New MARC Record Source for NHAIS Libraries

 On tomorrow's Governor & Council Agenda is the following item:

"#50    Authorize the Division of Libraries to enter into a contract with Baker & Taylor, LLC, Charlotte, NC in the amount of $146,817 to provide Machine Readable Cataloging records for the New Hampshire Automated Information System.  Effective upon G&C approval through June 30, 2028, with the option to renew for up to two addition three-year terms.  100% Federal Funds"

We have used OCLC as the source of MARC records to support the NHAIS ILL System for longer than I have been at the NH State Library (which is 25+ years). Back in June when our annual OCLC renewal came up we decided it was time to see if there were other options available to us that would allow all of the NHAIS ILL libraries to have direct access to a reliable source of high-quality MARC records and bring down our costs for this service. 

We received two bids, one from OCLC and one from Baker & Taylor.  The offerings were excellent from both organizations. The prices were vastly different and we moved forward with a contract for Baker & Taylor.

Governor and Council are expected to vote on the contract tomorrow, and if it is approved, we will move forward with implementing Z39.50 access to the BTCat database for all of our libraries in the next week or two. We will follow up with a roll-out of a full cataloging interface that any NHAIS ILL library that wishes to use can be set up on at no additional cost to them for the contracted set-up.

We were very impressed with the B&T interface and look forward to bringing a lot of cataloging resources to our libraries this fall.  

We will post an update after the G&C vote on Wednesday.  

If you want to see the RFB we issued you can find it at : 

https://apps.das.nh.gov/bidscontracts/bids.aspx

It is called RFB-DNCR-2025-08 - MARC Record Source for NHAIS and the easiest way to find it is to search for "MARC" in the bid description and status/bid results of "awarded."

 

 

 

 

 

Brief ILL Outage Tues, 8/19 10pm

The NHAIS ILL System will be offline briefly tomorrow night starting at 10 o'clock for software updates.

A new report, Lending Activity by Format, will be made available. The report provides a breakdown of items lent by format during the specified time period. The companion Borrowing Activity by Format report was released on April 15, 2025. Both of these reports are located at Staff Dashboard > Statistics > Reports (new).

Brief ILL Outage

There will be a SHAREit release on Tuesday, August 5, 2025, beginning a little after 10:00pm Eastern. Downtime is usually about 15 minutes but may be longer if issues come up. 

On Wednesday you can expect a post from David about what changes this update brings.

ILL fixes and enhancements Thu 7/10 10pm

Several fixes and enhancements are coming to the NHAIS ILL System tonight (Thursday, July 10). The system will be offline briefly starting at 10 p.m. to install software updates.

-When a potential lender configured to share item availability status had more than one holding for a title, the program was only checking the first holding for availability. If that copy was not available, the lender was skipped even if other copies at the same location were available. The code has been updated so that all holdings at the potential lender will be checked for availability and that location will get the request if at least one copy is available for ILL.

-Some potential lenders have not been added to a lender list because of minor discrepancies in how titles are cataloged. This particularly applied to video materials with part number information in MARC subfield 245n. For example, the ILL software was reading and displaying "$a Roseanne $n The Complete First Season" as "RoseanneThe Complete First Season" so titles did not match. The title will now display correctly on the request and title matching (used when there's no standard number match) should be improved.

-The lender list build process failed if a request was created with a NHU-PAC (union catalog) record lacking standard numbers (ISBN, ISSN, etc.). This has been corrected and a title/author check (or just title check if no author) will be done if the union catalog source record doesn't have numeric identifiers.

-When a lender wants to change the due date on a request and clicks the calendar icon, the calendar will now open to the month of the due date rather than the current month. The date will appear in blue on the calendar. (See the blog post Much Ado about Due Dates for more about changing due dates.)

-Lending library staff will now be able to edit their Current Lender’s Note as long as they are the current lender. Until now, a Current Lender’s Note would immediately move to the Lender’s Notes field and could not be edited or deleted. With tonight's release, a Current Lender’s Note will remain in the Current Lender’s Note field for the lender as long as the library is the current lender. The borrowing library will see the note in the Lender’s Notes field. If the lending library edits the note, the edited note will be displayed to the borrower. If the lending library deletes the note, it will no longer display for the lender or borrower. If a lender does not fill the request, their Current Lender’s Note will move to Lenders’ Notes and will no longer be editable. If the request is retried and goes back to the same lender, that location will be able to add/edit/delete a new Current Lender’s Note but will not be able to edit the previous note.

-Non-Returnable requests filled with PDFs will now be automatically updated to Received and immediately moved to Complete status as soon as the attached document has been downloaded by either the patron or staff. (See the 18-minute video Placing ILL Requests: Copies from Magazines if you're unfamiliar with non-returnables.)

Sorting titles in Borrower Requests and Lender Requests

Last week's ILL software update was supposed to include better sorting of titles (ignoring initial articles) on the Borrower Requests and Lender Requests pages. We're now told that enhancement was pulled from the June 24 update and will be installed in the future.

Days to Respond

A recent software update in the NHAIS ILL System changed the way days are counted when determining how long a request can remain unanswered at a library before it automatically moves on to another potential lender. The day a request first appears as Pending at a location, whether first thing in the morning or late at night, now counts as Day 0 rather than Day 1. To compensate, the Days to Respond setting in the Participant Record has been changed for all libraries from 4 to 3 to maintain previous behavior. In effect, a request will still wait for a response 3 full days and a fraction of a 4th day. The settings change is now reflected in a 2022 blog post explaining the Participant Record.

ILL fixes and enhancements Tue 5/13 10pm

The NHAIS ILL System will be offline briefly tonight (Tuesday, May 13) starting at 10 o'clock to allow installation of program updates.

In results from the new Borrower Requests and Lender Requests searches (under Staff Dashboard > ILL Admin), on some screens the edit icon may require a horizontal scroll in order to be visible on the far right of the screen. To enable easy access to request details, the title (on the left) will now display as a clickable link to open the full request record. This restores the functionality of the previous request searches.

Two of the reports under Staff Dashboard > Statistics > Reports (new) are being updated. Lender Response Requests and Filled Borrowing Requests will now show the system (NHAIS), library ID (HSA code), and trading partner (town/library name) in separate columns. Currently, the system name and town/library name (e.g., NHAIS - Concord - NHSL) appear in a single column.

The rest of tonight's changes affect only libraries that offer patron-initiated requesting.

Limits can be set in the system to prevent patrons from placing more than the allowed number of requests. Prior to tonight's update, requests in Awaiting Lenders status (used while the lender list is built) did not count toward the ILL Request Limit and did not display to patrons in their Items From Other Libraries list. With this release, requests in Awaiting Lenders will count toward the ILL Request Limit and will show in the patron’s Items From Other Libraries list with a default message of “This request is processing.” This change will prevent patrons from circumventing the ILL Request Limit by placing several requests in quick succession while the lender lists are being built.

Also, requests in Pending Cancel status were not displayed when patrons viewed their Items From Other Libraries in their account but were counted as active. That could prevent additional requests based on the patron’s ILL Request Limit. Requests in Pending Cancel will now display. Statuses considered active were reviewed and made consistent across different configuration types to correct reports of ILL limits not behaving as expected.

ILL fixes and enhancements Tue 4/29 10pm

A couple of enhancements plus two minor fixes are part of a software update being installed in the NHAIS ILL System tonight (Tuesday, Apr. 29). The site will be offline briefly starting at 10 o'clock.

-For libraries that allow patron-initiated ILL requests, requests created by patrons (or staff logged in as patrons) were going immediately to Unfilled status if no lenders were found. This has been corrected so patron-created requests will go to Awaiting Approval status as expected.

-During the lender list build process, some lenders were not added to the list when the match required publisher validation and there were quotation marks in the record title. This has been corrected.

-One major enhancement, involving prioritizing reasons for request deflection, requires a bit of background explanation. Locations in a lender list are often skipped for reasons such as the format is not lendable or the library is on vacation. The order of the deflection reason could cause, for example, a borrowing library to retry a request due to a history note saying “Try again after [date]” only to have the request come back in Unfilled status due to a policy problem such as the format not being lendable.

With this release, the deflection will be prioritized so that “permanent" reasons resulting in Unfilled status (such as the format not being lendable) will take precedence so the borrowing library will not retry sending the request to the library with the "permanent" condition. Temporary reasons causing deflection and resulting in Retry status, such as vacations or an item currently being checked out, will be processed as usual as long as there isn't also a "permanent" reason to deflect the request.

-Further streamlining of options on the Staff Dashboard's ILL Admin menu is part of tonight's update. The Borrower Title Browse and Patron Browse will be combined into Borrower Requests and the Lender Title Browse will be changed to Lender Requests with more field options available to display, search, and sort. Meanwhile, Request Number Search will be renamed Search by Request Number to better differentiate it from Request Manager.

The ILL Admin menu as it has been recently:

The new look for the ILL Admin menu:

Fields will display in the following order:

Borrower Requests
Title*
Req. No.*
Author* (formerly "Author Name")
ISBN (new: up to 3 ISBNs will display)
Format (new)
Lender* (formerly "Library")
Lender's Item Barcode (new)
Patron Name*
Patron Barcode (new)
Due Date (new)
Need by Date (new)
Status*
Req. Type ("Returnable"/"Non-Returnable" formerly "Borrows"/"Copies")

Lender Requests
Title*
Req. No.*
Author* (formerly "Author Name")
ISBN (new: up to 3 ISBNs will display)
Format (new)
Borrower* (formerly "Library")
Lender's Item Barcode (new)
Due Date (new)
Need by Date (new)
Status*
Reason/Condition (new)
Req. Type ("Returnable"/"Non-Returnable" formerly "Borrows"/"Copies")

•    Fields indicated with an asterisk (the prior available fields) will be displayed by default.
•    By default, requests will be listed in alphabetical order by title but can be sorted by any displayed field.
•    Fields can be added or removed using the column selector.
•    Field selection is sticky by login and persists between sessions.

1.    Columns can be searched by entering a term in the search box at the top of the column.
o    Any term or part of a term can be entered and searched. For example, entering “demo” in the Borrower field will narrow the results to “AAAA: A Demo Library – AAAA” (this differs from the old pages, where the search was restricted to the beginning of the field).
o    Additional filters can be used as in the example below, where Borrower was filtered to “demo” and then Status filtered to “Lost.”
o    Click the “X” in the field to remove the filter.
2.    Hover to the right of a column name to display the sort arrows. Click the up arrow to sort in ascending order; the down arrow can be clicked to sort in descending order.
3.    Click the column selector to add or remove displayed fields; use the scroll bar to see additional fields or enter a term in the “Filter Column” field to search for a specific field.
4.    Click the edit (pencil) icon to open the request record.
5.    Click the 3-dot icon for the “Help”; click the “x” to close the page.

The ability to change the status of requests from Borrower Requests and Lender Requests displays will be in a future release.

ILL reports fix and enhancement Tue 4/15 10pm

Report modifications are part of software updates coming tonight (Tuesday, Apr. 15) to the NHAIS ILL System. The system will be offline for up to 15 minutes starting at 10 p.m.

Requests that had been deleted from the Request Manager have not been counted in the new Borrowing Activity report (Staff Dashboard > Statistics > Reports (new) > Borrowing Activity). This will be corrected with tonight's update. It has been noted here before that, although the new reports are no longer labeled Reports (beta), they continue to be tweaked.

Another new report, Borrowing Activity by Format, will be unveiled tonight. The report provides a breakdown of requests by format for the specified time period. A comparable Lending Activity by Format report remains in development and will be part of a future release.

 

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.

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).

Shipping label date fix and report enhancements Tue 3/4 10pm

The NHAIS ILL System will be offline briefly tonight (Tuesday, March 4) starting at 10 o'clock to install software fixes and enhancements.

When the ability to print shipping labels for a request in Will Supply/In Process status was introduced in January, bogus due dates (like 01/01/0001) started to appear. This was because the due date can be changed by the lender when in Will Supply/In Process and is not set until the request is updated to Shipped status. With tonight's update, if shipping labels are printed by the lender when a request is in Will Supply/In Process status, the Due Date label will print but there'll be no date next to it (feel free to write one in before the material leaves your library).

Two of the new reports are undergoing a name change to better reflect their content. Borrowing Statistics will be changed to Borrowing Activity while Lending Statistics will become Lending Activity.

Descriptions associated with these reports are being changed to reflect that the reports provide information on actions taken on requests during the specified time period, regardless of when the request was created. The counts for a completed time period (such as last month or last year) will not change. Counts may change if a report is run for this month or this year because requests that are in a processing status (like Awaiting Approval or Pending) may be updated before the end of the month or year.

Other changes to these new reports include the names of three categories (listed below with their associated statuses) and the addition of Total rows for each category.

-Processing (was Pending)
Awaiting Approval
Awaiting Lenders
Cancelled
Conditional
Expired
Will Supply/In Process

-Filled (was Shipped)
Accepted Renewal
Cancel Request Shipped
Complete
Lost
Not Received
Not-Received/Overdue
Overdue
Recalled
Received
Rejected Renewal
Renew Pending
Renew/Overdue

-Not Filled (was Rejected)
Retry
Unfilled

NHAIS fixes and enhancements Thu 2/20 10pm

The NHAIS ILL System will be offline briefly tonight (Thursday, Feb. 20) starting at 10 o'clock to install software fixes and enhancements.

-When labels are selected in Print Shipping Labels, you will now be required to confirm when the Delete option is selected. A message will display asking “Are you sure you want to delete the selected label(s)?” with options to “Click OK to delete the label(s)” or “Click Cancel to return to the print queue”. This confirmation will prevent labels from being mistakenly deleted when the Delete button is selected rather than the adjacent Format to Print button. 

-The Article Date fields on the Non-Returnable request form are for Year, Month/Season, and Date. The Year field is free-text and intended for a 4-digit year. If something other than 4 digits is entered, the request could be submitted but the data in the Year field was deleted. This has been corrected: if more than 4 digits are entered in the Year field and the Month/Season and Date fields are blank, the data in the Year field will now be retained.

ILL enhancements Tue 2/4 10pm

The NHAIS ILL System will be offline briefly starting at 10 o'clock tonight (Tuesday, Feb. 4) to install program updates.

In the Full Record Display Details section, the field label alignment has been adjusted to remain consistent and ensure labels do not vertically center when corresponding tag information wraps to multiple lines.

For libraries that have chosen to receive "NEW request" e-mail notifications from the ILL system, in recent months a bug was generating notifications to borrowers for all new requests--even for staff-created ones. This has been corrected and system notices with the subject line "New ILL Borrowing Request Notification" will now be sent only if staff approval is needed.

New Print Shipping Labels option

The NHAIS ILL System will be offline briefly tonight (Tuesday, Jan. 21) to install program updates. The outage will begin at 10 o'clock.

With this update, lenders will now be able to print Shipping Labels for requests in Will Supply/In Process status in addition to Shipped status. Borrowers will still be able to choose requests in Returned status.

On the Print Shipping Labels screen, additional fields will be available for display, search, and sorting. The list of fields will include:
•    Selected - checkbox to select to print
•    B or L - indicates the library’s role as Borrower or Lender
•    To - the library for which the label is being printed
•    Req. No. – new – Request Number
•    Title
•    Print Status - Printed or Unprinted
•    Date Printed – new – the last print date for the label
•    Req. Type – new – “brw” for Returnable or “cpy” for Non-Returnable requests
•    Req. Status – new – the request status

In the example below:
1.    A selection can be made to view a single or combination of request statuses
2.    The new fields will be displayed by default
3.    Click the gear icon to uncheck fields that you don’t want to display (the selection is sticky by login)
4.    If the print status is Unprinted and the Date Printed field is displayed, it will be blank

ILL fixes and enhancements Thu 12/19

The NHAIS ILL System will be offline briefly starting at 10 o'clock tonight (Thursday, Dec. 19). Fixes and enhancements will be installed.

-The Request Records and Lender Response Records reports at Staff Dashboard > Statistics > Activity and Request Reports would time out when a large amount of data was included in the reports. To resolve this issue, the output is being changed from “Excel Only” to “CSV Only.” The two reports can be run at the same time but will be downloaded in two separate CSV files that will open in Excel or other spreadsheet programs.

-Redundant policy links at the bottom of the Participant Record will be removed. The policy links at the top of the Participant Record remain always available as they are frozen when scrolling.

-For libraries that allow patron-initiated ILL requesting and use SIP2 for patron authentication, the Patron Lookup function required staff to enter the patron’s PIN. With tonight's program update, SHAREit will not require the patron’s PIN if the ILS supports lookup without it. The ILS Lookup will still display the “PIN” field to accommodate systems that require it. If staff enter a barcode and not a PIN the patron record will be returned if the ILS does not require a PIN--but if the ILS requires a PIN, staff will see an error message and will need to enter the patron’s PIN. Libraries may need to check with their ILS vendor for confirmation of whether authentication can be done by staff without the patron’s PIN.

Brief ILL outage Thu 12/12 10pm

The NHAIS ILL System will be offline for a few minutes tonight (Thursday, Dec. 12), starting at 10 o'clock. This interruption is to install software updates. No changes affecting program functionality have been announced.

ILL fixes and enhancements Thu 12/5 10pm

A number of fixes and enhancements for the NHAIS ILL System will be installed Thursday night (Dec. 5). The system will be offline for up to 15 minutes for the update, starting at 10 p.m.

-Shipping Labels will print with the larger font size that was used prior to the October 15 software update.

-The record validation process is being adjusted to include stricter validation for OCLC Number and UPC matches to correct a problem where libraries were sometimes added to lender lists for items they did not own.

-Lender requests in Pending status were prematurely displaying the red flag icon, which is supposed to indicate a library’s last day to respond. This was due to selections for Days Requests are Processed (in the Participant Record) not being consistently applied. This has been corrected.

-The Lending Policy display has been updated. You'll be able to see the new display at Staff Dashboard > ILL Admin > Participant Record > Lending but remember that you need to submit a Lending Policy form to change your settings.

1.    Enable Library Lending Policy will now be a slider button rather than a check box.
2.    Tooltips provide more information about the headings.
3.    Loan and Renewal policy options are Yes, No, or Not Applicable.
4.    Change the Loan Period or Renewal Period using the arrows or delete the entry and enter the new one.
5.    Use the functions in the upper right to Cancel (discard changes and close the policy) or Save changes.

You may click the 3 dots to print the policy or select the Help button to open the ILL Administration User Guide. Also, the Format to Print option on the Lending Policy page did not print the full policy. The Print option will now correctly print the full policy.

-Some of the reports found under Reports (beta) aren't really in beta status anymore. With Thursday's update, Reports (beta) will be relabeled as Reports (new).

Brief ILL outage Tue 11/12 10pm

The NHAIS ILL System will be offline briefly tonight (Tuesday, Nov. 12) starting at 10 o'clock to install software updates. All of the changes involve behind-the-scenes functions except that "NHAIS" will be added to the start of library names listed in the new beta report of Net Activity.