What’s New

RSAcat Update Sunday Evening will Include Downtime

Audience: Everybody
Action: Information Only

The Bottom Line:

SirsiDynix will be installing the latest version of their software on RSAcat this Sunday, Oct 22nd, starting around 8 PM.  The upgrade is expected to take 4 to 6 hours to complete.  After it is completed, a full system harvest and processing need to complete prior to showing complete search results.

We have a SirsiDynix consultant standing by for Monday morning in case anything odd happens Tony and Kendal can’t figure out.  Normally there are a couple minor things we need tweaking or rebuild, and many of the various widgets we’ve added over the years will need to be reworked a bit.

Background:

This upgrade will fix many issues we see on the backend, and many smaller things patrons might have noticed.  It also tweaks the screen layout to make it more responsive on mobile devices and meet updated accessibility standards.   After the upgrade is complete, it will require some additional time on our part next week to tweak the CSS files and widgets to fully re-integrate the RSA look-and-feel.

Major issues fixed include:

1 – Preferred pickup library changing to the first library in the list bug.

This has been an issue for a bit now.  If your library closed for more than a few days and we removed it from the list to block new hold pickups there, RSAcat might change that library’s patron’s pickup library.  Also, sometimes if the patron clicked anything else in the RSAcat My Account, Personal Information tab, Preferences screen, it would often set the default pickup library to Alpha Park.  

This has been fixed so that if the patron’s preferred pickup library is no longer available, the patron will be prompted to select a new preferred library when saving their My Account preferences.

2 – Allowing ALL records to be sorted by pub date, not just a select few.

To provide more search flexibility to patrons, the sorting of search results is no longer limited to a configured size, regardless of the sorting option selected. Previously, only relevance was sorted without limits.  RSA’s limit was something like 300 to 500 records max.


For example, rather than limiting the sorting to the first several hundred results, RSAcat will now handle sorting for all of the search results for a specific author, even when thousands of results are returned.

3 – Date range display for continuing resources

To prevent confusion over whether or not a publication ended in the current calendar year, date ranges for continuing resources have been enhanced to append the  message “(Ongoing)” to the date range display.

For example, the date range display for a continuing resource that began in 2005 would appear like this: 2005-2023 (Ongoing)

4 – New ‘Continue my work’ popup display for patrons

RSAcat will now better detect user activity, and timeout messages only appear when no user activity is detected. Any user activity detected prompts the session timeout counter to reset. When no user activity is detected, the session timeout messages appear as configured for your library’s profile.  Many of you will not notice this.  On the backend it’s a huge win because I’m constantly getting kicked out in the middle of something and losing all my work when I take a phone call.

Boundless IP Address Changes – Information Only

To: All RSA Libraries
Action: Information Only

The Bottom Line:

Baker & Taylor sent an email to all Boundless libraries about IP address changes. RSA made the changes in our firewall. Libraries DO NOT need to make any changes for Boundless to authenticate.

Background:

From Baker & Taylor:
”To ensure a stable hosting environment that is not impacted by maintenance periods, B&T will deploy new server communications for all our Boundless customers. This will require libraries that use real-time authentication methods such as SIP2, Patron API, LDAP, NCIP, and other protocols to allowlist new server IP addresses for the Boundless services as soon as possible.”

The IP address changes are made at RSA for all RSA libraries. We added the new IP addresses to our firewall so patrons using Boundless should continue to be able to use the app with no interruption in service.

Please contact RSA or eRead Illinois support at for any issues.

New Domain for Support Site

We’re happy to share that as of this week, this support website is live at the following domain!

support.librariesofrsa.org

There are a few more steps involved to getting the site into more of our member’s hands. However, if you are reading this you are among some of the first to be using it. Your feedback is extremely important. Please let us know if something isn’t working how you think it should by contacting Member Services through the RSA Help Desk.

We can be reached through the usual email — though we ask that you please include “New RSA support site” in the subject.

Feel free to offer your suggestions on how we might improve the new site by using the help desk email address above.

Welcome to the New RSA Support Website

Here’s an overview of what to expect from our new support site. Read on for a description of how to use the site and how it is organized.

Layouts of Pages

You will notice a table of contents on the left side of many pages throughout the site. This can be used to navigate and jump within the current page to the section title of your choice. This contents sidebar is accessible on most pages with at least 3 sections and will follow you down the page even after you scroll.

Because some pages like the Handbooks are quite long, this can be a fast way to navigate within a page.

Screenshot of typical page with arrows denoting how the table of contents can be used.
Screenshot showing side menu navigation within current page.

Main Menu

The menu across the top of every page is the Main Menu and can be helpful in getting you directly to the information you need.

Handbooks

Hanbooks are lists curated by RSA staff to help RSA library staff and are grouped by specific roles. If you are interested in learning more about being a Director or Administrator in an RSA library, you may want to start with the Directors & Admin handbook.

If you are a cataloger, the Cataloging handbook is a good place to see an organized overview of all the cataloging info on the support site.

Are you trying to learn more about our rules and procedures on circulation? Check out the Circulation handbook and find various subpages grouped by their uses.

There are also handbook pages for school libraries and for those new to RSA. If you have an idea of how to expand these, please let us know at and include “New RSA Support Site” in the subject.

Pages by Topic

Within the Main Menu, you’ll see options to browse the site By Topics. This can be a useful way to search and browse the site for information. We suggest you start with the All Topics page. Notice that items in these pages and sub-pages are arranged alphabetically. If you want to see things by their category, there is an option to click on a tab within the All Topics page or you can simply go to the By Topic > Specific Topic

Screenshot showing how to filter a list by clicking the category tab.
Screenshot showing how to filter a list by clicking the category tab.

There are a variety of categories that the pages in the By Topic menu are sorted into. They include:

Cataloging

Circulation

Monthly Statistics – direct link to the page with monthly reports.

Parameters

Reports

Setup & Configuration – setup for WorkFlows and more.

Support for Other Products – includes eBook information, and other services outside of WorkFlows.

Search

Finally, if you haven’t found what you’re looking for after using your preferred method, you can always try searching the site. Just click the magnifying glass in the very top right of the page anywhere on the site, type your terms and press Enter/Return to start a search.

Screenshot with arrow showing the search option at the top of every page
Search from the top of every page.

Contact

Hours

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866-940-4083

Email

Address
715 Sabrina Drive
East Peoria, IL 61611

Fax
630-734-5051

Monday - Friday | 8am - 5pm

 

Critical After Hours Support
309-369-6422
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