Aberystywyth University Library Systems Team's Blog

Come and see what’s new in Voyager

Library Systems — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 14:31:14 +0000

The Library Systems team will be attending the forthcoming New Technology and Innovation Day on the 15th April. In addition to demonstrating new functionality in Voyager, we will be giving visitors a sneak peek of some forthcoming offerings.

For more information, go to the New Technology and Innovations Day page

More QR codes!

Library Systems — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:06:50 +0000

FAQ on QR codes

We’ve now added more QR codes to Voyager. As mentioned in our previous post, we introduced QR codes a few months ago to help users store item information from Voyager in their phone or mobile device. We’re now using QR codes to encode the URL of pages in the catalogue that display records. By scanning the code your device can either immediately take you to the same page in the catalogue, or alternatively store the URL for later use.

We’re trying to make it as simple as possible for our users to take information from the catalogue with them, and we hope this is another step in the right direction. As ever, any comments you may have will be gratefully received. Contact us at the addresses in the sidebar of this page.

5 things you didn’t know Voyager could do

Library Systems — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:22:59 +0000

Over the past year or so we’ve added a number of new features to Voyager, the purpose of this post is to draw your attention to any you may have missed.

1. Lost your PIN?

If you ever forget your Voyager PIN, it’s easy to find out what it is. Simply go to the following web page:

http://voyager.aber.ac.uk/pin/

and enter your Aberystwyth username, password and your Aber card barcode number. Your PIN will be instantly e-mailed to you. If you happen to be on Level D in the Hugh Owen library or in the downstairs workstation room in Old College library, you can also retrieve your PIN by visiting the “PIN machine”. This machine will also e-mail you your PIN or you can also choose to display it on the screen.

2. Never pay a fine again!

If you are a user of an electronic or online calendar (iCal, Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar, Yahoo Calendar etc.), you might be interested to know that you can now have the due dates for all your library loans automatically entered into your calendar. You are able to either take a static snapshot of your loans and have them entered into your calendar, or create a live “link” between your calendar and Voyager, meaning that your calendar is automatically updated when you borrow and return items.

To find out more about this service, visit the FAQ at: http://www.inf.aber.ac.uk/advisory/faq/685/

3. Get details of items on your mobile phone

Looking items up in the catalogue is all very well, but remembering an author, title and classmark while you try to find the appropriate shelf isn’t easy. Traditionally the solution to this problem was a scrap of paper, but these can be easily lost and are prone to error.

It is now possible to send details of items to your mobile phone as a text message. This service is free, but you must have registered your mobile phone number with the University and given us permission to send you text messages. If you are not sure if you’ve done this, check your Data for Students page.

Once you are registered, just look for the “Send by SMS” link next to item details in the “Availability” box when viewing an item.

4. QR what?

You could be excused for not having heard of QR codes. They are slowly catching on over here, but have been popular in Japan for years. Wikipedia defines them as two dimensional barcodes, so whereas we’re used to seeing barcodes as a row of striped lines, QR codes have dots that go in both directions, forming a square. An FAQ has been prepared to help you make use of the QR codes.

We are using QR codes as another way of enabling you to store an items details in your mobile device. For every item displayed in Voyager it is possible to view its key details (author, title, location and classmark) encoded as a QR code. This can then be scanned by appropriate software in your mobile device which will convert the QR code back into normal text for you to store on your mobile device.

To find suitable software for your device, search for qr reader in your favourite search engine.

To find the QR code for any given item, just look for the “QR code” link next to item details in the “Availability” box when viewing an item.

5. Responding to feedback

One of the most requested features for the Voyager catalogue interface has always been for a spell checker. Unfortunately, the vendor of Voyager, Ex Libris, have never implemented one. So, earlier this year we decided to add one ourselves.

If you perform a search on the catalogue that results in no results, our spell checker will assume this is because of a spelling error and will try to make suggestions for words you might have meant. Of course, you may well have spelt your search terms correctly and there were simply no matching records in the catalogue, but research has shown that often a search fails because of incorrectly spelt search terms. Hopefully this feature will help reduce instances of this!

We are always looking for ways of making the catalogue more useful, so if you have any suggestions for how we can do that, we’d love to hear from you! Contact us at the addresses in the sidebar of this page.

Full text linking with bX recommender service

Library Systems — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 15:25:24 +0000

We have signed up for a trial of the bX recommender service, which offers you a service similar to Amazon’s ‘customers who bought this item also bought…’.
The bX recommender service supports users in discovering scholarly articles of potential interest. This service is based on usage data from the world-wide scholarly community, and it is the first of this kind for article level recommendations.
For more information see http://www.aber.ac.uk/en/is/elecinfo/ejournals/bx/

Do let us know what you think of this service!

Voyager arrives on iGoogle

Library Systems — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:50:26 +0000

Here in the Library Systems Team, we’re always looking for new ways of making Voyager easier to access. To this end we’ve just completed work on a gadget for iGoogle, the popular web “personalised homepage”.

The gadget, still in very early stages, allows you to search Voyager from within your iGoogle homepage. Clicking on a result will take you to the record in Voyager.

We have plans to bring more of Voyager’s functionality to the gadget. We also plan to bring similar tools to other popular services such as Facebook and Netvibes.

Add the gadget to your iGoogle page here

As with any of the services we provide, we would be very pleased to hear your feedback. You can contact the Library Systems team at the email addresses in the side column of the page.