Hello! I hope you’re all weathering the weather well this afternoon. Here are some recent release notes from Innovative, the developer of Sierra and Vega.
Direct links to parts of the My Bookshelf tab
We can now put a link to any of these URLs on your website/social media/notices/emails, etc. to take patrons directly to their checked-out items, holds, fines, or profile:
Open Bookshelf to Checkouts Tab of Patron Account
https://VEGA_BASE_URL/?openAccount=checkouts
Open Bookshelf to Holds Tab of Patron Account
https://VEGA_BASE_URL/?openAccount=holds
Open Bookshelf to Fines Tab of Patron Account
https://VEGA_BASE_URL/?openAccount=fines-and-fees
Open Bookshelf to Profile Tab of Patron Account
https://VEGA_BASE_URL/?openAccount=profile
The VEGA_BASE_URL part would be mhud.na.iiivega.com, highland-mhud.na.iiivega.com, kingston-mhud.na.iiivega.com, marlboro-mhud.na.iiivega.com, or patterson-mhud.na.iiivega.com.
If a patron is not logged in, the link will take them to the login page before redirecting them to the relevant area of My Bookshelf.
90-day default timeout
Previously, Vega would timeout and reset after a few minutes of inactivity even when a patron is logged in. The default is now set to 90 days when logged in, so people will no longer need to keep clicking “yes, keep me logged in” or logging in every time they use the catalog at home. When browsing from a station within the library, we can set the timeout to any interval we want through a feature called kiosk sites. Look for more information about kiosk sites soon.
Changes planned for the near future
Some changes coming soon, according to Innovative:
- Ability to change pickup location for existing holds
- Ability to update PIN from your profile
- Ability to choose notification preferences
- More links in the header
- Better eContent management – this one is huge for us!
Feedback
Thank you for your feedback using the survey. The form is always open for you to note anything you notice. We’re passing along information about technical glitches as well as ideas for improvements to Innovative, so keep your thoughts coming. If something is especially critical to you, please let us know. We’re going to try to prioritize the list of issues reported on the knowledgebase from most to least vital.
I loved this idea about reading history integration (I’m not naming the suggester to keep things anonymous but feel free to claim it if you’d like):
“A suggestion that I thought of while looking at my account through Vega. Patrons can opt in to save their reading history which is great; it’s a very useful feature but I think it could be taken a step further. Once a patron opts-in and the reading history starts to be recorded, it would be awesome if it showed up in a catalog search. For example, if a patron is reading through the Sue Grafton series and they aren’t sure whether or not they’ve read I is for Innocent as they’re looking through the search results for Sue Grafton books, it would be great if it told the patron right there if they’ve borrowed it, instead of going into their account and wading through their reading history. I’ve seen a similar concept with Ingram when I order books. If I’ve already ordered a book through Ingram and go to the page for that item, the website will tell me I’ve already ordered it. I can provide pictures if you’d like to see what I’m referring to. It’s not fool-proof of course, as items are deleted or perhaps a patron borrowed a different version of the same title but I thought I’d mention it in case others would also find it useful.”
If you have anything you’d like to discuss with others who are testing Vega, feel free to post to this listserv (just email mhls-vega@googlegroups.com).
MHLS Sierra Users Group
Vega is going to be a big point of discussion at our Sierra User Group on this Thursday, May 19th. To register for the online event, fill in this form: https://midhudson.org/events/sierra-user-group/. See you there!