Remember when we told you we were moving? How all of our behind-the-scenes work and data were heading to a new system? Guess what – we’ve got (almost) all the boxes unpacked and we’re living in our new (virtual) space.
Over the summer, a dedicated team of library employees supervised a major data migration, which saw hundreds of thousands of patron and item records migrate from our old online system into our new one.
The new system, Worldshare Management Systems (WMS), is provided by OCLC, a worldwide, member-driven library cooperative, which also provides services such as WorldCat. We’re still working out some of the kinks, fixing a few bugs and adjusting some of our workflows. Basically, it’s like we’ve moved into a new house and are now deciding if the couch looks better under the window or over by the door.
What does this mean for you? Mainly, it means an entirely new (and improved) way of searching for library materials. The Library Discovery Layer (formerly our catalog) searches not only our materials, but seamlessly shows you what other libraries have. Not only that, the Discovery Layer searches some of our databases, as well!
And for those of you who’ve been accustomed to making interlibrary loan (ILL) requests using a cumbersome barcode number….have we got a deal for you. The new system is fully integrated into the Gustavus single sign on interface, so all you need is your Gustavus user name and password to make interlibrary loan requests.
We’re just starting to explore everything the discovery layer can do. The Library faculty will be playing around with it more and configuring settings based on what we think will best serve you, our library users. Please let us know what you think of the new discovery layer.