We’ve officially entered the ‘Season of Collaboration’ in RSA! This will be an extra long season as we’ll be needing your help, via surveys, email forums, online meetings, and on person meetings for the next 18 months or so! Here are several issues RSA’s Board, Staff, and Member Libraries are formally starting work on.

• Strategic Plan 2027: RSA’s previous Strategic Plan was finalized in December 2019 and was a great process with LOTS of member input. The end result was a highly specific document that immediately got overshadowed by COVID closures and the resulting aftermath. However, 2/3rd of that Strategic Plan were things RSA’s Board and Staff could do even working from home and were accomplished. Strat Plan 2027 will set RSA’s direction and efforts for the next 3 to 5 years and its VERY IMPORTANT for all our members are participate in the surveys, online events, and in-person meetings in year to ensure the new Strategic Plan covers everything the Membership wants to ensure we do. This will run until May 2027 or slightly longer.
• Project Harmony: What’s better than a Symphony? A Symphony that’s playing in Harmony. Those of you who’ve ever attended a 5th or 6th grade band/orchestra concert know the difference between individuals playing in a group and a group of individuals playing together. We’re working towards the latter! The Harmony Project replaces the not well named “database cleanup project that is now unlikely to result in an in-place migration but might end up leading to a full migration in three years” effort we’ve been slowly working on the last 8 months. This was announced at Directors Day on 30 September and will be an agenda item on the Director’s Advisory Committee (DAC) meeting on 14 October at Alpha Park. This project will run through the end of 2027, perhaps longer. Come to or attend online to DAC meetings for more details.
• Reports and Dashboards for your Boards and Administrators: We are working on a series of example end of month style interactive dashboards and we need your guidance and help. We don’t know what you want to show your Boards or Administers, but we want to create whatever that might be. To do so, you need some examples to look at to understand the types of things we can do, then provide feedback on what you want to see. Creating more useful dashboard reports is a long term project and the fruit is just beginning to form.
• System Annoyance Central: Does some aspect of our automation system annoy you? Maybe you need to work around the system? We’re here to help! Frequently your offhand comment about working around the system results in our ability to tweak things to work the way you want. Or at least less annoyingly. We know the system, you know what you want from it; collaboration makes that happen.
• RSA Staff Communications to Members, help us help you: Rabbit holes! RSA staff stumble down rabbit holes all the time as we’re working on things. Some we can ignore, but some rabbit holes are actually deep canyons that need to be corrected, cleaned up, or otherwise mediated. For the most part, everyone is good about getting back to us, but sometimes not so much. Please, if we’ve emailed you asking about something that needs work, help us help you to make the database and system work better for everyone.
• Extra: No-Transit Item Types are now Live: I hear you asking “how is not sending certain of your items outside your library collaboration?” Well, it’s going to take collaboration between libraries who receive items that can’t be returned to that library, the owning library, and the patron who returned the item over the next year or so until everyone understands how these items work. Fondulac has added several of these new item types into the database, you can find any no-transit item simply by searching RSAcat for “for checkout and return only” which are required words in the brief record title. FYI, no-transit items can be no holds, local holds only, or open to anyone placing a hold on the item. But in all cases, the only library the patron can pick up and return the item to is the item owning branch library. Contact the Help Desk for assistance setting up new item types, circ rules, hold rules, and for the cataloging and operational use guides.
• Our “Please Bug Us” campaign was set up to encourage one-to-one collaboration between Members and RSA. That’s still in effect as well and is exactly what we’re here for. We’re not always able to help, but there’s nothing we enjoy more than fixing problems or annoyances.

Cataloging Corner

By Jennifer Choate, Bibliographic Services Coordinator

You are working on a reclassification project and have a stack of books that need assigned the YA-GRAPHIC home location code and assigned the SUPRHEROES item category 4 code. What are your options?

You can use the Call Number and Item Maintenance wizard to search for and edit each item individually, but that can take time. To update items more quickly, use the Global Item Modification wizard (also called the “Global Item Mod”).

Using the Global Item Mod wizard allows you to select multiple values to edit for a group of items.

Once you select values to edit in Global Item Mod, you will scan into the wizard each item that needs to be assigned those values.

As you scan each item, the screen will confirm the item has been edited to the selected values.

See the Global Item Modification Wizard Guide for step-by-step instructions on how to use it.

Examples of when to use the Global Item Mod Wizard (not a complete list):

• Your library no longer considers items assigned a “new” item type, such as N-BK, as new in your collection. They need to be assigned the BOOK item type so they can begin allowing holds from patrons at other RSA libraries.
• Your library shelved DVDs on a display, indicated by the DISPLAY home location. They need to be assigned the AV-MOVIE home location to indicate they are no longer on display.
• Your library has a stack of books that are not assigned prices. You want to assign $20 as the price for each book to give you a better idea of its replacement cost if it becomes lost.

Questions about the Global Item Modification wizard? Reach out to the RSA Help Desk at or call 1-866-940-4083.

By Erica Laughlin, Bibliographic Services Manager

As you might have read in a previous RSA newsletter or heard at a recent Directors Advisory Committee (DAC) meeting or Cataloging Chat, RSA has started working with SirsiDynix to clean up some of the approximately 58,000 brief records in WorkFlows. These brief records make up 5.5% of the approximately 1,054,000 total bibliographic records.

There are too many brief records for the RSA Bibliographic Services Department to upgrade manually one-by-one. That approach would take over 30 years! The goal of the large-scale brief record cleanup is not only to enhance the bibliographic quality of our database, but also to improve discoverability and reciprocity in WorkFlows and the RSAcat. Discoverability and reciprocity are two of the RSA core principles.

Here are five things your library can do to help with brief record cleanup:

1. Review reports of your library’s brief items that have never checked out or not in the past ten years.
   Zac from the RSA Bibliographic Services Department is reaching out to libraries to ask them to check their shelves and consider removing two types of brief items:
   • Those brief items that have never checked out in WorkFlows
   • Those brief items that have not checked out in the past ten years since January 1, 2016
   You will receive (or may have already received) an email from Zac if your library has any brief items that fit these criteria. If the items are not missing or lost, RSA can batch remove them from WorkFlows if you have the Director’s permission.
   Some brief items, such as equipment, reference, and special collections, are in-library use only and may not check out. Even if you plan to keep these items, checking your collection to ensure you still have them and discarding them if not would be a good idea.
   At the recent DAC meeting on July 8th, helpful feedback was shared about the report of brief items that have never checked out. Some of the items listed on that report have never checked out because they were recently cataloged.
   In response to the DAC’s feedback, RSA has adjusted the criteria for the never checked out report to exclude recently cataloged brief items that may not have had a chance to check out yet. The report excludes from its output items cataloged in the past thirteen months. That timeframe was chosen because that is the length of time RSA considers an item new for our de-newing process that batch edits new item types to standard ones.
   Thank you to the DAC for their feedback about this report. If you would like an updated report of your library’s brief items that have never checked out so it excludes items cataloged in the past 13 months, please reach out to .
   
   
2. Request a report of your library’s brief items that may be eligible for Cataloging Maintenance Center (CMC) cataloging.
   The RSA Bibliographic Services Department can create a list of the genealogy and local history items in your collection that may be eligible for free CMC cataloging service. Email if you are interested in a report of your items that are potentially CMC eligible. RSA will create the list and email it back to you. For any items you decide to submit to the CMC, look at the “Sending an Item to the CMC” section on the CMC home page. The CMC will let RSA know when the OCLC record for your genealogy or local history item is ready to load into WorkFlows, overlaying the brief record.
   
   
3. Always check WorkFlows first and then OCLC (if your library uses Connexion Client or Record Manager) before creating a brief record to ensure there is no matching record already available.
   Searching WorkFlows and OCLC (if your library uses it) before entering the brief record is crucial to avoid creating a duplicate record for an item that already has a matching record. Duplicate records are not only confusing when searching in WorkFlows and the RSAcat, but they also spread holds across multiple records, resulting in holds taking longer to fill and patrons waiting longer to receive items.
   
   
4. When creating a brief record, always enter the ISBN, ISSN, or UPC if the item has one.
   Entering an ISBN, ISSN, or UPC (referred to as a “standard number”) on the brief record is critical. The standard number provides a valuable match point as RSA continues large-scale cleanup, transferring brief items onto OCLC records in WorkFlows that match based on title, author, and standard number. Entering the standard number on the brief record will also be very useful when RSA uses a third-party tool to batch search OCLC for matching records.
   
   
5. This Fall watch for RSA to send you a report of your library’s brief records without standard numbers.
   Brief records without standard numbers are not only difficult to search, but they are also impossible for RSA’s large-scale processing to merge duplicates and transfer brief items to matching OCLC records.
   This Fall RSA will be reaching out to libraries that have items cataloged on brief records without standard numbers. If you have any of these records, RSA would appreciate your help looking for these items on the shelf, seeing if they have a standard number, and if so, entering the standard number into the report and emailing it back to the RSA Help Desk. RSA will add the standard numbers to the brief records so they can be considered during the next run of processing.
   
   
   Questions about RSA’s brief record cleanup or what you can do to help? Reach out to or 1-866-940-4083.

It’s IPLAR Season!

By Patty Kweram, Library Services Coordinator

Not only is it Summer Reading season, it’s also IPLAR season! For many of you, the fiscal year just ended, which means it’s time to complete the Illinois Public Library Annual Report.

RSA has created a guide to completing the relevant circulation and collection questions on the IPLAR. Some of the data is emailed to your RSA-provided email account hosted by IONOS. Look for the reports dated the 1st of the month that begins your fiscal year. Example: reports dated July 1, 2026, for a fiscal year from July – June. Other data is compiled on the RSA Support Site Monthly Statistics Page. Specific reports and where to find them are in the above linked instructions.

Digital Circulation Statistics ADML (Overdrive/Libby) and eRead Illinois (Palace Project), circulation data is found on the Monthly Statistics Page.

You may also use the statistics reports in the admin sites for Palace Project and for Overdrive/Libby. Boundless data (2025) is only accessible on the monthly statistics page.

The State Library provides these resources: Illinois State Library IPLAR portal.

Contact Counting Opinions for technical assistance at or by phone 1-866-285-1950. For non-technical questions, please contact the Illinois State Library at or by phone at 1-800-665-5576, extension 2.

Laura Keyes, Library program Specialist, can be reached at 217.785.1168 or

Managing Charge History in Patron Accounts

By Sara Naslund, Library Services Coordinator

Ever wonder why some patron records take longer than others to load? Get the blue circle of death when trying to look at a Display User? It could be due to Charge History. The more items in a patron’s charge history, the longer it takes to load their account.

This patron has every check out since 2014 recorded. As you can imagine, that is a lot of information to load every time they are looked up.



Want to fix that? Email the Help Desk and give us a date (i.e. Remove everything prior to 2020) and we can delete portions of the history.

Want to fix that? Here is how to do that!