News

SWAN has begun the monthly process of removing expired ONLINE patron records. All records expired for at least 90 days with a last activity date prior to the expiration date have been removed, since these records have been inactive. Moving forward we will continue the removal process on the 15th of every month. We have not yet removed records with a last activity date after the expiration date to...

SWAN will redirect the https://catalog.swanlibraries.net URLs to your library's Aspen catalog home page on Tuesday, April 26th. You should see the redirects working by 2 p.m. If your OPAC or website points to a URL at https://catalog.swanlibraries.net, your patrons will now see your Aspen catalog home page when they visit that URL. If you are using "classic catalog" link to Enterprise from your...

The April 2022 (January- March) Quarterly Billing is complete, and the invoices and checks will be mailed shortly. Documentation is available to help guide member library staff through the Billing Summary sheet as well as the detail statement reports folder accessible in BlueCloud Analytics Shared Reports. Library Directors have been provided with BCA login credentials. If you are a Director and...

---------------Update at 7:00 a.m.--------------- The server is open and accessible to library staff. We'll continue to see delayed reports throughout the morning, but Offline mode is no longer necessary. Please resume work online. ---------------Original Posting at 6:30 a.m.--------------- Following the database rebuild on 4/17, we're experiencing a long-running overnight maintenance cycle on the...

The Aspen 22.04 release is now live. Highlights include: Hoopla settings to exclude Hoopla records with copies from other eContent Vendors LibCal integration Updates to the "bad words list" that can exclude staff comments in lists Bug fix for drag-and-drop list ordering issues In addition, this release includes several administrative enhancements to help SWAN staff better manage Aspen, including...

There will be three seats open July 1, 2022 and the process to elect representatives begins with individuals self-nominating. Library directors and administrators should use the self-nomination form on the link below to submit your name and written statement of interest. The self-nomination form can be found on the Board Election page. The timetable for the election is provided on that webpage as...

We received notice late last night, March 31st, that OCLC has begun processing our data files for the OCLC Holdings Reset. This project is outlined in this news post from March 14th: Upcoming OCLC WorldCat Holdings Reset. We are unsure how long it will take to process our data files, but it should be complete by Monday morning. In the meantime, you may see discrepancies between your SWAN and OCLC...

SWAN will soon begin the process of having our members' OCLC holdings reset. Earlier this year, OCLC offered members an opportunity to reset their WorldCat holdings free of charge. Because SWAN uses a local software solution to manage this process on behalf of our membership, we asked that members refrain from accepting this offer because it could upset our regular updates. After meeting with...

PressReader has shared with their community of library subscribers that their recent network outage caused by a malware attack. PressReader's Updates for users recounts the situation. PressReader said "At his stage, we do not see any evidence that customer data has been compromised..." Was my patron's data breached? No - SWAN patrons authenticate through OpenAthens to PressReader. OpenAthens only...

The 22.03 release of Aspen Discovery is now live. This release includes the following improvements to searching: Searches are now case-insensitive, meaning you'll get the same results if you capitalize or don't capitalize your keywords Better handling of possessive searches that include apostrophes (e.g. devil's food cake) Better handling of stop words The focus for the next few releases will be...

---------------Update at 7:00 a.m. on 4/18--------------- Despite some report delays, the rebuild has concluded successfully. Please resume work online, but be aware that we will experience report delays throughout this morning. Please let us know if you encounter any record issues. ---------------Original Posting--------------- SWAN is planning a Symphony database rebuild on Sunday, April 17th...

SirsiDynix will be performing scheduled maintenance to their global data center network infrastructure on March 9 starting at 10 PM CST. Maintenance is expected to last approximately one hour. During this time the following services will be impacted: BLUEcloud Analytics BLUEcloud Central BLUEcloud Mobile Enterprise/Portfolio During this outage fines payment via Enterprise will also be affected...

In case you missed the announcement in our February monthly newsletter, we wanted to share ByWater's February 2022 Librarian of the Month. Yes, it is our own Tara Wood, Manager of User Experience! As shared by the ByWater team - Tara has done an amazing job doing Usability Studies, Accessibility Reviews, and coordinating SWAN Member libraries as they implement Aspen Discovery. The Usability...

SWAN has negotiated a group discount for Comics Plus from Library Pass. Comics Plus is a database of new and backlist comics and graphic novels from about 125 publishers with unlimited access and simultaneous use. Patrons can read comics and graphic novels on the Library Pass platform on smartphones, tablets, or within a web browser. This discount is available for public libraries. The details and...

We've had a few questions from members about what is happening on the March 8th soft launch for Aspen. Here is a recap of the steps that SWAN will take that date, and what your library should do between now and April 26th, when Enterprise is no longer available. SWAN updates March 8th Enterprise banner SWAN will post the following banner to all Enterprise catalogs for all libraries, directing...

Due to weather, we expect several closures today. As we hear about closures, we will attempt to update libraries on this news post. If you library is closed, please notify: RAILS Delivery Submit SWAN help ticket to notify us of closure No policy changes in the system will be made for temporary weather related closures. We recommend posting information on your library website regarding this closure...

SWAN is happy to announce plans to move forward with the BLUEcloud Cataloging pilot project slated for late Spring 2022. We expect the pilot will last about 3 months. BLUEcloud Cataloging offers robust and intuitive templates that will help to streamline the manual input of pre-cats. We are currently developing training materials but want to put the word out, so you have time to think if your...

The Aspen Discovery 22.02 release is live. The highlights of this release include: Improved handling of On Order statuses for Overdrive titles. Improved handling of search terms that end with a question mark, i.e. "do androids dream of electric sheep?" Allow better tracking of holds placed in Aspen, by patrons and by staff through masquerade mode, for statistics analysis. The focus for the next...

The pricing for the SWAN group-purchase of EBSCO subscription database package was presented at the Committee of the Whole membership meeting last week on February 1st. That pricing is included in the meeting packet, and I have pulled out that pricing which is linked directly to the PDF below. /system/files/Public/documents/legacy/EBSCO/EBSCO%20FY23%202022-02-01.pdf This group purchase is going...

SirsiDynix has announced the next release of BLUEcloud Central (22.02.00) for 9:00 p.m. on Wed., Feb 9, 2022. This release includes added functionality for BLUEcloud Circulation. We will update this news post as soon as the release has been verified and we can provide details. A Member's Update session has been scheduled for Fri., Feb. 11th from 1:00 - 2:00 p.m. Register to attend on L2. A...