Charts showing serials holdings in Aleph OPAC and SFX menu

Tags: aleph, sfx, opac, elympics, periodicals, serials, journals
Last Updated: Jul 29, 2010 17:53

Description
This extension to the Aleph OPAC and to the SFX Menu provides a graphical representation of our often complex serials holdings. It enables the user to see very quickly which years of a journal are available at each library and which are available on-line. Information from the SFX API is combined with the Aleph holdings in a single graphical summary. The bar charts shown for electronic holdings are clickable, taking the user through to the correct year (where supported in the linking syntax).
Author: Matthew Phillips
Institution: University of Dundee
Year: 2010
License: GNU Public General License
Link to terms: Detailed license terms
Note that the enhancements to the SFX menu are based on existing components of SFX which are copyright Ex Libris. Thus it is only the changes to these files are released under an open source licence. For your convenience the complete files are distributed herewith.
Skill required for using this code:
intermediate

State
Programming language
Software requirements
Screenshots
Working example

OPAC
SFX Menu

Using the following Ex Libris open interfaces
Release notes
SFX enhancements
Installation instructions
Known issues
Comments

State

Stable

Programming language

PHP (for graphical charts) and Perl (for caching script and SFX plugins).

Software requirements

Standard Perl modules which are installed with Aleph are required. A web server with PHP and the GD graphics library is required, but this can be independent of the Aleph and SFX servers.

Screenshots

Example of display in the Aleph OPAC:

Example of chart embedded in SFX menu:

Working example

See the University of Dundee Library catalogue at http://library.dundee.ac.uk/F for working examples, and the SFX A-Z list at http://cross-search.dundee.ac.uk/V/?func=find-ej-1

Some specific examples:

OPAC

English Historical Review: http://library.dundee.ac.uk/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000146204

Nursing Times: http://library.dundee.ac.uk/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000236814

Architectural Review: http://library.dundee.ac.uk/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000027739

SFX Menu

Oxford Journal of Legal Studies: http://link-to.dundee.ac.uk/dundee?sfx.ignore_date_threshold=1&rft.object_id=954928415968

The Lancet: http://link-to.dundee.ac.uk/dundee?sfx.ignore_date_threshold=1&rft.object_id=954925470330

Using the following Ex Libris open interfaces

SFX API and Aleph X-Server

Release notes

First public release, 29 March 2010

Second release, 29 July 2010: improved diagnostics to aid installation and debugging.

SFX enhancements

The extension also provides for the holdings display in the SFX menu via the Aleph plugin to be improved. The standard Aleph plugin displays information from up to two MARC subfields, unformatted on a single line. This extension provides an option to switch to a columnar format, allowing several subfields of the MARC field to be shown. This part of the code can be implemented independently of the charts.

Installation instructions

Download the attached Zip file and the detailed installation instructions, which come in the form of a Word document.

Known issues

The code will clearly need rewriting to cater for MARC formats other than MARC21.
The code expects the 866 fields to be in a certain format. There is quite a bit of leeway but if your 866$a content is very different from ours you may not get good results.
The code has not been written with the idea of supporting right-to-left orientation for Hebrew or Arabic display.

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