News

As of April 29th, we have gone live on our new help desk system, powered by HaloITSM. Some member staff may have received e-mails as we've transferred tickets from our old system to our new one, and some of you may continue to receive those over the next couple of days. We are still completing the DNS crossover to a custom URL. Currently, you can access our help desk at the following link: https://swanlibraries.haloitsm.com/portal Use L2 to log in via single sign-on. If you do not have an L2 account associated with your library, you must set one up before accessing the online help desk. Once...

Update 4/29/2025: It appears as of April 29th, the NYT plans to continue the Books API. We're continuing to monitor the situation and look for any communications from the New York Times. Unfortunately, the New York Times has deprecated their Books API, which pulled in New York Times bestseller lists into the catalog. This means that the New York Times lists will no longer be updated in the catalog as of April 25th, 2025. These lists appear in search results for Lists, and your library may use them for browse categories. SWAN and the Aspen Community are currently investigating ways we can...

The April 2025 (January- March, 2025) 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 workbook 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 do not have access to the BCA reports, please open a ticket in the SWAN ticketing system. Please wait until you receive your statement before making payments or requesting a credit.

We're excited to announce that the new series page feature is live in your library catalogs. The Novelist Select integration has been sunsetted. How do I find the new series pages? You now have a new option to search series in the search bar: Series will appear separated by language. In a search result or title detail page, you can select the series link to view the series page. If a series page cannot be generated, you will be taken to search results for the series name. Within the series page, you can view the titles in the series. What are benefits? SWAN previously purchased an integration...

Due to the Aspen server migration, we did not go live with the 25.03 release on our normal schedule. We're now back on our release schedule and live on 25.04 with two releases of features to share. App header features Libraries can now add a logo and background to appear in the SWAN Libraries + and LiDA apps. This will allow your library to display more prominent library branding to your patrons. SWAN has documentation on adding an app header and logos. Series pages and enhancements These releases include work that SWAN sponsored to build series pages natively into Aspen that previously were...

The SWAN Board is calling for representation from all member library directors/administrators for three at-large positions, with terms beginning on July 1, 2025. The online form to submit the self-nomination statement is open on the SWAN Support site (login required): Submit your self-nomination Information about the SWAN Board election and the timetable are available from the SWAN Support site under the About > Information for Board Members > Board Election. The deadline to submit a self-nomination is Friday, April 25th May 2nd.

As part of our continuing single-sign on (SSO) project, we are introducing a new log-in procedure for the community forums. PLEASE NOTE: While accounts have not changed, you must use your L2 credentials to log in. Your previous login information will no longer work. The top of the community forum page has been edited to reflect the new procedures.

On April 29th, SWAN will migrate to a new help desk and ticketing system. The help desk system, called HaloITSM, is more full-featured than our current solution and will launch with a new user portal for SWAN member staff to place requests, browse our service offerings, and track tickets. If you would like to get a preview of the new portal and learn to navigate it before the launch date, we have a video orientation posted on the support site: SWAN Help Desk Orientation. Members will not need to do anything to ensure a successful transition to the new user portal. E-mailing tickets will still...

Update March 26th, 1 PM: Grove has implemented over-the-air updates for the app on iOS and Android, but they do not appear to be properly triggering an update. If patrons report issues with the app, they can update the app manually. Here are instructions to update apps in Android and update apps on iOS. SWAN has posted a system message banner to the catalog to help guide patrons to update. Update March 25th, 11:45 PM: The server migration is complete and updates to the SWAN Libraries + app have been published to the app stores. Patrons should be able to update their apps early morning...

We have opened a survey for libraries to provide feedback on SWAN's software platforms. This survey can be found using the link below. To keep results manageable, we are allowing only one response per library. Emails to library directors were sent out on February 26, 2025. We are conducting a survey to help gauge your library’s satisfaction with the seven products used by SWAN. The results will be reviewed by the SWAN Board and leadership. This is the second annual survey conducted and there are some small changes from the platform survey from last year. Of interest for this year’s survey is...

The Aspen 25.02 release is live. This release includes: Enhancements to align the holds screen and functions in the app with what patron see in the web interface Helpful features for Aspen Administrators setting up new libraries Features for other ILSes that do not pertain to SWAN (e.g. enhancements to sublocations for Polaris libraries) View the full release notes

We experienced an issue while adjusting the BLUEcloud Analytics reports used to compile the monthly Review Inactive Patron dashboards delivered to your History Lists on the second of the month. The dashboards delivered in January and February still had the inactivity settings from last year rather than being updated to five years of inactivity scheduled to begin this year. We adjusted the reports to five years of inactivity and resent the dashboards to your History Lists. Due to the error, we are pushing back the record purge that will include the new criteria. We will begin using the 5-year...

In March, SWAN will be migrating to a new help desk and ticketing system. While this transition will mostly affect our internal team, the new system has a user portal where member staff can log requests and track their open tickets. We have scheduled two short orientation sessions so interested staff can see the interface before its release. The sessions are listed on L2. Use the links below. Both sessions will be the same. Tuesday, February 25th - 1:30-2:30 Wednesday, February 26th - 11:00-11:30 If you cannot make either session, we will post a recording of the orientation on our support site...

As of yesterday, February 3, NCOA processing on patron records is complete. All updated addresses and geolocation data have been uploaded. Updating patron address information will once again trigger an update to the patron's Last Activity Date, a function that we disabled during this update. Thank you for your patience during the updates. Please view our documentation for recommended steps to take for patron cleanup: National Change of Address (NCOA).

We have received the address change data from Unique and will be updating patron records starting today. The number of patron records sent for processing was 917,567. Of those, 31,349 were returned with address changes for a change rate of 3.4%. In preparation, today we have temporarily disabled the Symphony function to update Last Activity Date when a patron's address information is changed. Once processing begins over the next couple of days, manual address changes may be overridden by this update. During the processing of these records, the following updates will occur: Address changes will...

The January 2025 (October- December, 2024) 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 workbook 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 do not have access to the BCA reports, please open a ticket at the SWAN ticketing system. Please wait until you receive your statement before making payments or requesting a credit.

The Aspen 25.01 release is live. This release primarily focused on bug fixes. It also added a WhaZoodle format and filtering options for searches limited to Lists. View the full release notes

Your key to the OCLC Community Center: Insights from Library Staff on Enhancing Library Value Tue, Jan 28, 2025 01:00 PM EST Join us for an insightful panel discussion where seasoned library staff members share their experiences with the OCLC Community Center. Discover how this platform enhances collaboration, streamlines workflows, and fosters professional growth within their libraries. Our panelists will discuss: Practical strategies for maximizing the Community Center's resources. Success stories highlighting the impact on library services. Tips and tricks for effective engagement with...

Year in review A new "Year In Review" feature will show patrons fun facts about their 2024 library usage and recommend titles for 2025. We have enabled this on the consortium catalog. If you would like this enabled for your library or have feedback for the developers for next year, please submit a ticket. Patrons will see their Year In Review if: They have checkout history enabled and They have checked out titles in 2024 Library staff may not see the Year In Review in masquerade mode. A patron must directly log in to their account to activate it. New formats Aspen now includes formats for...

SWAN will be closed the following days: Tuesday, December 24th Wednesday, December 25th Tuesday, December 31 Wednesday, January 1 RAILS and RAILS Delivery are also closed those 4 days. SWAN will have limited staff on the days we are open between December 20th and January 2nd. We will be back to our normal schedule and staffing starting Monday, January 6th.