Evergreen 2.4 Alpha1 Release Notes

1. Upgrade notes

1.1. Custom toolbar permissions

With the addition of more granular permissions for configuring a custom toolbars, the ADMIN_TOOLBAR permission alone will not allow users to configure a custom toolbar. This permission must now be used in conjunction with one or more of the following permissions:

ADMIN_TOOLBAR_FOR_ORG
ADMIN_TOOLBAR_FOR_USER
ADMIN_TOOLBAR_FOR_WORKSTATION

2. New features

2.1. Acquisitions

2.1.1. Acquisitions MARC Upload Form Persistence

Adds a two-layer persistence mechanism for the acquisitions MARC file upload interface. A set of org unit settings now exist for managing default values for the interface. Additionally, for each field where no org unit setting value is configured, the last-used value will be persisted locally and re- used with subsequent loads of the interface.

2.2. OPAC

2.2.1. Display alternate graphic (880) fields

By default, Evergreen displays alternate graphic fields, if any, for contributors (1xx / 7xx), titles (245), edition statements (250), imprints (260), notes (5xx), subjects (6xx), and series (4xx / 8xx) in search results and record details per the Library of Congress MARC21 specifications:

Default display

In general, alternate graphic fields display below the corresponding primary field. One exception is the attribution summary on the record details page, in which the alternate graphic field contents display between the primary field content and the attribution statement. To support CSS customizations, HTML elements for the graphic fields have the class attribute value graphic880.

Implementation details

The template file parts/misc_util.tt2 defines two macros for retrieving linked 880 fields:

get_graphic_880s: given a target_field scalar value representing a MARC field tag, populate the graphic_880s list with hashes containing the target field tag and any graphic fields linked to that particular tag, with the values for each being a simple concatenation of all subfields that are not control subfields (per http://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/ecbdcntf.html). The structure of the graphic_880s list is as follows:
```
[
    {
        "primary": {"occur": 01, "value": "foo foo"},
        "graphic": [
            {
                "occur": 01,
                "value": "bar bar",
                "orient": "rtl",
                "script": "CJK"
            }
        ]
    }
]
```
get_linked_880s macro iterates over the content of the linked_fields list, in which each element of the list to be a scalar representing the $6 control subfield link info. The macro populates the graphics list with a set of graphic field hashes with the following structure:
```
[
    {
        "occur": 01,
        "value": "bar bar",
        "orient": "rtl",
        "script": "CJK"
    }
]
```

misc_util.tt2 preserves legacy attribute lists to enable previous TPAC customizations to continue to function normally.

2.2.2. Search Changes

A number of changes have been made to search to allow more control and improve performance. These changes and their associated configurations are global to the entire system and can not be configured on a per-library basis.

Amongst other things the new search code fixes:

Inability to use statuses and locations as part of a larger query
Invalid queries being generated from advanced searches
Some timeouts from backend code taking too long to preform a search
Some filters being one-use only
Negations not working properly where multiple indexes are involved

Improvements include:

Exact matches on input should be more likely to float to the top of results
Non-English stemming can be used, alongside or instead of English stemming
Entered search terms can be found across multiple indexes

Default configuration is geared towards English but is easily changed. In a production environment changes will likely require re-indexing, however.

The upgrade script could be pre-tweaked to install desired configuration before it builds and/or re-builds many of the indexes.

2.2.3. TPAC Google Books preview

Setting ctx.google_books_preview to 1 in the TPAC config.tt2 configuration file will cause the TPAC to check to see, as part of the record details view, if Google Books has an online preview available. If it does, then a preview button will be displayed in the book cover image location. If the user then clicks the preview button, the preview will load below the title of the book in the record details page.

By default, this functionality is disabled to protect the privacy of users who might not want to share their browsing behaviour with Google.

2.2.4. TPAC Org Unit Hiding

Adds support for the opac.org_unit_hiding.depth org unit setting to TPAC, which makes out-of-scope org units disappear (except when explicitly requested).

Org unit hiding is based on the physical_loc (Physical Location) param / cookie, which is the closest analog to ol (original location), from which it was based in the JSPAC.

UI Changes

All search org unit selectors
Holds pickup lib selector
Copy summary in search results page
Copy list in search results page
Copy summary in record detail page (which controls the copy grid).
Hold summary in record detail page

2.3. Cataloging

2.3.1. Vandelay Default Match Set

A new org unit setting to specify a default Record Match Set when importing MARC records through the MARC Batch Import/Export interface. It does not affect the default match set selected in acquisitions. If this is set, it will not be possible to leave the Record Match Set field blank; it may be necessary to define a default match set that replicates the current default behavior.

A new "Vandelay" org unit settings group is also created.

2.4. Circulation

2.4.1. Clickable Patron Indicators

When retrieving a patron record, staff can now click on the indicators listed beneath the patron’s name and launch the related tabs.

For example, clicking on (See Notes) will open the associated patron’s notes.

2.4.2. "Warn patrons when their account is about to expire"

To give staff the ability to warn patrons when their account is about to expire, the staff client can display an alert message on the patron information window. A new library setting, Warn patrons when their account is about to expire in the Circulation section of the Library Settings Editor, determines how many days in advance of a patron’s account expiry date the alert should be displayed. By default, warnings about upcoming patron account expiry dates are not displayed.

2.4.3. Show Hold Patron Name in TPAC

When looking up patron information for hold placement via the staff client in TPac the hold patron name is now shown next to the entered barcode. In the event that the barcode is not found a notice is displayed and the submit button is disabled until a valid barcode is entered or the staff member is switched to.

2.5. Administration

2.5.1. Calculated Proximity Adjustments

Allows customization to the way that Evergreen measures the distance between org units for the purposes of 1) determining what copy at what org unit is best suited for targeting a title-level hold, and 2) determining what hold is best suited for fulfillment by a copy-in-hand at capture (checkin) time. The customization is based on a table actor.org_unit_proximity_adjustment, with certain matching criteria that the system compares to properties of the holds and copies in question.

2.5.2. Custom best-hold selection sort order

The ranking algorithm that chooses the best hold to target a copy in hand at a capture time used to be fairly simple. It had two modes, FIFO and not-FIFO, and that was it.

This change allows full configuration of that algorithm. In other words, when the system captures a copy and sets out to evaluate what hold, if any, that copy might best fulfull, site staff of sufficient permission level are now empowered to choose exactly which comparisons the systems makes in what order. This gives said staff much greater flexibililty than they have today over holds policy.

For more information, see the included tech spec documents.

2.6. Staff Client

2.6.1. add "about:about" to developer menu in staff client

about:about gives access to various XULRunner diagnostic tools. Useful ones include:

about:buildconfig: Get information about how the staff client is built.
about:config: Tweak XULRunner settings.
about:memory: Get detailed information about the memory usage of the staff client.

3. Miscellaneous

3.1. Loading Sample Data

One common need for people evaluating Evergreen, as well as for developers, writers, and testers, is a set of sample data that can be easily loaded into the Evergreen database and provide a consistent set of results for testing and training purposes.

This release features sets of sample data consisting of:

100 bibliographic records retrievable via a "concerto" keyword search
100 French bibliographic records
Associated call numbers, copies, parts, and conjoined items
Patron accounts, including some recently expired patrons
Circulation transactions, including some holds and some overdue items

To load the sample data into a freshly installed Evergreen database, you can pass the following arguments to the eg_db_config script (either when you are creating the initial database schema, or as a separate call after creating the database schema):

--load-all-sample: Loads all sample data, including bibliographic records, call numbers, copies, users, and transactions.
--load-concerto-sample: Loads a subset of sample data that includes just 100 bibliographic records, and associated call numbers and copies.