Presented by Ed Corrado of TCNJ - here are the 10 (or so) hacks for the Voyager OPAC (WebVoyage):
- New Book List by Michael Doran:
- Shelflister by Michael Doran
- Spell Checker but not checking against your db - so you can get did you means that aren’t actually in your catalog. (ex at University of Waikato)
- Search Voyager & Spell Checker to find others (started with Google but now people are using Yahoo cause of their rights)
- RSS feeds for new books, subject guides (tcnj has not packaged this up nicely for us to use - but others in libraries have - will give out the code - but have to ask for the SQL queries) - Ed has written articles about this - (Computers in Libraries)
- OPAC Search Box
- Dewey Cloud (no LC Cloud yet)
- Allows you to add more info to WebVoyage
- Permanent links to voyager records!! (password needed to read this page)
- Re-initiate search from timeout page - this version just uses JS - there are others (password needed to read this page)
- Locations/Maps (password needed to read this page)
Keep in mind that these most likely won’t work with the new release of WebVoyage 7.
[update]Made edits based on comments below[/update]
[update2]Ed has posted his slides (which include more info than I put here).[/update]
Ah, that search box could have been funkier. I had some docs somewhere for a fancier search box, but the docs were thought to be a little overboard and more confusing to the librarians than helpful.
I’ll have to dig them out again and post them somewhere else, maybe the Voyager Wiki.
Oops, almost forgot to mention, http://www.library.uiuc.edu no longer uses that search box, it hooks into our local federated search system.
If I posted this twice, sorry, got distracted and not sure if I posted once and it hasn’t shown up or not or I was just thinking about posting ;).
TCNJ has long been in the forefront of pushing the envelope with the Voyager OPAC and I applaud the work of Ed and the others whose creative hacks are listed in the post. We’ve managed to implement versions of many of them in our Voyager OPAC here at CSU Monterey Bay, including external search boxes that we started putting into our library website 7 or 8 years ago, more recently a combination of Michael Doran’s new book lists with RSS feeds, and durable links to each catalog record that don’t require a password to view, you can see them at the bottom of each record. See http://library.csumb.edu/site/x16149.xml for our entry page.
–Steve Watkins
steve_watkins AT csumb dot edu
Before I forget, I also cribbed together a WAP/WML interface to our Voyager catalog that works on cell phones and other mobile devices with very basic WAP browsers. It uses Z39.50 in the background but enables title, author and keyword searches and retrieves live circulation status via Z39.50 as well. The landing page is at http://library2.csumb.edu/mobile/index.wml
–Steve Watkins
steve_watkins AT csumb dot edu
Great list, thanks Nicole. Will be passing these on our OPAC librarian.
pedantry: it’s Waikato not Waikaito
Top 10 (or so) WebVoyage hacks…
Nicole Engard made a nice post that provided an overview to the topics I talked about my recent presentation at the ExLibris Mid-Atlantic (EMA) conference on Tuesday. I’d like to thank her for spreading the word, and also for the kind words made…