Advanced Receipt Printing Solutions for Horizon 7.3


A few libraries in my consortium are already experimenting with Windows printing of various receipts to solve a number of issues with Horizon 7.3: routing slips, hold slips, checkout slips. Horizon 8.0 is at least two years away for us, and I'm not sure yet whether the things we're doing outside of Horizon will be included in that version. Anyway, it's exciting to be able to use my skills to streamline the workload for our staff. I have to admit, I've never seen them so happy with a technological solution. If there are other consortia using Horizon 7.3 who are interested in what we're doing, drop me a line.

We're part of a consortium of 35 or so libraries that share resources, so we got a lot of bins moving around. The routing slips used to be a complete pain in the ass until we started using a workaround application to print them via our receipt printers. Originally conceived by Michael Woofsey from the Brookline Public Library, it exports the receipt's text to a virtual printer, that allows the coder to manipulate strings with Visual Basic, then shoots the results out to the receipt printer. In Brookline, they use Innovative Interfaces, and we use SIrsi/Dynix's Horizon, so Dean Baumeister, of Memorial Hall Library in Andover, retooled the code to handle our system and our different receipt printers. At Chelmsford, we originally used it to change the font size on our hold slips, but Dean worked out how to generate the in transit slips correctly, and then I got my feet wet tweaking the code to improve the slips' appearance, and to make the slips work for all the other 35 locations. So, we're hoping to provide other libraries in our system with the basic program gratis, as is, but we're open to charging a fee for on-site installation or additional support. Dean and I both realized that the program can be adapted to do a lot of neat things. These added features we might charge for. We'll see. Dean has created an installer for the basic program, and now we're looking to see what fields from the bib records we can get out onto those slips, because...

I'm in the process of allowing patrons the option of gettting their checkout receipts by email instead of paper, going green and all. We use Sirsi/Dynix's Horizon 7.3.3, and we just added some 3M self-checkout stations that give the option, so I was wondering why we can't do it for every circulation station?

But here's the kicker: I plan on putting the ISBNs and UPCs out there on the slips. Once those are there in ASCII, then it's a hop and a skip to upload it to LibraryThing or Delicious Library. Since LibraryThing can only import the ISBN, it's enough to make the receipt a text attachment. With Delicious Library, we can do more: attach date checked out to each item, library call number, books checked out at the same time, not to mention, Delicious can handle movies and cds, via the UPC, unlike LibraryThing.

Using UPCs means getting out the 024 tag as well as the 020 for the ISBN, but I should know this week whether it's possible. Jason, the sys admin for our consortium, graciously offered his help with the project, giving some great suggestions to smooth out the process. For the cognoscenti, the crux of the matter lies with the table editor. Commence finger-crossing...NOW!

I would need to write some kind of conditional statement to handle formats. I think it would be possible to do it all with AppleScript, maybe even having a script run upon opening Delicious Library that lets the user know that there are receipts to import.

For the true computer geek slash library lover, I have to go with Delicious for aesthetics and completeness, but for the PC-centric, LibraryThing isn't too bad. LibraryThing's better than Delicious for the social aspects.

I frankly like this method for handling reading history better than what Innovative Interfaces has developed. As far as privacy issues go, I don't like the idea of my stuff staying on a central server indefinitely. I do like the idea of the data being given to the patron for him or her to do what they want with it.

With all the bins of materials coming and going, the routing slips were one bottleneck, but another one is the hassle of calling all the patrons who have requested materials for pick-up, but haven't elected to be notified via email. Well, here's another chore that the receipt printer program can ameliorate. When we originally investigated the automated calling system offered by Horizon, the exorbitant cost nipped the idea in the bud. We're talking something in the neighborhood of fifty grand for what our consortium would need. But with the ability to select hold slips that need calling and export that patron and phone data into a text file, then we can pass that info onto an autodialer than can personalize these messages as well, using existing computers. I'm checking out two programs, Voicent and PhoneHerald, for PC and Mac, respectively. PhoneHerald looks a hell of a lot more professional. Voicent has the feel of something the replacement windows guys use. Ouch.

Posted: Mon - October 30, 2006 at 09:29 AM      

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