News

Over the past week, we have experienced performance issues and downtime of our Aspen catalogs: All catalogs and the app, accessed from anywhere, were extremely slow or down from 11/13 through 11/14 A small handful of libraries have reported they cannot access the catalog or app within their library networks If your library is unable to access the catalog from your library network, please contact SWAN support. We have now learned from ByWater Solutions, our support and hosting provider for Aspen, that we are experiencing a denial of service (DoS) attack. This attack is ongoing, and ByWater has...

The Aspen catalog will now display a new order for formats within grouped records. Previously, formats were listed alphabetically. This change should be especially noticeable for books, where you will now see physical book formats above eBook formats. You can see the format order in our updated grouped works documentation, or check in out in your catalog! A big thanks to our Discovery & User Experience Advisory group (DUX) which worked on the new order.

The Weeklies 2025 list has been posted to the support site. The serial controls can be transferred to the new records once 2024 issues are no longer expected, or new controls can be created in the 2025 records. See Transferring a Control Record. Quick reminders: Do not attach Crain’s Book of Lists to Crain’s Chicago Business serial record. Crain’s Book of Lists also gets a new monographic record every year. Weeklies use Chronology only, except for the academic journals JAMA and The New England Journal of Medicine. As a refresher on serials call numbers, magazines published monthly must have...

The October 2024 (July-September) 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 help@swanlibraries.net. Please wait until you receive your statement before making payments or requesting a credit.

Update 10/28/24 2PM: After careful consideration, we've decided to postpone this update for the time being. We will update when an alternative date has been chosen via SWANcom and an updated news post. To re-iterate, there will be no downtime. The 6.4.2 update will not be taking place. Original Update 10/16/24 2:23PM: SirsiDynix has scheduled an upgrade of our Symphony Web Services after-hours on Thursday, October 31st at 11pm. This 6.4.2 release includes new, enhanced and user-inspired features and fixes to reported defects. This upgrade is expected to last approximately 60 minutes and will...

The 24.10 release of Aspen is live. This release includes: Improved date display for OpenArchives The dates display for OpenArchives results can be updated for a friendlier display. This is a setting that SWAN will enable for libraries using the OpenArchives integration, and you should see the update tomorrow. Additional sort options in the app for Checked Out Titles The SWAN Libraries + app now includes sort options in the Checked Out Titles screen, including sort by library account for linked accounts. Future enhancements This release lays the groundwork for several new features. These will...

Update 10/11/24 3:40 PM: Aspen is now processing Symphony exports successfully, and slowness issues have been resolved. If you see any additional issues, please open a ticket. Update 10/11/24 8:00 AM: We're seeing issues with Aspen processing Symphony exports, so any changes to items or bibliographic records will not appear in Aspen until these issues are resolved. Update 10/10/24 7:00 PM: The server upgrade was successful, and My Account functionality is now available. However, it will take some time for the Symphony exports to catch up, so item statuses may be incorrect. ByWater Solutions...

SirsiDynix will be performing maintenance on our BlueCloud Analytics server today at 4:00pm. BlueCloud Analytics will be unavailable during this time and it is expected to last 30 minutes.

Do you want to get involved in a SWAN working group? Self-nominations are now open! Working group members complete special projects and assist SWAN staff in decision-making. Working groups require a commitment of at least one year. Learn more about each group and sign up: Circulation Working Group - Self-nominations due October 21, election October 22-November 11th Cataloging Working Group - No sign up required, Cataloging libraries will receive meeting links Discovery & User Experience Working Group - Sign up by November 11th E-Resource Working Group - Sign up by November 11th

The 24.09 release of Aspen is live. This release includes bug fixes and the following enhancements: Custom sort order for formats in grouped works Currently, the formats within a grouped work start with "Book", then list additional formats alphabetically. We now have the ability to sort formats within a grouped work in any order. At the next Discovery and User Experience Advisory meeting, the group will discuss considerations for changing the format order. Self check updates We are still awaiting work for Aspen to use the Symphony APIs for self check in Aspen LiDA, so self check is still not...

Access to OCLC services may be affected through Saturday morning, 9/14/2024 System maintenance is scheduled to start at Sep-13-2024 23:00 Central Time through Sep-14-2024 11:00 Central Time affecting the following services: CONTENTdm, EZproxy (hosted), FirstSearch, ILLiad, Tipasa, WorldShare Acquisitions, WorldShare Circulation, WorldShare Collection Manager, WorldShare Interlibrary Loan, WorldShare License Manager, WorldShare Record Manager, WorldShare Reports and Report Designer There are no enhancements with this event. Check OCLC System Status Dashboard to determine if this event completes...

Update 9/11/24 10:20AM: We have been informed the server migration was unsuccessful. We are still awaiting a fix for our ILS export processing issues, so you will continue to see incorrect item statuses in Aspen. Update 9/11/24 9:05AM: Following the server migration, Aspen is not processing item status and record changes from Symphony. We are in touch with ByWater solutions to address this issue. ByWater Solutions, our Aspen Discovery hosting and support provider, is upgrading our Aspen production server, this evening Tuesday, September 10th between 8PM and 10PM. This is the previously...

We are excited to announce a new item category for item records in WorkFlows! Item Category 6 can now be used to designate languages other than English. Several foreign language options have been populated in this category, and you can begin assigning them immediately. Like all item categories, Item Category 6 does not impact circulation or hold rules in any way. It also does not display in the public catalog. It is meant for staff use only. Item Category 6 is not yet available for reporting in BLUEcloud Analytics (BCA). SirsiDynix is working to add this in a future release. In the meantime...

Are you using the best links for your electronic resources? SWAN will help you make sure your patrons are using OpenAthens to authenticate. OpenAthens is a complete, secure solution protecting patron privacy by not releasing any personally identifiable information (PII). Over the course of the next year, libraries will be broken into 12 groups. At the end of each month, new tabs will be added to the spreadsheet until all member libraries are listed. The new links have been tested and should be updated immediately. Links for these libraries are available: Group 1: Addison, Acorn, Alsip...

--Updated 9/3/24-- Scheduled maintenance on the Symphony ILS has completed and regularly scheduled reports have caught up and concluded successfully. You may now resume normal functions and WorkFlows usage. If you encounter any issues or have additional questions please open a help ticket by sending an email to help@swanlibraries.net. --Updated 9/1/24-- We will be rebuilding our indexes over Labor Day weekend, starting Sunday 9/1, when libraries are closed. You will not be able to access Workflows or BLUECloud Staff during the scheduled maintenance window. We anticipate that this will have...

We have added a new menu link in Aspen and LiDA - Online Resources. The Online Resources link is intended to direct patrons to your library database page. Many online resources are not discoverable in Aspen/LiDA, and this is meant to be a quick way to get patrons to your list of electronic content. Each library has had a link added, if you wish to remove or edit, you may do so. Instructions for customizing your catalog can be found under library system settings. Aspen under Show Menu LiDA under More menu

The 24.08 release of Aspen is live. This release fixes several bugs with Aspen Discovery and Aspen LiDA and lays some initial groundwork for push notifications in Aspen LiDA. Aspen Discovery Bug fixes include: If a record is identified as both Manga and Graphic Novel, Aspen will prefer the format label of "Manga" Fix for automatic login for cloudLibrary Bugs with search results for call number, ISSN, and grouped work ID searches, Accessibility updates include adding the ability to: Open/close search filter accordions using the keyboard. Tab to the Refresh button on the Holds page. Tab to...

The BLUEcloud Analytics Dashboards used to complete IPLAR and the ILLINET InterLibrary Loan Survey are ready. Worksheets and instructions can be found on the Illinois State Library site. The IPLAR due date for most libraries is September, 2024. The ILL Survey is not due until March, 2025 and those forms are not yet updated. Please note: there are two dashboards. One is specifically for libraries with pseudo libraries and/or branches.

--- Update on 2024/07/30--- Many libraries have reported missing databases, slight differences in database names, and wrong database codes. The workbook below has been updated, please download this version moving forward. For libraries that are unable to access any link, please open a ticket with help@swanlibraries.net. It seems some databases may have been missed, this is something we can fix without help from EBSCO. For a list of databases and brief descriptions, please see EBSCO package from the Illinois State Library on our support site. ---Original Posting on 2024/07/26--- Many of you...

The schedule for the SWAN Expo on Friday, August 23rd is now finalized! You can view the day's sessions at specific times throughout the day. Our 2024 annual event is shaping up to be a great one. We have 19 sessions covering a range of topics and presenters with expertise in subjects that we hope all of you will enjoy. Mental health During the planning of this year's Expo, we picked up from some membership polling at a Fireside meeting that concerns around mental health was theme. We approached the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) to present this year's keynote. The staff from NAMI...