Talis Source Blog

Still only a couple of weeks into the New Year and it’s with great pride that I welcome 3 new contributors to Talis Source. Not only are they spread right across the country, from Wales to the South East, they use different LMS Systems, DS Galaxy and the Extensity (formerly Geac) Vubis Smart system. Furthermore, two of the new contributors haven’t contributed since the summer of 2005 and the other has contributed for the first time.

Why are they returning I hear you question. They explained that they have explored alternative resource sharing applications and conclude that they favour the simple, no fuss interface and of course appreciate the great value – free.

What a great start for the year!

If you would like to refresh your holdings or want to contribute for the first time, please contact the team who can assistance or advice you may require. The team can be contacted by emailing source@talis.com, alternatively contact me directly on 0870 400 5425.

I look forward to welcoming more new contributors for 2007, a year that will no doubt have some exciting developments in resource discovery…..

Technorati Tags: Resource Discovery, DS Galaxy, Vubis Smart, Talis Source, Talis, library,

Posted by Grant White at 02:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In 1898 Jacques Hadamard published a study which is arguably the first discovery of chaos. Well done him.

I however, am frustrated by chaos and can’t tolerate having to wade through unnecessary details when I’m in a hurry. For example, last year when I may or may not of forgot to book a table on Valentine's day, I really could of done without Google displaying all the restaurants that were too far away. However, I eventually found a table and my girlfriend was none the wiser – thank God.

In a similar vein, do you find it annoying/life threatening that the region you would like to borrow an item from is always at the bottom of the search results in Talis Source? Okay, it might not been life threatening (all of the time) but it can be a tad annoying. Luckily enough, it's a simple task to configure which regions are displayed and the order they are shown. For instance, if you’re a library in Scotland you may not always want to borrow a book from the South West, so you could specify that that region isn’t displayed or is displayed after all other regions.

For details how to configure the order regions are displayed in Talis Source please visit the Talis Source forum.

(Photo taken by KrassyCanDoIt displayed in Flickr)

Technorati Tags: Resource Discovery, Chaos, Talis, Talis Source, Tips, library,

Posted by Grant White at 11:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

A few institutions have recently asked if it is possible to restrict access to the admin area in Talis Source to prevent accidental altering important information, such as lending email address.

You'll be pleased to know that there is. You have two options, creating a Publics User or altering the user privileges for an existing user.

The first option is to register for a Public User licence and the second is to alter the access privileges for any or all of the users. I would suggest the second option rather than the first as it preserves many of the features that a lot of Talis Source users find usefu, such as the Directory services.

For full details explaining how to setup each option please refer to the Talis Source Forum

Technorati Tags: Resource Discovery, Talis, Talis Source, Tips, library,

Posted by Grant White at 11:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Melanie pointed out over on the Talis Forums that there haven’t been any recent postings on the Talis Source blog since October last year. It only feels like a couple of weeks since I was writing the last post. Oh how time flies!

Although there were a lot of vicious rumours that I had fallen from the face of the earth, I haven’t - promise. In fact I'm actually fit and healthy and have been busy preparing for all the exciting things we have planned for resource discovery this year. So stay tuned; details will follow soon …..

Getting the ball rolling again, I went into my cupboard, dusted off my blogging hat (see right), powered up my computer and started to blog again (obviously).

So what have I been up to? Well after a massive 2 week break for Christmas I've been busy learning a new application produced by our good friends over at Microsoft. I decided I would make use of all their eLearning sessions, webinars, webcasts and the various forum postings to orientate myself around the new product. It was the first time that I have ever learnt an application using only the internet, and guess what? It was a refreshing way to learn and I got to know the application really well, without even having to install the software!

What I found particularly helpful were the forum postings, there were loads of really useful tips and tricks posted by some Microsoft employees and various users. So I thought I would take a leaf out their book and start posting a few tips over on the Talis Source forum as well. If you have any handy tips, no matter how small they are please add them , they might really help someone out. So go on it give it a go.

I’ll include a link to each tip that I’ve added here on the Talis Source blog where I will also discuss the tip in more detail.

The first tip I’ve added explains how to set up your institution as a “lender of last resort” that I posted earlier today, click here for the link to the tip.

Have a good weekend and I’ll post another tip on Monday.

(Photos taken by rob_fuel and gadjoboy displayed in Flickr)

Posted by Grant White at 06:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)