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ILS - Sierra

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  1. Improve diacritic searching in Sierra to include Semitic languages, especially Arabic! We have a fair number of Arabic books in out collections, and a large Arabic community, but Sierra support for Arabic characters does not seem complete. We often find that Arabic letters in Sierra is replaced by a white square, which seems to mean that the character is not supported. The names appear fine in Vega but the non supported letters do not seem to be indexed in the search results. This is an important language for members of our community and support for it is important in our…

    11 votes

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  2. 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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  3. 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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  4. 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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  5. 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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  6. This idea is expanding on one originally proposed here by Catherine Kelso (https://ideas.iii.com/forums/951745/suggestions/47046682).

    It would be helpful to more easily search on patron record indexes besides barcode when you need to (name, record number, e-mail, etc...) and for those sorts of searches it would be helpful to limit the search preemptively as you can in other search functions throughout Sierra. Say you want to search for the "Smith, John" with a teen ptype and a home library of anytown branch.

    The current default search of entering a barcode should remain, it should just be simple to toggle to…

    10 votes

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  7. Currently, in order to maintain the out loc field in an item record while it is checked out for libraries with auto-renewal, the actual renewal location statistic group number must be zero. This is frustrating as the zero stat group number does not display in reports and we need all renewals to appear in reports. There needs to be a way to retain the out loc in an item record when the renewal stat group number is not zero.

    10 votes

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  8. In the settings for code categories (Physical Format and Collection), you can change the display order, but it only applies to that page, not to the option menu users see when building a report.

    When creating a report, the list of categories is always alphabetical. There is also a "Sort A-Z" button, which is currently unnecessary (and caused confusion as its existence implies that there could be another way).

    I suggest applying the manual display order set in Admin Tools to the "edit" pop-ups in the initial filters of a report.

    This would allow us to put more commonly-used categories…

    10 votes

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  9. 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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  10. Persistent Column Resizing in Summary Tab:

    Currently, users can resize columns in the Summary Tab (Orders, Items, and Holdings) during a session. However, these adjustments are not retained after the session ends, requiring users to reapply their preferred column sizes each time they log in.

    I propose an enhancement to allow users to permanently save column resizing preferences across sessions. This feature would greatly improve usability and efficiency by enabling a more customized and consistent interface tailored to individual workflows.

    This enhancement would benefit users who frequently manage data within the Summary Tab by reducing repetitive actions and ensuring a…

    10 votes

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  11. 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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  12. 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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  13. 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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  14. 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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  15. Unlike Polaris, when a record is deleted in Sierra, all information is deleted from the system. Unfortunately, this means that Sierra libraries would not be able to take advantage of the Vega Enhancement to "Display Deleted Titles in Reading History." Thus patrons only see "Resource is not available" in their Reading History.

    Patrons opt in to keep their reading history assuming that the data will be there when they look for it. They don't understand why there is no record of it, think something is broken with the system.

    9 votes

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  16. This idea is a bit of an addendum to Bob Gaydos' idea to create an endpoint that allows writing to review files (https://ideas.iii.com/forums/951745-ils-sierra/suggestions/50308716).

    The current API cannot provide a list of empty files. That information would be incredibly helpful in conjunction with the other idea so that you may programmatically identify an available review file of sufficient size for your needs. Beyond that, it may be useful to use the API to write an alert mechanism for when your system may be running low on available files.

    It is possible to explore this information via SQL, but the…

    9 votes

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  17. When a load table's overlay match point targets a repeatable field such as the 019 (OCLC number cross-reference), the load process only compares the first subfield occurrence against Sierra's index. Although Sierra correctly indexes every $a in the 019 individually, the overlay-match routine stops after the first $a. Any additional OCLC numbers stored in the second, third, or subsequent $a subfields are ignored when determining whether an incoming record should overlay an existing one.

    As a result, records that should match an existing bib overlay as new duplicates instead, because the matching value lives in a $a other than the…

    9 votes

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  18. To inform the blocking of IP ranges from which bad actors are abusing the /selfreg form, record the origin IP in a varfield or new fixed field on the patron record.

    If a varfield, the default of an x-Note would suffice, but make this varfield tag customizable via one of the administrative interfaces. Historically speaking, Admin Corner would have been the go-to place to make this customization.

    9 votes

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  19. Under the count use function, is it possible to add a location column? Currently, we have Title / Barcode / Count / Status. This way, when staff collects used but not checked out items and counts their usage, they can also see - at a glance - if the item belongs to a different floor/location and can separate it on the spot.

    This added information will save staff time and minimize the chance of something being misplaced.

    9 votes

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  20. We would like to see more granulated permissions for user administration, especially with assigned permissions, settings, options, workflows, etc.

    We would like the ability to assign a particular group of user accounts (e.g., circ student employees) to a specific admin (e.g., head of circulation) without assigning ALL system administration. It would be helpful for troubleshooting and having this department be able to assign macros, specific permissions, and print settings to different accounts.

    Ideally, this "group admin" would have the ability to edit settings on accounts for options, settings, and workflows. It would be great if they could clone and create…

    9 votes

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