As you already know, the campus wide food drive sponsored by the Staff Council is now underway. The non-perishable food items donated will be distributed to area food shelves before Thanksgiving. Vijaya Wunnava & I are helping with the DFL part of the collection. There’s now a big cardboard box in the DFL staff room (on the floor next to the sofa). Please give generously – the need is very great. For Voter denizens – I’d be happy to pick up any items you gather there. For Armstrong Library – there’s a collection point in MBH that you could contribute to. Happy Thanksgiving!

Arabella Holzapfel & I just attended an on-line presentation about III’s new version of their integrated library system (ILS). Sierra will be a replacement for the Millennium ILS used here, although they promise that Millennium will continue to be supported and developed for “the foreseeable future” The beta of Sierra is supposed to be rolled out in November 2011.
To keep abreast of all things Sierra, go to sierra.iii.com or even facebook.com/InnovativeInterfaces.
Basically, Sierra has a new architecture based on a PostgreSQL database which will provide more open access to the data, allowing use of reporting tools and data exports. All Millennium functionality will be available right away, with new functionality to follow in later phases. One of the slogans is: “Building an on-ramp for future applications”! A new feature of interest to Millennium client users is the “single client architecture” meaning that the client will give access to all modules, based on the user’s permissions. So the user can get to cataloging, acquisitions, circulation etc. all from the same screen. Sierra still using a client for now, but the plan is to develop web-based access, starting with circulation functionality.
Feel free to contact me if you want to hear more.