SirsiDynix Enterprise/Portfolio & the Discovery Layer Experience in the Swift Consortium

1. Wot’s in a Name?
Enterprise/Portfolio & the Discovery Layer Experience in the Swift
Consortium
Lloyd Brady – Swift Systems Administrator

2. Prologue: Naming (un-)conventions of
SirsiDynix
• Unicorn – Symphony
• iLink – iBlink – iBistro – e-Library
• Hyperion – Enterprise - Portfolio

3. The Swift Environment
• Two database instances – VIC &
NSW
• 22 library services (20 have
purchased the Discovery Layer, but
only 6 are live)

4. Naming Conventions
• Profile for each library service (at least one)
• Unique domain names for each profile
(swft.xxxx.ent.sirsidynix.net.au). EG:
– http://swft.cprl.ent.sirsidynix.net.au
– http://swft.cobb.ent.sirsidynix.net.au
– http://swft.gvrl.ent.sirsidynix.net.au
– http://swft.hclc.ent.sirsidynix.net.au
– http://swft.chrl.ent.sirsidynix.net.au
– http://swft.wrlc.ent.sirsidynix.net.au

5. Initial Implementation
• “Global” policies:
– Hit List and Detail Display fields
– Naming conventions for profiles, images and other
files
– Custom content directories
• Harvesting schedules
• “Federated” searching – NOT
• Configuring Display Codes

6. Implementation (cont.)
• HCLC migration from EPS Rooms
• CPRL launch October 2010 - Enterprise 3.1
• 6 Profiles currently live
• Other libraries wait for features/bug fixes
promised in future release

7. To Share or not to Share
• Creating and sharing Rooms?
• Search limits – where are the search groups?
• Custom content files and directories:
– /custom/web/content/xxxx

8. E-Library Integration
• Moving between interfaces
– Mirror the look & feel?
– Separate My Account logins
– Possible confusion for users
• Online User Registration
– Different URLs for each library needed

9. Version 4.1 – The Good
• Simple content management system
• Fuzzy Logic Searching & Facets
• Federated targets (sort of)
• Web Services & My Account Display
• Static URLs for results and RSS feeds
• Gutenberg e-books
• Syndetics display and Google Books (“accordion”
panels)
• Custom Roles (almost)

10. Asset Stuff (Portfolio)
• Asset Administration
• Metadata standards
• Searching for Assets (Asset search limits)
• Asset (in)security
• Harvesting other databases
• Hyperion data import

11. Statistics
• Google Analytics
– E-Library v Enterprise/Portfolio
– Counting Searches (sort of)
• Syndetics Statistics
– Inflated content hits due to “pre-polling” of
Syndetics data

12. Version 4.1 – The Bad
• My Account Hold Dates
• Custom roles not quite there
• New Titles display
• Volume Holds not working
• Library Favourites
• Databases tab/icon
• No security for Assets (without Accountability)
• Pickup Libraries – a MESS

13. New Titles Lists
• Display nice – Function poor
• Does not use pre-existing Information Desk
policies/Bulletin Lists
• “Custom” lists very limited options
• “Library group” limit does not seem to work

14. Volume Holds
• Unable to select Volume in most instances
• Where you can select Volume, the hold
doesn’t necessarily get filled by that volume
• Cannot place more than one hold on a title,
even if volume is selected

15. Asset Security
• All assets are searchable, whether they have a
security level assigned or not
• No easy way of assigning assets to a particular
profile
• If you have the URL to a particular asset, you
can access it no matter the security level
assigned

16. Pickup Libraries
• Libraries display as policy codes, not
descriptions
• No order to the list of Pickup libraries
• No way of re-ordering the list
• No “blank” field at the top of the list (i.e.
“Choose a Library”

17. What’s Needed
• Pickup Library fixes
• My Account hold dates
• Email alerts when System Tasks fail
• Requests integration (display in My Account)
• More Language label sets

18. What’s Needed (cont.)
• Change the way Syndetics content if pulled
• Rooms management – make only available to
the Profile the room is created for
• Reconfigure the New Titles lists to work with
the Information Desk policies
• Asset improvements
– Real security
– Assigning particular assets to particular Profiles

19. Spin over Substance?
• Good product, with many excellent features
• Some basic functionality missing or
mismanaged
• Marketing and promotion seems to have
taken precedence over care functionality

20. Epilogue: Enterprise or Portfolio? –
Why the name change?
• Enterprise
– To boldly go...
– Too Trekky?
• Portfolio
– “Arty” for the cultured
UK/European market?
– Bureaucratic?

21. What they should have called it...
• Temporal
• Archival
• Repository for
• Digital
• Images &
• Stuff