ILL fixes and enhancements Thu 4/3 10pm

A number of bug fixes as well as one enhancement will be installed in the NHAIS ILL System tonight (Thursday, Apr. 3). The system will be offline briefly starting at 10 o'clock to update software.

-Requests that were updated to Renewed by Lender were not transitioning to Overdue status when the new due date passed. This has been corrected and the requests will now move to Overdue status as expected.

-If a Need By date was set far into the future (in the year 2525, for instance), the request could be submitted but caused an error and staff could not access the request. This has been corrected.

-When two Activity and Request Reports were converted to CSV rather than EXCEL a few months ago (to allow large reports to run) some categories were not included in the CSV downloads. The following fields are being added to the Request Record report: Borrower Name, Supplier Name, Material Bib Level, ID (patron barcode), and Pickup Location. The following fields will be added to the Lender Response Report: Borrower Name, Supplier Name, Author, Pub. Date, and Material Bib Level.

-Some libraries with holdings in the union catalog (NHU-PAC) have not been added to lender lists even if they were valid lenders. This is connected to how the holdings were added to the union catalog and is being corrected.

And now the enhancement...the Borrower Request Number Search and Lender Request Number Search have been combined into one Request Number Search that will display in the ILL Admin menu immediately after Request Manager. This change will allow staff to search by request number without needing to select their library’s role as Borrower or Lender.

•    If the library is the borrower, the Borrower’s Full Record Display will open.
•    If the library is the lender, the Lender’s Full Record Display will open.
•    If an invalid request number is entered (the library is neither borrower nor lender on the request, or if the request has been deleted from  Request Manager), a “Request Number Not Found” message will display.

If you have both the Borrower and Lender Request Number Searches configured as Quick Links, the order of the Quick Links will be changed to accommodate the single Request Number Search. For more about Quick Links, watch a 7-minute video or call the NHAIS Help Desk at 603-271-2141.

Introducing the Moo-PAC

What do you get if you combine a Moose with a NHU-PAC? A Moo-PAC, of course. Read on, catalogers--this is not an April Fool's jape. This new option has no effect whatsoever on the functioning of our ILL program but may be of value to catalogers.

For years, NHAIS member libraries have been able to download MARC bibliographic records from the NHU-PAC at no charge using Z39.50. It's one of several choices outlined in the Options for Downloading MARC Records from NHU-PAC instructions. Now you have the option of using a single Z39.50 target to search and download from both the New Hampshire State Library's catalog (known as Moose) and the statewide union catalog (known as NHU-PAC) at the same time. The new Moo-PAC offers access to an additional 240,000 bibliographic records on top of the nearly 1.5 million records in the NHU-PAC.

The Moo-PAC offers many records for government documents, library science books, and historical materials not found in the NHU-PAC. You can still target just the NHU-PAC if you prefer--that's where you're most likely to find records for new general-interest books, audiobooks, music CDs, DVDs, and Blu-rays--but, depending on the nature of your collection, you may find it useful to have the Moo-PAC in your list of Z39.50 cataloging resources. You can switch between NHU-PAC and Moo-PAC if you like.

Things to know: if you use the Moo-PAC search, some records with the same OCLC control number will show up twice.

If you want to know which catalog a record comes from, there are clues in various places depending on when the record was last modified but the one rule that applies to all records is if there's a subfield 852c with "NHNHSS" in it, that's a Moose record. Anything else, including records without 852s, came from the NHU-PAC.

Whichever catalog the record came from, your download will include all the fields displayed. You may want to strip out the holding fields (852) and local info fields (9XX) for your local use.

Here are settings for a Z39.50 connection to the Moo-PAC:

SERVER ADDRESS (or HOST or URL): nhais-service.auto-graphics.com
PORT: 210
DATABASE ID (or DATABASE NAME): nhunionstatezip
SYNTAX (or FORMAT): MARC21/USMARC
USERNAME: nhunionstatezip
PASSWORD: Call the NHAIS Help Desk at 603-271-2141 during business hours to get the password

Not sure if the Moo-PAC is right for you? Ask your NHAIS Help Desk at 603-271-2141.

NC van changes 3/31-4/11

Hello North Country Libraries,
Our wonderful north country driver will be on a very much needed vacation for the next two weeks, starting on Monday.
Therefore, I will be covering her routes from Concord, and deliveries will be fewer, and some days may be slightly different. I will do my best to ensure that everyone receives one delivery a week in this time frame.
The routes will go as follows:

Monday:
Plymouth
Campton
Thornton
Lincoln
Woodstock
Franconia
Monroe

Tuesday:
Twin Mountain
Dalton
Whitefield
Jefferson
Lancaster
Groveton
Stratford
Colebrook
Errol
Berlin Community College
Berlin
Gorham
Randolph
Jackson
Bartlett
North Conway
Conway
Madison

Wednesday:
Plymouth
Rumney
Wentworth
Warren
Orford
Piermont
Haverhill
Woodsville
Bath Lisbon
Littleton
Bethlehem

The routes will only be going out three days a week.
If you have any questions, or concerns, please call the circulation desk at 271-2616.
See you next week.
Best,
Jill M Witham
Van Service Coordinator
New Hampshire State Library

No SE-A van Thu 3/27

Due to driver illness, and staff shortage we need to cancel the Southeast-A van route today Thursday, March 27, 2025. The affected libraries are:

Barrington
Nottingham
Stratham
Greenland
Hampton
Exeter
Brentwood
Kingston
East Kingston
Plaistow
Atkinson
Hampstead

I’m sorry for the inconvenience this causes.

Best,
Jill M Witham
Van Service Coordinator
New Hampshire State Library

Letters, numbers, and dashes in ILL program

Alphanumeric strings have been turning up recently in the NHAIS ILL System where there used to be either blank spots or catalog control numbers for records from some but not all Z-targets. This is seen in lender lists...

In request histories...

And in search results...

So far this behavior doesn't appear to affect the functionality of the ILL program. Auto-Graphics is treating it as a bug.

NH Interlibrary Loan Activity

 In the last 365 days (March 2024 to March 2025) there have been 176,504 interlibrary loan requests filled by 243 libraries throughout the state. Those requests were made on behalf of patrons from 245 different NH libraries.

That comes out to 483 items shared among Granite State libraries each day. 

NC route truncated Mon 3/24

I just heard from the north country driver, and she said the driving conditions are terrible [Monday, March 24]. She is calling it a day and ending her route at Franconia. She said she will try and make up the last few stops in the next few days.

Safe travels.

Best,

Jill M Witham
Van Service Coordinator
New Hampshire State Library

Brief ILL outage Thu 3/20 10pm

The NHAIS ILL System will be offline briefly tonight (Thursday, March 20) to install program updates. The outage starts at 10 o'clock.

One bug is fixed with this release: the lender list build process will now be able to match publisher names that have a space within the first 5 characters (for example, W.W. Norton). The publisher name only comes into play in the process when there is no match on standard numbers (ISBN, LCCN, UPC, publisher number, OCLC number, ISSN).

Helpful Tip - Public Library Survey

As we continue together through this exciting adventure we call the Annual Public Library Survey, I’ve discovered something that I wanted to share.

Has this happened to you? You’ve made changes to your data and/or moved numbers around, but when you re-verified your survey, it stubbornly continued to throw red Edit Check Failure messages at you and be completely annoying?

If/when this happens:
•    Log out of the survey.
•    Go get a cup of your favorite beverage.
•    Log back in.
•    Re-verify your survey.

95% of the time, the survey just needed a moment to finish its computations.

It’s very much like the IT Help Desk suggestion of “Turn it off and turn it back on again.” It may not be a cure-all, but it is worth trying. 😊 (If it doesn’t help, please give me a call, or send me an email.)

GOOD NEWS
As of today, about a third of NH’s public libraries have finished the survey!  
HUZZAH, HURRAY, WOO HOO! Thank you, folks!   

Everyone else, stay strong and persevere. You can do this. Gathering this data really is helpful to NH libraries and is more important than ever.  

The survey due date is April 30. Please contact me if you have questions or if you would like to work through the survey together. We can schedule a time to talk/meet.  

I’m here for you!

Most sincerely,
Jennifer M. Finch, MSLIS
Reference Librarian and State Data Coordinator
New Hampshire State Library
N.H. Department of Natural & Cultural Resources
20 Park St.
Concord, NH 03301
Office: 603-271-2060
Ref Desk: 603-271-2144
Jennifer.M.Finch@dncr.nh.gov