New books pages and RSS feeds for Aleph

Tags: new, books, aleph, rss, atom, sdi, elympics
Last Updated: Jul 30, 2010 12:55

Description
This custom service generates pages displaying new books (and other materials) and Atom feeds (a variety of RSS). The configuration is very versatile, allowing many different criteria from the item, order, budget and MARC records to be considered.
Author: Matthew Phillips
Additional author(s):
Institution: University of Dundee
Year: 2010
License: GNU Public General Licence v. 3 or later
Link to terms: Detailed license terms
Skill required for using this code:
intermediate

Further description
State
Programming language
Software requirements
Screen captures
Download
Working example
Installation instructions
Known issues
Release history
Comments

Further description

The extension uses a custom service which can be run from the Aleph job_list. It regularly updates web pages, hosted in the OPAC, and Atom feeds (a variety of newsfeed similar to RSS) to reflect the new material being acquired by the library. It exploits the Z324 table which is used by the Aleph SDI mechanism from version 18 onwards. This means that staff do not have to do anything special to cause new material to appear in the lists: it's all automatic. The only work is in setting the system up!

The new books pages can select the material to be displayed by any number of criteria based on the order, item, MARC record or budget, making the system very versatile.

Serials issues may be excluded or included in the reports, as preferred. If included, SFX can be queried to discover whether full text is available and if so a link will be inserted in the page.

State

Stable

Programming language

Perl

Software requirements

Nothing beyond the standard Perl modules which are supplied with Aleph installations.

Screen captures

Download

Download zip file

Working example

http://library.dundee.ac.uk/F/?func=file&file_name=dun-new-books-desi

Installation instructions

Please download the detailed installation instructions which are attached as a Word document.

Known issues

The Aleph SDI mechanism, on which this script relies, has some quirks and minor faults. Please see my related service for enhancing and fixing faults in Aleph SDI for a solution. You will also find on that page a link to a Word document containing the tests and background information.

Release history

Release 2, 30 July 2010. Minor correction to new-books.pl script to improve error message when configuration file cannot be located.

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