed records are not included in the harvest stream. This becomes an issue when a harvested record later becomes suppressed in Sierra as the harvester does not know to remove it from its listings as its omission from the stream does not allow for identification of its suppressed state. I would recommend that the option to include suppressed records should be configurable as a harvest stream level, giving the library the ability to configure the inclusion/exclusion dependent on their business rules.

    11 votes

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  7. Since becoming a III customer in 2008/2009, it's baffled me that we don't see a representation of the total number of notices sent daily via autonotices, but instead see the Notice History feature, which shows the number of items for which notices are sent.

    I think it would be far more useful for statistical purposes if the number of notices sent for each notice type was what's recorded & shared by Sierra.

    11 votes

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  8. We need to increase the number of characters allowed for the username - currently a maximum of 12. We prefer to keep our Sierra usernames the same as a user's network login name (one less thing to remember). Anything over 12 characters forces us to make a different Sierra username that fits within the Sierra parameters.

    11 votes

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  9. We've been exploring new ways that our library, as an institution, can meet the evolving interests of DEI efforts. One very small but meaningful way we thought we might do this is to allow for the inclusion of diacritic characters in customer names in Sierra.

    Their inclusion appears as desired on the customer record when created/displayed in Sierra (images dia1 - dia2).

    They do not appear to impede searching for the customer by name - the search just ignores them (images dia3 - dia4).

    They appear as desired in the name display in the Classic Catalog (image dia5).

    They appear…

    11 votes

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  10. There are instances where its appropriate to put in a MARC field in the bibliographic record that only pertains to your local institution and you wouldn't want that field erased if the record was overlaid. If that MARC field was designated a local-note, using a $5 then that field would be "protected".

    11 votes

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  11. Prior to Sierra 6.0 and the introduction of MFT, it was possible to use FTP to transfer files though data exchange within Sierra. This is no longer possible as MFT is not supported in data exchange.
    Please add support for MFT in data exchange in the same way as support for MFT has been added in scheduler.

    11 votes

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  12. It would be helpful to have the ability to prevent a hold from being canceled based on its pickup location.

    We have holds pickup lockers installed in three locations and are finding that if the lockers contain an item which has since had its hold canceled, the lockers will send a CheckIn SIP transaction to Sierra for that item, resulting in the item being [logically] used to fulfill someone else's hold [while physically still housed in a locker]. For popular new releases, this is happening more frequently than one might imagine. The ability to disallow the cancellation of holds at…

    10 votes

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  13. It would be nice if there was a setting in the Receiving function to limit your search to only items available to be received. We search by PO and have to wade through loads of items already received and billed. This was available years and years ago on the old Horizon system.

    10 votes

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  14. Sierra queues the hold for paging at the time the hold is placed, based on the data the hold was placed with. If the hold is modified after that (by changing the Not Wanted Before date), those changes don't update the paging queue, and Sierra will continue to page as if the hold had not been modified.

    10 votes

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  15. Our catalogers would like the option when choosing a field and selecting "Move to Bottom of Group" that it could go to the bottom of the list of numbered tags it is part of instead of the field name of tags. An example is moving a 5xx field to the bottom of a list of other 5xx fields, and not to the bottom of the record if there is an 852 (also a note) field.

    10 votes

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  16. Technical Services Staff and Circulation Staff often ask for the ability to toggle between tabs in Check Out. We need to reduce repetitive keyboard strokes at checkout and this workflow requires staff to continually reach for the mouse during a circulation transaction.

    For example: There is no way to move from the patron check out screen to the patron holds screen without using the mouse to select the corresponding tab.

    The Check Out options (check out, checked, out items, holds, fines, check in, linked patrons, bookings etc) could be hardcoded to the drop down menu options so that Administrators could…

    10 votes

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  17. Update the "last checkin" field every time an item is checked in. Now, when you check in an item, the "last checkin" field is not updated if the item is not checked out. I don't know of any reason to not update it. When I look at an item record, I want to know the last date that the item was seen; this can be useful in tracking down items that seem to be missing, or coming up with a list of items that might be missing.

    10 votes

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  18. Currently, on Sierra it is possible to block patrons based on overdue penalty points (OD PENALTY) when they check in or renew overdue items. This is done with the patron fixed field OD PENALTY. The system calculates the penalty points that have to be added to the patron record and when a patron exceeds the maximum number of penalty points allowed by the library, the patron is blocked. More info at https://documentation.iii.com/sierrahelp/Default.htm#sgcir/sgcir_fine_penaltypoints.html

    THis feature is very useful. Wouldn't it be a good idea to be able to apply a similar strategy for patrons that request a hold on a bib/item…

    10 votes

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  19. Currently when NCIP items are returned via a sorter, SIP2 is not able to check them in. This results confusion for staff and patrons, as when staff check in the item it traps the hold once again. Currently, the only solution is to re-check out every item returned through a sorter to the patron, and then re-check it in via SDA, which adds to overall workload.

    10 votes

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  20. Our staff have found that when they search the staff catalog for classic titles with lots of adaptations many of the adaptations are ranked higher in the search results than the title they actually searched for. For example, a title search of our catalog for "Moby ****" yields "Ahab's Wife" as the top result, with other derivative works and commentaries all appearing before the first record for the novel itself (in our case, result number 24). We'd like to see the results weight matches on the work's own title (e.g., 245 field) higher than matches in other fields, such as…

    9 votes

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