Aspen is coming! Sign up for your go-live dates and training. Please sign up by Monday, August 23rd.
Libraries in the first cohort will be ready to go-live on Aspen at the end of October 2021. Through September and October, SWAN staff will provide an Aspen training series and regular office hours to help you configure your catalogs and prepare to support patrons.
Libraries in the second cohort will be ready to go-live on Aspen in March 2022, with trainings held starting in January 2022.
Save the dates for the first cohort
If you plan to participate in the first cohort, which will go live in October 2021, save these dates. All meetings and trainings will be online.
*Note that the training dates have changed for Purchase Suggestions and Record Grouping trainings.
Kickoff meeting August 30th
To participate in the first cohort, your library's primary Aspen contact is required to attend the kickoff meeting, Monday August 30th 10 a.m. - 11 a.m. SWAN staff will cover everything you need to know about the rollout process, including the training schedule, library staff Aspen administration roles, and the configuration request form.
Aspen office hours Mondays at 10 a.m.
All library staff are encouraged to attend the bi-weekly Aspen office hours every other Monday from 10 a.m. - 11 a.m. SWAN staff will be available for all of your questions! Office hours begin September 20th.
Aspen Administration trainings Tuesdays at 11 a.m.
Library directors will need to assign Aspen Administration permissions to key staff members in your library. In the kickoff meeting, we will discuss these permissions, staff roles, and trainings in more detail. However, if you know you will be involved in configuring, customizing, and managing your catalog, save the dates for some or all of the Aspen Administration trainings:
Aspen Admin Training: Themes & Library Settings, Tuesday, September 7th 11 a.m. - noon
- This training will cover: How to customize colors, logos, and fonts; adding hours & holidays; and adding links to your catalog menu.
- Who should attend: Library staff with the OPAC Administrator role
- This training will cover: How to customize the home page of the catalog with highlighted collections, embed item lists into your website, and add item covers to items in the catalog missing covers or in need of a custom cover.
- Who should attend: Any library staff with Aspen Administration access that will handle reader's advisory in the catalog and/or library website
Aspen Admin Training: Placards & System Messages, Tuesday, September 21st 11 a.m. - noon
- This training will cover: How to add system alerts, for a library closing for example, and placards to highlight e-resources and/or services in your search results.
- Who should attend: OPAC Administrator, additional staff optional
Aspen Admin Training: Purchase Suggestions, Tuesday, October 5th 11 a.m. - noon
- This training will cover: How to use Aspen's Purchase Suggestion form to manage purchase suggestions from your patrons. This training is optional - if your library chooses not to use the Aspen Purchase Suggestion functions, no one at your library needs to attend.
- Who should attend: Any library staff with Aspen Administration access that will handle purchase suggestions
Aspen Admin Training: Record Grouping, Tuesday, October 12th 11 a.m. - noon
- This training will cover: Record grouping and cataloging functions in Aspen for SWAN Cataloging Library staff only.
- Who should attend: Library staff with the OPAC Cataloging role
All-staff training recordings & Aspen documentation
You can view the Aspen all-staff staff trainings through the SWAN support site. We recommend viewing these early, so you can bring your questions to the Aspen office hours! Note that there will not be a scheduled webinar for the all-staff trainings.
- Searching and intro to grouped records
- eResources
- Holds and masquerade mode
- Accounts and recommendations
You can also get acquainted with Aspen's features through the Aspen documentation.
