In This Issue:

• Holiday Sale
• What's New
• Spotlight On
• Technical Tip

2016 has been an exciting year at ResourceMate® with the launch of our upgraded Web OPAC. We already have over 135 customers taking advantage of this new opportunity to make their collections relevant and accessible to their patrons.

We continue to move forward in the advancement of ResourceMate®, offering more and more to the unique niche that ResourceMate® has served for more than 20 years.

Make sure you take advantage of our Holiday Sale.

We always welcome your feedback and appreciate your support of ResourceMate®. You have helped make ResourceMate® what it is today.

Brian Watson
President, Jaywil Software

Our holiday sale is on until Jan 2, 2017! This offer applies to all orders (except annual support and cannot be combined with any other sale offer). It’s the perfect time to upgrade, order more barcode labels, or get that barcode scanner you’ve always wanted.

And remember, ResourceMate® makes a great gift this holiday season for any collector on your gift list. For more information about the Holiday Sale please contact us at info@resourcemate.com or call us at 1-800-815-8370.

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Web OPAC Upgrade

We are excited to announce that a new and upgraded version of Web OPAC is available! It is a web based search screen that your students and patrons can use to search your library from any computer with internet access. Some of the features include:

You can decide if you want your data from ResourceMate to Web OPAC automatically updated weekly, daily, or instantly. The prices are:

Please note: the upgrade to Web OPAC is only available for customers who are using the ResourceMate Family of Products. It is not available for ResourceMate 3.0 users. To help you in your decision to upgrade we are offering you a 20% discount on both the upgrade AND Web OPAC if you order both together before March 31, 2017! This applies to new orders of Web OPAC or if you are upgrading your current version of Web OPAC.

Reminder: we will not be supporting the 3.0 versions after December 31, 2017.

To try a Demo of the new Web OPAC and for more information click here.

Upcoming Conferences for 2017

January 21-24, 2017 – American Correctional Association’s 2016 Winter Conference in San Antonio, TX

April 6-10, 2017 - National Head Start Conference and Expo in Chicago, IL

April 18-20, 2017 - National Catholic Educational Association in St. Louis, MO

Online Training Sessions

Our Level 1 Online Training Session is intended to show new users the basics, as well as show many of the features and capabilities of ResourceMate®.

The next Level 1 Training Session will be on December 14, 2016 from 12-4pm, EST.

Our Level 2 Online Training Session is for those users who are proficient with the basics of ResourceMate® and/or for those who wish to learn more about the features in the Extended and Premium versions.

The next Level 2 Training Session will be on December 16, 2016 from 12-4 pm, EST.

Please visit our website for more information about our Level 1 Online Training and Level 2 Online Training sessions, as well as our 2017 schedule.

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Tennessee State Museum

http://www.tnmuseum.org/

Earlier this year we attended the National Head Start Association conference in Nashville, TN. While we were there we visited with Lisa Hester and the library at the Tennessee State Museum. They’ve been using ResourceMate® since 2013 and we really appreciate their willingness to share their story.

Questions to Lisa Hester, Librarian:

Q. Please describe how you came to be involved with the library and your prior library experience.

A. I received a BS degree in Art Education from Tennessee State University in Nashville. I decided against teaching and pursued other avenues of working in the arts. I worked as a visual artist, an art gallery manager and then was hired by Lois Riggins to work for the Tennessee State Museum. My tenure with the Museum lasted 14 years. I then moved to the Tennessee Arts Commission to work in arts and grants administration and retired in 2010.

After four years of retirement, I was approached by the Tennessee State Museum Foundation, the Museum’s non-profit support organization, to catalog the library for the Museum. I was a little apprehensive because I had no library experience, but intrigued because I love history, books and organization. ResourceMate® made the job a breeze!!

Q. Who is your favorite author? If there was one book you could recommend to people, what would it be?

A. I love romance novels and there are so many authors I read that I couldn’t recommend one. Science fiction is also a favorite. I’m a big Star Trek fan so anything Trek. I also love reading about the accomplishments of those individuals in history who have received little/no recognition, like Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly. That book is on my list to read.

Q. Why do you love being a librarian?

I love the Museum and preserving history. I’m also an organizer. Being the librarian addresses those passions. Hopefully, even more stories can be shared with the public by restoring order to the museum’s library.

About your library:

Q. Please give us a description of your library and staff.

A. The Tennessee State Museum’s library is only available to its staff, so anywhere between 40-50 patrons use the facility. We are in the process of building a new museum so the library is getting an enormous amount of use right now. I have cataloged over 6,000 titles in two years and they are still coming in.

Q. When and how did your library get started?

A. Are you ready for the condensed version? The Museum’s collection roots go back to 1817, when Ralph E. W. Earl arrived in Nashville to paint a portrait of Andrew Jackson and operate the Nashville Museum. The Nashville Museum grew and eventually became the Tennessee Historical Society (with predecessors) in 1849. In 1927, the State took over the collection through its Library and Archives division. The Tennessee State Museum was established in 1937 and continues today. I’m sure all of these organizations /facilities have had some sort of library.

Q. What are your goals for your library, and how does ResourceMate® help you meet your goals?

A. When I started this project, my goal was to organize the existing collection of books, identify and catalog the existing titles and to make the library workable and user friendly for the staff. ResourceMate® has certainly done that. There were some glitches in the beginning, but most were due to my unfamiliarity with the system. The ResourceMate® staff is always helpful with any issues we have had.

Thank you Lisa for spending time with us and being willing to share your ResourceMate® story!

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Managing Circulation Activities Through the Holidays

ResourceMate® users are located around the globe and they all have different holiday schedules. As we approach the many celebrations of this season there are a lot of variation in the days or time periods when the library is closed for holidays.

Many librarians have a schedule for creating reports of Overdue Items and for using Mail Out Reminders to patrons with items that are overdue. Holidays play some havoc with these schedules and it is important that you don't send out a reminder to someone who was expected to return an item when the library is closed.

The first rule is that the Expected Back Date will always be defaulted to the check-out period specified in the Resource Type settings (under the File menu, Resource Types) unless you make adjustments elsewhere in the program.

Expected Back Date Overrides

Override Expected Back for a Session

At some point in time, the Expected Back Date will land on a holiday date. If you are dealing with a single day for the holiday then you can use the "Override Expected Back:" drop down located to the far right of the "Check-Out Date:" field on the Patron Activities Check Out tab. You should note that this override will affect the expected back date for all Resource Types. So if you are normally checking out books and then come to a DVD that has a different Check-Out Period then you may need to clear the Override field for the transaction on that one item and then reset when you start checking out books again.

For schools this is also a handy field, when a holiday period of a week arrives. You may then want to set the "Override Expected Back:" date to the beginning of the New Year so that students can have the items checked out for the holiday period. Please note that the "Override Expected Back:" field will need to be established for each ResourceMate® session.

Latest Expected Back Date (ResourceMate® Extended or Premium)

ResourceMate® also has another feature that sets the "Latest Expected Back Date". This field is great for the librarian that wants to ensure that all of the items are back in the library by a specific date. Sometimes, the library inventory process may be taken over the Christmas Holidays or at the end of the academic year. For users of ResourceMate® Extended and Premium systems, a preference can be set to ensure that items do not get a check out date later than a specific date.

By Selecting Utilities/Circulation Settings (left side)/Access Patron Activity Preference (right side), you will get a new window that will allow you to change preference settings. Click on the Check Out tab and set the "Latest Expected Back Date:" date. Now whenever you check out items, the Expected Back Date will not go beyond the date that you have set here. ResourceMate® will remember this setting between sessions.

Changing the Circulation Transaction Expected Back Date

It is possible that someone may forget to set the "Override Expected Back:" date and it's now time to create a report of Items that are overdue or a Mail Out Reminder report. Let's suppose that it is now the day following a holiday period. If an item had an expected back date that fell on the holiday, then those items will be flagged as overdue even though the patron could not return the item because of the holiday.

ResourceMate® has a solution for this problem. You can Select Utilities/Change Expected Back Dates Utility. This utility will ask you to identify an expected back date and then it will tell you if there are any items that will be affected by a change in the expected back date. You can then select a new expected back date for those checked out items based on a drop down calendar and then click OK to process the change.

Now when you run the listing reports for overdue items or Mail Out Reminders the items changed above will no longer be overdue.

Holidays for Excluding Fines

Charging a fine for items that are being returned late is a way of raising funds for the library and a way of encouraging patrons to return items on time. ResourceMate® Extended and Premium systems have the capability of not charging fines for dates that are classified as holidays. These holidays can come in a couple of different formats.

Some libraries will decide that specified days of the week will be fine free. Some libraries might choose Friday and Saturday as being fine free. Other libraries such as schools libraries may choose not to charge fines on weekends. Other organizations may decide that there are specific days of the year for which they do not want to charge fines for overdue items. Examples of this might be New Year's Day or a set of sectarian holidays.

By Selecting Circulation/Extended Circulation/Holidays you can check the appropriate boxes for the days of the week for which you do not wish to charge fines for overdue items. You can enter this schedule of holidays for an entire year or more at a time.

As you approach the holidays in your region of the world, I hope that the above information will help you plan the use of circulation features that are available in ResourceMate®.

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