Blog RERO 21

Descriptive and subject cataloguing in RERO ILS

Thu, 23 Sep 2021 16:54:32 +0200

With RERO ILS, cataloging becomes more user friendly and innovative: abandonment of MARC in favor of fields with natural language labels, adoption of RDA, use of a multilingual authority file developed by RERO+ and based on VIAF.

The full article is available in French.

A little look back at the RERO ILS go-live

Mon, 13 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Monday 12 July 2021 is a date that RERO+ will long remember: 58 libraries made their transition to the new RERO ILS system. Two months later, we take a look at this event and its pitfalls.

The full article is available in French.

List of RERO+ libraries

Mon, 12 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The 58 RERO+ libraries migrated to RERO ILS on 12 July 2021.


Bulle
Musée Gruérien - Bibliothèque publique et scolaire	Bulle	FR
Musée Gruérien - Bibliothèque publique et scolaire - Bibliothèque scolaire Libellule	Bulle	FR
Musée Gruérien - Bibliothèque publique et scolaire - Bibliothèque scolaire Lec’Tour	La Tour-de-Trême	FR
RBNJ (Réseau des bibliothèques neuchâteloises et jurassiennes)
Centre interrégional de perfectionnement (CIP)	Tramelan	BE
Fondation rurale interjurassienne	Courtételle	JU
Bibliothèque municipale de Delémont - section adultes	Delémont	JU
Bibliothèque municipale de Delémont - section jeunes	Delémont	JU
Collège de Delémont - Médiathèque	Delémont	JU
Ecole cantonale de culture générale / EMS2	Delémont	JU
Ecole supérieure de commerce	Delémont	JU
Service de l’information et de la communication Delémont	Delémont	JU
Archives de l’ancien Evêché de Bâle	Porrentruy	JU
Bibliothèque cantonale jurassienne	Porrentruy	JU
Bibliothèque des tribunaux jurassiens	Porrentruy	JU
Bibliothèque du collège Saint-Charles	Porrentruy	JU
Médiathèque du Lycée cantonal	Porrentruy	JU
Tribunal de première instance - Jura	Porrentruy	JU
Bibliothèque de la Ville de la Chaux-de-Fonds	La Chaux-de-Fonds	NE
Bibliothèque des Jeunes de la Chaux-de-Fonds - Ronde 9	La Chaux-de-Fonds	NE
Bibliothèque des Jeunes de la Chaux-de-Fondss - Président Wilson	La Chaux-de-Fonds	NE
Centre de documentation de l’Ecole secondaire - collège de Bellevue	La Chaux-de-Fonds	NE
Centre de documentation de l’Ecole secondaire - collège de Numa-Droz	La Chaux-de-Fonds	NE
Centre de documentation de l’Ecole secondaire - collège des Crêtets	La Chaux-de-Fonds	NE
Centre de documentation de l’Ecole secondaire - collège des Forges	La Chaux-de-Fonds	NE
Ecole d’arts appliqués	La Chaux-de-Fonds	NE
Musée des beaux-arts - La Chaux-de-Fonds	La Chaux-de-Fonds	NE
Musée d’histoire - La Chaux-de-Fonds	La Chaux-de-Fonds	NE
Musée d’histoire naturelle - La Chaux-de-Fonds	La Chaux-de-Fonds	NE
Musée international de l’horlogerie	La Chaux-de-Fonds	NE
Bibliothèque de la Ville du Locle	Le Locle	NE
Archives de l’Etat de Neuchâtel	Neuchâtel	NE
Bibliothèque publique et universitaire de Neuchâtel - Fonds d’étude	Neuchâtel	NE
Bibliothèque publique et universitaire de Neuchâtel - Lecture publique	Neuchâtel	NE
Musée d’art et d’histoire de Neuchâtel	Neuchâtel	NE
RERO+ Valais
UNIL-UNIGE Sion	Bramois	VS
Berufs, Studien- und Laufbahnberatung Oberwallis	Brigue	VS
Médiathèque Valais - Brigue	Brigue	VS
Bibliothèque de Champéry	Champéry	VS
Bibliothèque communale et scolaire Collombey-Muraz	Collombey-Muraz	VS
Bibliothèque communale et scolaire Le Bouveret	Le Bouveret	VS
Fondation Tissières Martigny	Martigny	VS
Médiathèque Valais - Martigny	Martigny	VS
Bibliothèque communale et scolaire de Massongex	Massongex	VS
Médiathèque de Monthey	Monthey	VS
Gemeindebibliothek Naters	Naters	VS
Bibliothèque de Saint-Gingolph	Saint-Gingolph	VS
Médiathèque Valais - Saint-Maurice	Saint-Maurice	VS
Archives de l’Etat du Valais	Sion	VS
Lycée-Collège des Creusets	Sion	VS
Médiathèque de l’ECCG-EPP - Sion	Sion	VS
Médiathèque Valais - Sion	Sion	VS
Musées cantonaux	Sion	VS
Tribunal cantonal du Valais	Sion	VS
Abbaye de St-Maurice	St-Maurice	VS
Bibliothèque communale et scolaire Troistorrents	Troistorrents	VS
Bibliothèque communale et scolaire Val d’Illiez	Val d’Illiez	VS
Bibliothèque communale de Vionnaz	Vionnaz	VS
Bibliothèque communale de Vouvry	Vouvry	VS

Migration 2021 of RERO+: new system, new address

Mon, 12 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The 58 RERO+ libraries made a major system change on 12 July 2021.

Context

RERO+ is a non-for-profit foundation that succeeds RERO (Library Network of Western Switzerland) in managing the library system of its partner institutions. In December 2020, some of the libraries left the network towards the swisscovery platform. With the system changeover of July 2021 for the 58 other libraries, the transformation from RERO to RERO+ will be complete.

Implications for users as of 12 July 2021

New catalogue address: https://bib.rero.ch/
User account: active loans and requests will be transferred to the new system, as will personal contact details.
Password: it will be reset. It can be redefined from 12.07.21 with the personal e-mail (“Forgot password” function). People registered without an email address are asked to contact their usual library.
Data not recovered: this only affects lists and searches that may have been saved in the Explore account. Lists can be exported.

The RERO+ Foundation is born

Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

It is now official: RERO’s identity is evolving to meet new needs in a new library environment. RERO becomes RERO+, a foundation of private law and public interest formally created on 29 April 2021 by the cantons of Jura, Neuchâtel and Valais, as well as the city of Martigny. This event represents the beginning of a new adventure for the RERO+ team and its partners.

Background

Created in 1985, RERO’s objective was to manage the emerging IT resources of academic libraries in French-speaking Switzerland. Over the years, the network has grown to include more than 200 member libraries. In 2020, the scientific and academic libraries have joined the SLSP network, itself the result of a project initiated in 2015 by the Swiss institutions of higher education.

In view of these changes, and with the support of the cantonal authorities within the CIIP (Conférence intercantonale de l’instruction publique), RERO launched its own project in 2017 to become a competence and service centre for libraries, focusing on the needs of public, heritage, school and special libraries. At the same time, the development projects for the RERO ILS (Integrated Library System) and SONAR (Swiss Open Access Repository) software became underway, building the basis for the main new services proposed by the foundation. Their deployment in 2021 completes the transformation of RERO.

What changes

The name and the visual identity: RERO was originally the acronym for Réseau Romand, which later became Réseau des bibliothèques de Suisse occidentale (Library Network of Western Switzerland). Today, although still predominantly French-speaking, the institution is no longer bound by territorial criteria. The name RERO+ signifies a broadening of its activities, its services and its geographical and linguistic coverage, while keeping its identity, which has been known for more than 30 years in the Swiss information science landscape.
The governance: RERO+ is now under the supervision of the Foundation Board, initially composed of:
- Damian Elsig, president until July 31, 2021 (Canton of Valais)
- Elisabeth Baume-Schneider, president as of 1 August 2021
- Antoine Grandjean, vice-president (Republic and Canton of Neuchâtel)
- Géraldine Rérat-Oeuvray (Republic and Canton of Jura)
- Thierry Petoud (City of Martigny)
- Martin Good, independent, former director of the Canton and University Library of Fribourg
Later on, this Board will expand to 7-9 members, covering several areas of expertise and representing other stakeholders, such as strategic partners. In addition, specific governance mechanisms for RERO ILS and SONAR will be introduced in order to give their customers an active role in the product design.
Funding: RERO+ is funded exclusively through the sale of its services.
Activities: As has been the case for about two years, RERO+ will focus on the continued development and maintenance of its core services: the next generation library system RERO ILS and digital content management with SONAR. These software and respective services will evolve with the needs of their customers, whose circle will expand across Switzerland.
Missions: Evolving with the activities, the missions also cover a wider scope. RERO+ aims to promote the dissemination of knowledge, in particular through libraries, without geographical limitations. Moreover, as a foundation, RERO+ does not pursue any profit-making goal.

What remains

The RERO+ team: It remains essentially the same, with its extensive experience and cohesion; it does not undergo major organizational changes.
The partners: The collaboration with continues and intensifies, with the 58 libraries using RERO ILS (go-live on July 12), the institutions using SONAR (production version available) as well as the team of the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium which maintains its involvement in the RERO ILS development project. Finally, RERO+ continues to cooperate with several actors of the library and information community in Switzerland and abroad, including SLSP, the Swiss National Library, ABES and the French National Library.

A word from Damian Elsig, President of the Foundation Board

The transformation of RERO into RERO+ is a significant one. The new orientation is the result of a joint reflection, based on a market analysis and on the proven interest for customized and/or shared services of public, heritage, school and special libraries in Switzerland. RERO+ will focus its services on the needs of these types of libraries, either through the development of services or through the provision of comprehensive IT management.

The RERO+ team is based in Wallis and is composed of experts with a long experience in this field, with the customer at the centre of their attention.

The IT solutions are developed in open source and are based on the Invenio 3 software developed by CERN. All data is stored in Switzerland.

RERO+: a non-profit foundation labelled Swiss-made!

New president as of 1 August: Elisabeth Baume-Schneider

Shortly after the creation of the Foundation, Damian Elsig was appointed to the head of the Swiss National Library. A new person will join the Foundation Board to represent the Canton of Valais.

From August 2021, State Councillor Elisabeth Baume-Schneider takes over the presidency.

The new system RERO ILS goes live on 12 July

The most visible facet of this major transformation is the replacement of the existing library management system by RERO ILS on 12 July, with the launch of the new RERO+ catalogue: bib.rero.ch.

New RERO+ catalogs

Contact person for RERO+: Miguel Moreira - direction@rero.ch

V1.2.0 is out: thanks for the translations!

Thu, 20 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

After another intense sprint at RERO+ and UCLouvain, the arrival of version v1.2.0 brings its share of new features and fixes to stabilize RERO ILS before the go-live on July 12th. The complete release notes are available on GitHub. This is an opportunity for us to highlight the community aspect of RERO ILS with the system’s translation processes.

RERO ILS community translation

In order to be open and accessible, RERO ILS must also be multilingual. In this perspective, the software is translated with the help of the Weblate service, which allows the development team as well as external people to collaborate. Indeed, the community can submit translations for the project. We would like to thank the following members for their contributions:

If you would like to contribute as well, please visit the project page on Weblate.

Several organisations for one patron

Among the many new features of v1.2.0 is the possibility of registering at libraries of multiple organisations using the same account, which is clearly a requirement of RERO+ libraries.

As previously stated, user circulation data is not shared between different organisations; however, it is likely that individuals are registered in libraries of different organisations, for instance once in the RERO Valais network and once in the RBNJ (Neuchâtel-Jura) network. Patrons can now view their data (loans, history, fines, etc.) from their different libraries through a dropdown menu on their account page. They don’t need to switch interfaces or log out to access this information.

Your browser does not support the video tag, you can download the video with this link

A patron consults her circulation data in different RERO ILS organizations

The Network "IdRef suisse": a Reality

Wed, 12 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Authority management is an important topic in information science. The advances in information technology allow us to reshape it, with the aim of better cooperation. In this sense, the work of RERO+ and the Agence bibliographique de l’enseignement supérieur (Abes) has led to the creation of the network “IdRef suisse”, connected to the collective authority pool of Sudoc (Système universitaire de documentation).

The rest of the text is available in French.

New version 1.1.0 : fixes and adjustments

Wed, 14 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

After the stabilization of the first major version 1.0.0 of RERO ILS (see release notes), a large part of the resources of the central office and the libraries has been invested in the migration project. However, the developments of RERO ILS are far from stopping there. Proof of this is a new version v1.1.0 whose full release notes are available on Github.

To read the whole blog post, please consult the French.

"Swiss made" also means multilingual

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

With the integration of corporate bodies in its data model, RERO ILS makes the ambitious objective of multilingualism a reality, as promised by the MEF project. The end user will not only have access to an interface in several languages, but also to data in several languages. This is a Swiss obligation! 🇨🇭

How multilingualism works

The multilingual nature of the data is based on the project MEF - Multilingual Entity File. The project page explains in detail how the service works. The principles are summarised below:

During cataloguing, the documents are linked to agents¹ described in the entity files IdRef² (in French) or GND³ (in German).
Each month, the VIAF system merges the IdRef and GND (and other) entities representing the same agents.
MEF retrieves these data and RERO ILS can then display, in the public interface
- the IdRef version if the interface language is French.
- the GND version if the interface language is German.

Multilingualism has certain limits:

For the moment, it only works for German and French.
It only works for documents with a link to an entity present in both IdRef and GND (and which has been clustured by VIAF).
It is particularly useful for the names of corporate bodies, but less so for names of persons that are not translated from one language to another.

Finally, the IdRef and GND reference datasets are also two building blocks of cataloguing within the SLSP network. RERO therefore ensures good data interoperability.

Real added value for the end user

Multilingualism is characterised by three functionalities in the interface.

1. Displaying the names of persons and corporate bodies for the documents

These names are present in the result list, in the detailed view of a document and in the patron account (loans, history, requests, etc.). When the language of the interface changes, the German or French form is displayed.

In the image below, a document is shown on the left in the German interface and on the right in the French interface. It is not only the interface elements that adapt to the language, but also the names of the authors. The transcribed data, such as the statement of responsibility, obviously do not adapt, since they must represent the document faithfully.

Detailed view of a document, in German and in French

2. The author facet

When the interface language changes, the German or French form is displayed.

Author facet, in German and in French

3. The search bar and autocompletion

When the interface language changes, the suggestions are displayed in French or in German. The search is of course performed in all languages.

In the image below, the interface is in German but the user searches in French. RERO ILS will therefore provide suggestions in German if possible.

Search suggestions that adapt to the interface language

Cataloguing with or without entities

Multilingualism therefore only works if there is a link to an entity. When this is not the case, the librarian can choose to create the entity (directly in the IdRef or GND tools) or to enter an authorised access point without an entity (see image below).

Entering the different parts of an access point for a corporate body in RERO ILS

Entity or authority?

We use the two words indifferently, but we clearly prefer entity. Indeed, the expression authority dates from the references within card catalogues in drawers. In the semantic web era, it has become more common to speak of entities. These are no longer limited to a retained form and rejected forms, but can also include many other structured data. It is therefore a terminology that we consider to be more appropriate.

The word “agent” comes from the official RDA terminology. It includes persons, families and corporate bodies. ↩︎
IdRef is a dataset of French-speaking authorities, maintained by the French Bibliographic Agency (ABES) and used by different platforms of French scientific institutions. ↩︎
GND, for Gemeinsame Normdatei, is a dataset of German-speaking authorities managed by the German National Library, but used by various German, Austrian and Swiss libraries. GND is used in particular by the German-speaking libraries of the SLSP network. ↩︎

Contact

Wed, 06 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Lettre RERO+

Newsletter published 3 to 6 times a year, in French

Your e-mail address is only used to send you our Lettre RERO+. You can always use the unsubscribe link included at the bottom of each e-mail message you receive from us. This newsletter is managed using the service sendinblue, with activity tracking mode disabled.

Contact us

RERO+
Avenue de la Gare 45
CH-1920 Martigny

www.rero.ch
info@rero.ch

@reroplus
Gitter (chat)
LinkedIn
Github

RERO21 project

Wed, 06 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

RERO+ (main site: rero.ch) is a competence and service centre for libraries, with its central office in Martigny, Valais. RERO+ became a non-profit foundation in 2021 that succeeds RERO (Library Network of Western Switzerland) in the current context of the changing library landscape in Switzerland.

This major project is called RERO 21 and has been approved in September 2018 by the RERO’s supervisory authority, the CIIP.

This blog aims to publish posts about RERO 21, grouped under the RERO 21 label, as well as about the different sub-projects that constitute it: RERO ILS, MEF et SONAR.

RERO ILS

More info on the RERO ILS page

RERO ILS is an open source library management system developed by RERO in collaboration with the Catholic University of Louvain (UCLouvain). It will be put into production to replace the current system within the framework of the RERO 21 project.

MEF: Multilingual Entity File

More info on the MEF page

RERO 21 will offer its services throughout Switzerland, which means that RERO ILS must be multilingual. With MEF, RERO has developed a decentralised solution based on the reliability of the authorities and on Linked Data, in order to display data in multiple languages.

SONAR: Swiss Open Access Repository

More info on the website about.sonar.ch

The SONAR project is part of the P-5 program of swissuniversities. It consists in the development of a national institutional archive, which aims to collect, promote and ensure the preservation of open access scientific publications of authors affiliated to public research institutions in Switzerland. SONAR also intends to offer an institutional archive service (“IR as a Service”).

Resources

Wed, 06 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The RERO+ Foundation, a competence and service centre for libraries

www.rero.ch

RERO 21

CIIP official press release

RERO ILS

SONAR

Kick-off of the RERO ILS migration project

Tue, 08 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The kick-off session of the RERO ILS migration project took place on December 3rd in the presence (virtually, of course) of representatives of the 41 libraries that are part of the adventure. It was notably the occasion to recall the context of the project, to detail the outlines of version 1.0.0, to explain the development mode from 2021, and of course to present the migration schedule.

This read the whole blog post, please consult the French or the German version.

MEF: Multilingual Entity File

Tue, 08 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

What MEF does

MEF is a system that combines entities (or authorities) in several languages and makes them available, allowing:

the end user: to search and display the contents (and not only the interface) in his or her own language
libraries: to reuse as much as possible international repositories (GND, IdRef…). They can thus abandon the local management of an authority file and embrace the web of data.

MEF is an API making data available for other systems, especially for ILS. It can therefore be used by several different interfaces. For example, RERO ILS uses MEF. This service does not have its own user interface.

RERO is developing this service in an open approach and is making it available, for the time being in a test version, at mef.test.rero.ch.

Entity types

MEF will eventually contain the types of resources as specified in the RDA and [Library Reference Model] standards (https://www.ifla.org/publications/node/11412 “Library Reference Model, on the IFLA website”):

persons
corporate bodies
works
common names
places
periods
expressions

How it works

MEF collects entities from different sources (GND, IdRef, etc.) and synchronises with them. It aggregates them automatically through VIAF, deriving (currently) German and French display labels when available.

The entities themselves are maintained and edited directly at source in agreement with their issuing institution. No entities are created or edited directly in MEF.

MEF operation

RERO ILS will be up and running in 2021!

Tue, 13 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

On July 12, 2021, 41 public, school, heritage and specialised libraries will switch to the RERO ILS system, developed by the RERO Central Office in Martigny.

The first half of 2021 promises to be particularly busy and exciting, both for the RERO+ libraries and for the Central Office. The latter will be dedicating itself, among other things, to the stabilization of a version 1.0 of the system, to train the trainer sessions, to data mappings, extractions and loadings, as well as to bug fixes. In the meantime, the development of the system will continue. As for the libraries, they will have to train their staff, refine the migration specifications, test the functionalities and data loads as well as configure the system.

Representatives and experts from various libraries are already organized in working groups to follow up on these tasks with the Central Office.

List of libraries migrating to RERO ILS

RERO Fribourg

Musée Gruérien - Bibliothèque publique et scolaire de Bulle

RERO Neuchâtel/Jura (or RBNJ, “Réseau des bibliothèques neuchâteloises et jurassiennes”, Network of Neuchâtel and Jura libraries, including the Bernese Jura)

Archives de l’ancien Evêché de Bâle - Porrentruy
Archives de l’Etat de Neuchâtel
Bibliothèque cantonale jurassienne - Porrentruy
Bibliothèque de la Ville de la Chaux-de-Fonds
Bibliothèque de la Ville du Locle
Bibliothèque des Jeunes de la Chaux-de-Fonds
Bibliothèque des tribunaux jurassiens - Porrentruy
Bibliothèque du collège Saint-Charles - Porrentruy
Bibliothèque municipale de Delémont
Bibliothèque publique et universitaire de Neuchâtel
Centre de documentation de l’Ecole secondaire - La Chaux-de-Fonds
Centre interrégional de perfectionnement (CIP) - Tramelan
Collège de Delémont - Médiathèque
Ecole cantonale de culture générale / EMS2 - Delémont
Ecole d’arts appliqués - La Chaux-de-Fonds
Ecole supérieure de commerce - Delémont
Fondation rurale interjurassienne - Courtételle
Médiathèque du Lycée cantonal - Porrentruy
Musée d’art et d’histoire de Neuchâtel
Musée international de l’horlogerie - La Chaux-de-Fonds

RERO Valais

Abbaye de St-Maurice
Archives de l’Etat du Valais - Sion
Berufs, Studien- und Laufbahnberatung Oberwallis - Brig
Bibliothèque communale de Vionnaz
Bibliothèque communale de Vouvry
Bibliothèque communale et scolaire Collombey-Muraz
Bibliothèque communale et scolaire de Massongex
Bibliothèque communale et scolaire Le Bouveret
Bibliothèque communale et scolaire Troistorrents
Bibliothèque communale et scolaire Val d’Illiez
Bibliothèque de Champéry
Bibliothèque de Saint-Gingolph
Gemeindebibliothek Naters
Lycée-Collège des Creusets - Sion
Médiathèque de l’ECCG-EPP - Sion
Médiathèque de Monthey
Médiathèque Valais - Sion / Brig / Martigny / Saint-Maurice
Musées cantonaux - Sion
Tribunal cantonal du Valais - Sion
UNIL-UNIGE Sion

Two sprints, one version

Mon, 28 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

These last two months the RERO ILS team has worked successively on sprints 33 and 34 of the development. This work has resulted in a version v0.12.0 offering many new features and deployed in time for the second phase of testing by the pilot libraries, which started at the end of September. Here are the major changes in this release, with full notes available on Github v0.12.0.

Link to contributing person-authorities

A new field contribution replaces the author field when cataloguing documents, in order to comply with current standards, in particular RDA cataloging rules. Documents are put in relation with contributing agents, whose authorities come from verified repositories (IdRef and GND). The role of each agent in the production of a document is also indicated by an RDA relationship code. If the authority is not found in the repositories, it can also be recorded manually as a character string in the same field.

The contribution field newly added to the document data model

Circulation density under control

A great deal of behind-the-scenes work has been done on the backend of the circulation module, in order to solve the problems observed during the first pilot tests in March 2020 and to correctly implement all the circulation actions identified, on the one hand. On the other hand, automated tests have also been developed in order to be able to check the proper functioning of this module with each new version and to identify any unexpected errors when work is carried out on other parts of the software.

Need help ?

With the ongoing progress of RERO ILS' functionalities, it was necessary to document its operation for the end-user. This is now done with a help platform accessible from the professional and public interfaces of RERO ILS. This application offers, on the same platform, the public and professional help of RERO ILS to guide users and support their training on the system.

The RERO ILS help interface developed with flask-wiki

Listing of new acquisitions

A field that should be interesting for the highlighting of collections has been implemented in the item data model: new_acquisition. This field is used to indicate whether an item should be part of new acquisitions according to each library’s criteria. This allows to exclude certain documents from this list (heritage documents, repurchases, older books, or others). This field also includes a date that can be used to build URLs to display the list of a library’s new acquisitions. This list can be filtered by date, but also by other criteria (location, status, etc.), which offers great flexibility.

A common use case of this feature is to be able to include a link to the list of new acquisitions for a given month on the library’s website. The URLs created are permanent and point directly to a list of documents in the public interface of RERO ILS. The construction of URLs for these lists is also documented in the professional help.

Import of external records by API

To wrap up the new features of v0.12.0, let’s mention the opening of an API access point that allows an authenticated user to import marcxml data directly into RERO ILS using a script or an external application. In the context of our pilot libraries, the EZPump software is used to import MARC records from many reservoirs. It is currently being tested for adaptation to the RERO ILS environment through this access point.

Second phase of pilot tests

This version is also an opportunity to continue our collaboration with our pilot libraries. Indeed, the second round of tests was launched on September 24th. The RERO central is pleased to count on the cooperation of a new partner for these tests, the Médiathèque de Monthey.

Early adopter libraries

Tue, 18 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

58 RERO+ libraries will use the RERO ILS solution, as of the go live on 12 July 2021. Among them, seven pilot libraries are taking part in the collaborative development process:


Jura Cantonal Library	Library of Bulle (Musée gruérien)
Public and University Library of Neuchâtel	Public Library of Delémont
Public Library of La Chaux-de-Fonds	Valais Media Library
Médiathèque de Monthey

Complemented by the expertise of the UCLouvain libraries, this user group constitutes the reference base for the orientations of RERO ILS.

Libraries of the Catholic University of Louvain

The development team is very happy to be able to count on this participation!

Features

Tue, 18 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A first stable version is planned for the end of 2020, to be deployed in production during the year 2021, with the following functionalities. Some of these features are currently still under development.

Modern end user interface Search, display of entities/authorities, personal account, requests, renewals
	Consortia function Management of a library network at three levels: organisations, libraries, locations. The organisations are independent within the system, but share bibliographic data. Each organisation has its own public interface, in addition to a collective interface.
Circulation Checkouts, check-ins, renewals, requests, interlibrary document transfers (internal to the organisation)
	Catalogue management Search, description (RDA standard) using a dynamic web form, metadata import and export, item management, inventory list extraction
User management Online registration, single sign-on system via SWITCH edu-ID
	Multilingual entities Entity/Authority management in several languages using MEF
External content integration A single search for all library content, including what is managed on vendor platforms (e-books, online videos and music, language methods, etc.)
	Serials Predictions, issue management, holdings
Interlibrary loan Management of requests to and from external libraries
	Acquisitions Management of budgets, accounts, vendors, orders, invoices
Fee management Delays, subscriptions
	Statistics Extraction of the library's key performance indicators
System administration Settings for libraries and locations, circulation rules, item and patron types, etc.
	Interface with self-service stations Connexion with RFID stations through SIP2 protocol

Pricing

Tue, 18 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

RERO and the foundation that will replace it are non-profit institutions. As such, rates are set to cover costs.

The calculation of the RERO ILS price is based on the library’s use of the system. Example of criteria taken into account:

Number of libraries/sites
Number of loans
Number of documents
Number of orders (acquisition)
etc.

All modules are available, but a library may choose not to use some of them. The price will therefore be determined according to the use of each feature. The system is degressive for large institutions.

💙 RERO is committed to offering transparency and equal treatment to all its partners.

If you are interested, please contact the central office: info@rero.ch

RERO ILS: open source integrated library system

Tue, 18 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

See also: Features - Early adopters - Pricing

RERO ILS is an open source integrated library system (ILS) developed by RERO in collaboration with the Catholic University of Louvain (UCLouvain). This is a category of software used to manage the day-to-day operations of a library (document acquisitions, lending, cataloguing, searching) and to provide a public interface for users. RERO ILS is intended to enable the management of a library network, but is also suitable for independent libraries.

From a technical point of view, RERO ILS is based on the Invenio framework developed at CERN.

A demonstration system is publicly available at the following address: ils.test.rero.ch.

Context of RERO

RERO ILS represents the backbone of the RERO 21 conversion project.

Based on more than 30 years of experience in the management of a large library network, the RERO central office began the development of RERO ILS in 2017, with the aim of replacing by 2021 the proprietary software currently implemented in the network. Thanks to an open source system, the central office can leverage the full potential of its experts' skills to best meet the current and future needs of its member libraries.

The RERO ILS service offered by RERO is primarily aimed at public, school and heritage libraries and library networks in Switzerland. It is available in French, German, Italian and English.

Contribute to RERO ILS

You can test the latest version at ils.test.rero.ch. If you have any questions, please contact the RERO team via our chat Gitter.

The RERO ILS GitHub repository contains information on how to install the system and how to contribute to the development of RERO ILS.

The editor is making progress

Mon, 03 Aug 2020 14:53:42 +0200

With another month elapsed, a new version of RERO ILS is available on the test interface. The work of the development team to improve the software continues with a new update that should be of interest to cataloguing professionals. Comprehensive release notes can be found on the project’s Github page : v0.11.0.

Professional interface: refining the document editor

As it is one of the librarians' main tools, particularly for cataloguing, the document editor must offer a clear and ergonomic interface, especially as this module must frequently display complex data according to rules that are not always obvious.

Work on fine-tuning this interface is constant and is evidenced in this version by an improvement in its readability.

The readability of the editor has clearly been improved for this version

This visual enhancement is accompanied by several adjustments:

New fields partOf (host document), seriesStatement (collection statement) and issuance (publishing mode) have been added. They allow the system to establish clean links between documents, a small revolution within the network where these links were previously based solely on character strings.
The display of some translations has been fixed, especially in the Add Field form. Please note that not all translations are up to date in this version due to a change of translation platform in progress. These problems will be corrected in the next version.
Bugs in saving the documents have been fixed.
The shortcut links Go to in the right panel are now working.

Inventory lists

Inventory lists are another new feature of the v0.11.0. Available in the professional interface through the Reports & monitoring menu, they can display item lists, filter them and export them directly in CSV format.

At the same time, the items also have a new second_call_number field allowing them to have a second call number, which is also displayed in the inventory lists.

New cataloguing developments

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 08:23:38 +0200

A new sprint ends for RERO ILS with a version full of new features. Thanks to an increasingly stable technical foundation, the development team can now focus on user-oriented functionality. The full release notes are available as usual on Github: v0.10.0.

Interface improvements

UI work on the public and professional interfaces continues. This version brings many adjustments, and in particular a redesign of the metadata editor (cataloguing interface) to improve its readability. The editor is now displayed across the full width of the screen and the fields are easier to distinguish visually with the titles of the main fields now in bold and some sub-fields that can be displayed inline.

Displaying sub-fields inline instead of in blocks and field titles in bold

Importing records

Being able to import records from external catalogues streamlines much of the cataloguing work for librarians. RERO ILS offers the possibility to do so via the SRU protocol. The librarian can search for the desired record in the selected catalogue (currently only BnF) using a simple query (keywords for the author, title, date, ISBN…). They can choose the record that they want to import. This record can then be freely edited in the cataloguing interface before being saved.

New feature: receive an issue

Another brand new feature of the v0.10.0 release is the journal arrivals module. The holding’s frequency field, based on RDA standards, enables the system to automatically predict the dates of the next regular issues and to receive them with one click. It is of course also possible to receive an irregular issue. When an issue is marked as received, the system automatically creates an item in the holding.

Your browser does not support the video tag, you can download the video with this link

Quick reception of regular issues according to frequency

The video above shows an example of the quick receive function:

Obtenir (Get) displays the items
Predictions for future issues are displayed
A click on the quick receive button creates the new item for the next issue. If necessary, the other button can be used to edit the item before marking it as received.

Items: duly noted

A notes field has been added to the items' template. Such notes can be of four types:

Public note: is displayed in the detailed view of the public and professional interface.
Private note: is displayed only in the detailed view of the professional interface.
Checkin Note: displays an alert upon item checkin.
Checkout note: displays an alert upon item checkout.

These notes address an essential need expressed by several of our pilot libraries as well as by our partners at UC Louvain.

Item notes in the professional interface

A feature-rich version

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A new version of RERO ILS has been released, fairly rich in new features, which of course we are delighted about. Below is a brief summary of the main new features. The full release note, consisting mostly of technical information, is available in English on the GitHub project: v0.9.0.

Research improvement

For a long time now, the team of librarians have been insisting on this point and the pilot library tests have confirmed this: to search in a library catalogue, the default application of the boolean operator AND is expected, in order to reduce noise, even if it means there is no result. This is now completed. At the same time, the whole indexing of data and the search function have been reviewed and the improvements are significant.

Closed stacks

UCLouvain, which actively collaborates in the development of RERO ILS, had suggested the implementation of closed stacks, i.e. the ability to block requests or to restrict pick-up locations for a given location. After suggesting it, UCLouvain achieved that development.

Editing a location, with restrictions on the pick-up locations

Manual blocking of readers

It is now possible to block a reader manually. A free text note can be added to explain the reason for this blocking. The blocked person can no longer borrow items or place requests. In his/her account, he/she is notified of the blockage and the reason for it. The Librarian is also notified during loan transactions that are no longer possible (lending or placing a request for the reader).

Metadata and display of records

Work on implementing the data model carries on with the fields of physical description of the documents: material importance, duration, format, illustrations, colours and material elements. These fields are clearly based on the RDA standard, with a finer granularity, whereas MARC used to gather different types of information within the same sub-field. While working to display these fields in the record (the detailed view of the documents), the layout has been reviewed and improved: essential information is highlighted at the top and additional bibliographical details appear in a dedicated tab.

Your browser does not support the video tag, you can download the video with this link

Reorganization of the bibliographic record (professional interface)

Predictions: between hate and passion

Thu, 28 May 2020 15:00:00 +0200

Some love them, some hate them. Today we look into predictions and their periodicity among the data from the RERO ILS pilot libraries. Indeed, the work on the implementation of the serial function is leading the RERO central office to analyze this aspect based on existing data. (For the experts, these predictions can be found in the MARC field 853 of the holdings).

After extracting the data, we came across some interesting figures. We would like to share them here, as there are some similarities and differences between libraries.

As explained in a previous post, we are developing RERO ILS with the help of pilot libraries, which are testing the system and providing us with feedback from field professionals. Our six pilot libraries are the following:

Jura Cantonal Library
Library of Bulle
Public and University Library of Neuchâtel
Public Library of Delémont
Public Library of La Chaux-de-Fonds
Valais Media Library (and its four sites in Brig, Martigny, St-Maurice, Sion)

Where is the greatest appetite for predictions?

We came across these figures more or less by chance, so we don’t want to incriminate anyone… but we can all the same observe that the people in Valais have a stronger tendency to want to control the entry of the leaflets.🤭

Pilot library	Number of holdings	Number of holdings with prediction	Ratio
Valais Media Library (Sion)	17710	3892	22%
Jura Cantonal Library	6788	993	15%
Valais Media Library (St-Maurice)	1218	141	12%
Valais Media Library (Brigue)	2209	210	10%
Library of Bulle	2411	223	9%
Public and University Library of Neuchâtel	18761	1672	9%
Valais Media Library (Martigny)	2333	196	8%
Public Library of La Chaux-de-Fonds (without children’s libraries)	7021	435	6%
Public Library of Delémontt (adults and children)	1587	102	6%

We have not conducted further analysis to determine the reasons for these figures. Furthermore, it can also be seen that, for comparable sizes, Public and University Library of Neuchâtel has many more holdings than La Chaux-de-Fonds. Here too, we chose not to elaborate further on this aspect (we cannot rule out an error on our part when extracting the data). The ratio remains in the same range.

What is the favourite frequency?

The image below shows the prediction frequencies for all the pilot libraries.

Prediction frequencies for all pilot libraries

Please note that this pie chart shows only the distribution for the serial publications which are checked in.

We can observe that annual, quarterly, semi-annual and monthly share the ¾ of the cake, if we can put it that way.

Let’s have a quick library benchmark

To analyse in detail, we have selected the top 5 periodicities per library (image below). In particular, we can see that:

Libraries with a heritage mission check in more annual publications. These include activity reports and various documents issued by regional bodies and collected for historical purposes.
Smaller libraries with a lower check-in activity (according to the table above) tend to focus on monthly publications.

Some noteworthy facts:

Weekly newspapers are more popular in Delémont than elsewhere.
The Jura Cantonal Library only has eyes for annual publications. On the other hand, if you are a monthly publication, don’t hang around in Porrentruy, it could be dangerous for you.
Martigny has a crush for monthly publications which only have 11 issues a year.

Other interpretations are of course possible, feel free to let us know on Twitter (@rero_centrale) or by email (info@rero.ch)!

Prediction frequencies per library (top 5)

Predictions? Very promising!

Tue, 05 May 2020 07:14:42 +0200

While sprint 29 is over and sprint 30 is already well underway, version v0.8.0 of rero ils is published (complete release notes). Below is a brief summary of what’s new.

Predictions for serials have become possible, with a flexibility which enables to encode the most common cases. Specifically, the holdings for serials can be edited and a section of the form is dedicated to prediction. This is done in two steps, the first to parameterize the sequence itself, and the second to configure its display, by means of a template mechanism. Ten of the most frequent predictions in RERO network libraries have been successfully imported.

Transaction history

The reader account as seen by the librarian is enriched with a tab displaying the history of transactions. For the time being, and in accordance with the rules in force, this history lists the transactions over the last six months. In the future, the reader may decide whether this history is accessible or not. However, it will be necessary for the proper functioning of libraries to keep a transaction history for an item, although limited in time.

Yearly subscriptions

Fee management now allows to manage yearly subscriptions, which is an existing practice in some cantons or municipalities in Switzerland.

Manual edition of the list of requests

The librarian was already able to place a request on an item for a reader, he or she can now edit the list of existing requests for an item: add a new request, delete one, or change the pickup location of one of the requests.

Search results filtered by organization

Search in the professional interface now filters the results on the basis of the organization of the connected person, as he or she works mostly on items belonging to his/her network. A new organizational facet, with the relevant organization selected by default, allows to restrict the results to a specific library, or on the contrary to extend the search to the entire catalogue of RERO ILS organizations, for instance to attach an item to an existing bibliographic record of another organization.
This default filter also applies to the search suggestions generated when typing a request.

Your browser does not support the video tag, you can download the video with this link

Default filter for search results

Integration of IdRef authorities into MEF

Finally, it can be pointed out that the person authorities of the IdRef authority file have been added to the multilingual authority server MEF and are visible in RERO ILS, in view of the day when the RERO authorities will be uploaded to this file.

Two important releases

Mon, 20 Apr 2020 06:20:38 +0200

At RERO, we’re witnessing an acceleration of space-time, especially in the RERO ILS project, and in this haste, we “forgot” to inform you that two new releases have been published!

Below, a summary of the added features of these releases is proposed, but the detailed notes can be accessed through the following links:

Release `v0.6.0`

Version v0.6.0 (and its sibling v0.6.1, which is only a patch as indicated by its version number) separates the public interface from the professional interface. The public interface, accessible to all with or without authentication, includes the shared catalogue and the organisations' catalogues, as well as patron accounts and the action that is available to them, such as requesting an item. The professional interface gives access to all action undertaken by library staff, as for instance searching in the catalogue, cataloguing or parameter setting.

This logical separation is partly the consequence of the introduction in the version v0.3.0¹ of views per organization. It became difficult to define and clearly present the possible actions to be taken by a member of staff on a particular view, or the information intended for any visitor or online reader. Furthermore, the professional interface benefits from being dynamic, in order to avoid recharging the page after each action, while the public interface is more easily indexed by search engines if the pages are static, which is relevant for bibliographic records. Finally, this choice allows to share part of the professional interface between RERO ILS and SONAR projects and, thus, to mutualize the development effort².

The development of v0.6.0 has been largely determined by the workshops carried out and the establishment of a specific instance for pilot libraries’ tests. From this point of view, it is now possible to customize the views of different organizations with a specific header colour and logo. Most importantly, the processes for Virtua’s data migration to RERO ILS have been completed in order to import an entire RERO institution.

The interface for the circulation module has been redesigned and now offers more information on circulation events upon return of items requested, late or in transit. The librarian now has a unified view of the reader’s account in different tabs: borrowed items, requests, fees, personal information. As for the public interface, the account also offers new functionalities such as extending loans, accessing loan history and cancelling requests.

Work continues on the data model with publication and editing fields, as well as an editor supporting embedding of fields on four levels or more. And work on the acquisition module has begun with the addition of fiscal years, accounts, orders, order lines and suppliers.

Release `v0.7.0`

Librarians are now able to place a request on an item for a reader, as shown in the animation below. Professionals have a tab for the readers' fees with the possibility of paying partially or completely for the fees, to cancel them, to mark them as contested, or, conversely, to resolve a dispute. A detailed history is provided for the fees, along with the details of all events. These fees are generated automatically when a loan has exceeded the return deadline. They may also be related to other library services, such as photocopies, interlibrary loans, subscriptions or for when an item has been damaged or lost.

Your browser does not support the video tag, you can download the video with this link

Make a request on behalf of a patron

As for the data model, complex work has been carried out for the title and the transformations needed for the conversion from MARC to JSON, as well as for the URL addresses. A wiki has also been added in order to have online help available for the professional.

See release note. ↩︎
For those of you who are interested in how it works under the hood, this change resulted in the creation of two more repositories on GitHub: ng-core, an angular project that brings together what’s common to RERO ILS and SONAR, as well as rero-ils-ui, also an angular project that implements the RERO ILS of the professional interface. ↩︎

Towards integrating RERO authorities into the French-language IdRef reference system

Thu, 12 Mar 2020 12:00:00 +0200

The RERO network will be split into two groups of libraries by 2020-2021, one integrating the Swiss Library Services Platform (SLSP) and the other adopting the RERO ILS solution. In order to avoid a situation leading to the creation of two divergent copies of its current French-language authority file, RERO decided to discontinue this file in favour of a solution that is more widely recognized and firmly rooted in a wider community, and that can be equally used by both SLSP and RERO ILS.

An agreement of principle was reached with the ABES (Agence bibliographique de l’enseignement supérieur, France) in July 2019 to integrate the RERO authorities proper nouns in the French-language IdRef file.

For libraries of French-speaking Switzerland, this solution offers many advantages:

Continue producing French-language authorities after the transition.
Use and enrich a large and high-quality authority file (3.5 million authorities) which will eventually merge with the BnF (Bibliothèque nationale de France) file as part of the FNE project (présenté à la journée RERO (presented at the RERO day in March 2019).
Increase the visibility of RERO authorities.
Benefit from the MEF service (Multilingual Entity File) developed by RERO with the aim of implementing multilingual metadata management in ILSs.

A more complete presentation of the scenario was given in November 2019 at the BnF, see Approche multilingue des autorités RERO avec le projet Multilingual Entity File (presentation + video, in French).

Fundamentals of the solution

Input by the cataloguers and indexers of the new proper nouns authorities directly into IdRef via the web application
Linkage to IdRef and RERO-RAMEAU authorities by entering identifiers in the access points of bibliographic records
Separate management of the RERO-RAMEAU (common nouns) system, which we have been adapting since 2012 to post-coordinated indexing, with monthly transfers to Alma/SLSP and MEF/RERO ILS
Regular harvesting of IdRef’s OAI PMH server to to Alma/SLSP and MEF/RERO ILS for updates
Transmission of the RAMEAU suggestions to the BnF by the RAMEAU correspondents of the French-speaking SLSP and RERO sites, as up to now

Preparation stages

The RERO proper nouns authority file stops being fed before the go-live of the end of 2020
RERO authorities are integrated into IdRef through alignments, enrichments and additions for the persons, collective agents, geographical names and titles entities
IdRef is integrated into RERO ILS (through MEF) and into Alma’s Community Zone in MARC 21 format

Transition from RERO authorities to IdRef

Work progress in March 2020

ABES, RERO, SLSP and the Ex Libris company are actively collaborating in order to implement this project succesfully within the given timeframe. So far, the following developments have been carried out:

(Very promising) alignment tests on 10’000 person authorities
Alignments on 200’000 person authorities (in progress)
Integration of PPN IdRef identifiers on about 200'000 bibliographic records for the third SLSP data loading test
Mapping UNIMARC authorities -> MARC 21 authorities
Preparation of the OAI PMH IdRef server in MARC21 version (in progress)

Beginning of a Bachelor thesis on this project

RERO centrale is delighted to assist Etienne Attinger, a student at the HEG Geneva and also librarian at the University of Geneva, in carrying out a Bachelor thesis on the subject of the alignment of authorities. This assignment began in February and is due to end in July 2020. Its temporary title is Study, elements of implementation and evaluation of the integration of the RERO authorities into the French-language IdRef system.

RERO ILS exposes itself to tests

Tue, 03 Mar 2020 08:00:00 +0200

RERO launches a first phase of tests on RERO ILS in this month of March.

After having tested its software with the Swiss professional community during a first cycle of workshops, the central was able to collect a good number of feedbacks on the use and usability of the system. RERO now wishes to continue this improvement process in a formal way, by opening a test phase with some pilot libraries.

Test objectives

As RERO ILS is still in the development phase, this approach will be somewhat exploratory. The objectives are as follows:

Adopt a participatory approach (co-development) with the professional community
Identify usability issues (existing features but unusable as is)
Identify possible missing and unplanned functionalities
Identify bugs
Test RERO ILS with a large set of real data
Gathering a general opinion
Establish an exchange with and between the pilot libraries, focusing on specific aspects of RERO ILS
Gradually implement the new system in order to prepare a change as pleasant as possible for librarians.

Test procedure and scope

The test phase is scheduled to last two weeks, but can be adapted according to library availability. It is performed on version 0.6.1 of RERO ILS, and essentially concerns three parts:

Circulation
Public interface
Administration and transversal aspects

Other functionalities are not directly targeted by this test phase although they already exist, as they are not sufficiently developed. This is particularly the case for cataloguing and acquisitions.

Pilot libraries

To carry out the tests, we contacted one or two of the largest libraries in each region. These institutions can more easily dedicate resources to testing and generally have more extensive needs. In addition, they often assume a regional coordinating role, either implicitly or explicitly. The procedure may be extended to other libraries in the future.

The tests are conducted by the following pilot libraries:

The test site was populated with real data used in the current Virtua system: the libraries themselves, their locations, bibliographic and item data, some of the patrons' records and the types of items and patrons. Naturally, data not intended for the public are only accessible to persons with the necessary authorisations.

💙 The central thanks the pilot libraries for their commitment!

Appraisal on the RERO ILS workshops

Thu, 20 Feb 2020 08:00:00 +0100

13 workshops, 11 towns, 8 cantons… and only one country of course. This completes the cycle of introductory workshops to RERO ILS started at the end of November 2019 and carried out in both German- and French-speaking Switzerland. The RERO central office draws a generally positive balance of this action.

Feedback from participants

Overall, participants gave good feedback of the workshops via our online form. Out of a total of 71 responses:

66% of the participants felt that the workshop met their own expectations well or very well (top bar).
76% of the participants are satisfied or very satisfied overall (bottom bar).

Meeting expectations and overall satisfaction with the workshops

Several participants encountered and noted technical problems that sometimes affected the running of the workshop. In addition, usability errors were highlighted as were some important functions that were missing from the system. Many expectations were expressed with regard to the other modules (cataloguing, acquisition, periodical management).

Within the libraries involved in the transition to RERO ILS, some people pointed out aspects that function differently than in the current system (Virtua) and expressed concern about the current state of developments for the upcoming transition.

Several people highlighted the modern and innovative aspect of RERO ILS. Overall, the interactivity of the workshop was very much appreciated.

Appraisal by the RERO central office

At the central office, we realised the difficulty of organising such events on a system in full development, with functionalities that evolve over time and technical equipment (Wi-fi and devices) not managed by the animators.

Nevertheless, the workshops were an excellent platform to exchange with professionals from different backgrounds, allowing us to better understand certain needs and processes, and enabling us to prioritise the functionalities under development. Several improvements have already been made thanks to the feedbacks received, for instance to allow for more efficient work within the circulation module.

The RERO central office is aware of the concerns of professionals about the changes to come and the functionalities that still need to be developed. We are doing our utmost every day to address these challenges and to take into account the needs of field professionals.

A step towards the development of RERO ILS bibliographic model: the data interconnection

Wed, 07 Aug 2019 08:00:00 +0200

Work, expression, manifestation, item, one, two, three, four,… a heady nursery rhyme that people working in libraries are now familiar with. Indeed, these four concepts are regularly chanted in specialised conferences and in library science classes. More broadly, they reflect an evolution of bibliographic models (LRM), cataloguing rules (RDA) and data exchange formats (Bibframe). Our French neighbours usually call this movement the “bibliographic transition”. And the RERO ILS project does not escape it, quite the contrary: it is fully imbued with it. The use of Bibliostratus shows this.

The rest of the article is available on French or German.

Two new releases

Mon, 03 Jun 2019 08:33:41 +0200

Since the RERO Day in March 2019, two versions of RERO ILS have been released. They provide a consolidation of the existing system, early support of the consortial model, an improvement of the search engine and circulation notifications.

The version notes are as follows:

v0.1.0a22, Consolidation and consortium features

Focus on code quality

This version highlights sprint 17 which aimed to solve as many identified problems as possible (GitHub issues), as well as to improve the quality of the code by increasing its coverage through unit tests and by ensuring that it is better documented. At the end of the sprint, the code coverage by the tests increased from 77% to 89% (it now exceeds 91%) and there was no more uncommented code part left. Finally, 11 issues, listed at the end of the release note, have been resolved.

Multiple organisations: RERO ILS becomes multi-tenant

In addition to improvements to the user interface, both professional and non-professional, and to the circulation module, the support of the consortial model has been implemented. By consortial model, we mean the existence of several organisations, most often including several libraries, which in turn cover several locations. The existence of more than one organisation in RERO ILS implies that the data and actions of each organisation are properly isolated and processed.

Better integration of ebooks

At the same time, the harvesting of ebook metadata from the Cantook platform for incorporation into the catalogue was rewritten in order to directly query the supplier’s API and obtain better quality data, particularly the language of the document and the subjects.

v0.2.0, Search and notifications

Improvement of the search engine

Sprint 18 focused on improving research and extending loan notifications. Concerning the search engine, a more detailed examination was carried out on the fields to be indexed and on how to process the text before indexing (such as removing accents and plural marks), based on the types of search desired depending on each case. Indeed, one does not search in the same way in documents as in patrons’ files.

The next step is to improve the order in which the results are displayed, with a default display from most to least relevant. A field boosting has also been added, for example to give more importance to a result containing the searched word in the title rather than in a note.

Loan notifications

As for notifications, a new resource (a distinct object type) has been created in RERO ILS, in order to manage them¹. This involves sending a notification (currently by e-mail and in English only, but the next step is already planned) to the patron, for example when the requested book is available for him or her at the loan office, or when the due date for the borrowed documents is close.

Enhanced professional roles

A new role, system librarian, is being implemented in addition to the two existing roles, librarian and patron. Permissions for these different roles have been defined, or redefined as the case may be, to take into account the simple consortial model. The librarian role generally has rights at the library level, while the system librarian role has rights extended to the entire organisation, but not beyond. This is the beginning of a somewhat more realistic rights management within our new system.

Formalism

From this publication, the version number follows the Semantic versioning recommendations, in order to be more accurate about the value of a release. As a result, the version number has been changed from v0.1.0a22 to v0.2.0. This is still a version under active development, as the first digit is zero. It is therefore a new minor version (the second digit changes). Note that since this publication, an error in the generation of example data has had to be fixed, resulting in the release of patches, v0.2.1, v0.2.2.2 and v0.2.3.

To test and learn more

The latest published version is as always publicly available on ils.test.rero.ch, as well as a short help page on the GitHub project wiki, where you will find the login and password for the accounts available to test the demo site.
If you encounter any problems, which is likely, do not hesitate to contact us through the following channels:

the Gitter reroils room,
the GitHub issues,
the email,
the Twitter account @rero_centrale.

The creation of this resource was leveraged to use a new version of the invenio-records module that allows the creation of one table per resource. ↩︎

What's new in the March release?

Mon, 06 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

End of March, a new rero ils version (v0.1.0a21) was released:

The release note lists the changes and additions.
The public demo website : ils.test.rero.ch.
The public demo help page : github.com/rero/rero-ils/wiki/Public-demo-help.

Below is a short description of the main new features.

They mainly involve:

the circulation module,
the user interface,
the person authorities.

Circulation.

During summer 2018, the rero ils development team worked together with the cern’s cds team to rewrite the invenio-circulation module, accordingly to a generic state chart, in the hope that it could be adapted to most library use cases. This module is now fully integrated and used for each circulation transaction within rero.

This version also fulfills an important part of the circulation module, namely the setting of circulation policies and the fact that theses policies are taken into account for each circulation transaction. For a patron type / item type specific pair, a circulation policy determines whether the check-out or the extension is possible, and its duration. Note that the minimal circulation module setting requirement is to create only one default circulation policy. For each transaction, depending on the patron type and the item type, the system searches for a corresponding circulation policy, firstly at the libray level, then at the organisation level. If it doesn’t find any, the default policy will then be used.

Circulation policy example

The user interface.

The user interface has been completely redesigned to simplify and somewhat harmonize the structure of the pages according to their type (search, record view… ). A new sorting between public pages, sometimes with enhanced functionalities depending on the logged in user, and professional ones, has been made.

As the user types a query into the search input field, suggestions are displayed. These consist of a list of document titles or a list of physical person authorities, matching the query being typed. As the user selects a document suggestion, a query with the title words is launched, but if it’s a person authority which is selected, then the specific person record is displayed.

Search suggestions

Les autorités personnes.

The use of mef rero ils has increased considerably. A substantial job was done on the mef’s service itself, which grew from 96 person records during the tests to the full batch of 6.8 million records.

In rero ils, the existing links between bibliographical records and person authorities have been imported and are materialized by hyperlinks to display the person record. From a technical point of view, the person record is not imported into rero ils, but is remotely interrogated in real time.

During cataloguing, the editor enables you to search in real time via the mef service, for a person authority among the 6.8 million existing authorities and to register a link if the desired authority exists. Otherwise, the author’s data is stored in text form in the bibliographic record. The mechanism of temporary authorities has yet to be modelled and developed.

Search of an person authority as cataloging a new document

How to test RERO ILS?

Mon, 29 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

You have already heard several times about rero ils, but you would like to see what it concretely looks like? To make up your own mind, get your hands dirty? How perfect: rero ils is an open source software, developed in a fully transparent approach.

Here’s how to do it, at three levels.

Step by step

Level 1: anonymous user

Go to ils.test.rero.ch

That is where you will find our public demo website. At this stage, you only have access to features for people who are not logged in.

Level 2: patron

Open the help page of rero ils (Menu > Help) or click directly here
Copy the login data of a patron, under Sign up and Log in, for example of Simonetta (reroilstest+simonetta@gmail.com / 123456)
Come back to rero ils and log in (My account > Login)

At this level, you are able to consult your account or request documents.

Level 3: librarian

Follow the procedure of level 2, but copy instead the login data of Astrid for example (reroilstest@gmail.com / 123456)

Here, you are going to test rero ils as a system librarian, therefore with extended rights! You can, among other things, make loans, configure their duration and the number of possible renewals, register patrons, catalogue documents or manage the opening hours of your library.

An alert for every new version of RERO ILS?

The Github account of RERO hosts the different software projects of the network. There you will find among others the RERO ILS project and its successive versions/releases.

Via RSS feed:
- Go to the releases of RERO ILS
- Take the URL and add .atom to it: https://github.com/rero/rero-ils/releases.atom
- Insert this URL in your RSS reader!
By e-mail (Github account required)
- Go to the releases of RERO ILS
- At the top right, click on Watch, and then Release only
- Specify in your settings, section Watching, that you want to receive notifications by e-mail

Go further… and report a bug or provide suggestions

Are some basic features missing?

Our backlog, the journal of the upcoming planned developments, is freely accessible on our collaboration tool Taiga. Exploring a little further, you will find the ongoing tasks of the developers and the full history of the implemented user stories.

You encountered a bug?

If you really want to do it right, check the already reported issues. You can even open an issue yourself if you have a Github account.
If there is no corresponding issue (and even if you haven’t checked), your feedback is welcome by e-mail or via our public chatroom (authentication required). We will get back to you!

Thank you in advance for your participation and your tests!

CIIP press release

Wed, 12 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The work on the future competence centre has begun! On September 13, 2018, the CIIP, RERO’s supervisory authority, gave the go-ahead for the launch of the future library competence and service centre - the “RERO 21” project. A private law and public interest foundation will be created in 2019 and will gradually replace the current RERO until 2021.

The foundation will provide cantonal, municipal, heritage, legal and school libraries with a new library management system that is free and can be used by both networks and libraries. SONAR (Swiss Open Access Repository) is also part of the range of services, which has been established partly in line with RERO’s current services.

The new library management system being developed by the team at RERO, in collaboration with the CERN, is based on the Invenio framework and will be in operation by the end of 2020. These developments will be presented in March 2019 at the upcoming Journée RERO.

CIIP Press release.

Welcome

Wed, 12 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The RERO 21 blog is finally published! “Finally”, because although the project officially started in September 2018, the RERO team has been working on it for many months, or even years if one considers the preliminary reflection and preparation of the project itself. And the desire to talk about the project has been with us all this time.

The structure of the blog will grow over time. For the moment, apart from the posts published as the project comes along, two more static pages are available:

The presentation page which briefly describes the RERO 21 project and its different features.
The resources page which lists useful links.

The posts are grouped using labels, which are displayed in the right-hand bar. For the moment, the main labels are as follows:

rero21, about the project itself
rero-ils is more specifically focused on RERO ILS and the development of the software by the RERO team.

If you wish to react to what you read, or simply exchange with the team at RERO, you can use the channels indicated in the right-hand bar. Although this site offers an RSS feed, which can even be tailored with each label, you can also subscribe to the RERO 21 newsletter using the following form:

Your e-mail address is only used to send you our newsletter and information about RERO 21. You can always use the unsubscribe link included at the bottom of each e-mail message you receive from us. This newsletter is managed using the service sendinblue, with activity tracking mode disabled.

Through this blog, the team wishes to share with you how exciting this new adventure called RERO 21 is!

Blog RERO 21

Descriptive and subject cataloguing in RERO ILS

A little look back at the RERO ILS go-live

List of RERO+ libraries

Migration 2021 of RERO+: new system, new address

Context

Implications for users as of 12 July 2021

The RERO+ Foundation is born

Background

What changes

What remains

A word from Damian Elsig, President of the Foundation Board

New president as of 1 August: Elisabeth Baume-Schneider

The new system RERO ILS goes live on 12 July

V1.2.0 is out: thanks for the translations!

RERO ILS community translation

Several organisations for one patron

The Network "IdRef suisse": a Reality

New version 1.1.0 : fixes and adjustments

"Swiss made" also means multilingual

How multilingualism works

Real added value for the end user

Cataloguing with or without entities

Entity or authority?

Contact

Lettre RERO+

Contact us

RERO21 project

RERO ILS

MEF: Multilingual Entity File

SONAR: Swiss Open Access Repository

Resources

The RERO+ Foundation, a competence and service centre for libraries

RERO 21

RERO ILS

SONAR

Kick-off of the RERO ILS migration project

MEF: Multilingual Entity File

What MEF does

Entity types

How it works

RERO ILS will be up and running in 2021!

List of libraries migrating to RERO ILS

Two sprints, one version

Link to contributing person-authorities

Circulation density under control

Need help ?

Listing of new acquisitions

Import of external records by API

Second phase of pilot tests

Early adopter libraries

Features

Modern end user interface

Consortia function

Circulation

Catalogue management

User management

Multilingual entities

External content integration

Serials

Interlibrary loan

Acquisitions

Fee management

Statistics

System administration

Interface with self-service stations

Pricing

RERO ILS: open source integrated library system

Context of RERO

Contribute to RERO ILS

The editor is making progress

Professional interface: refining the document editor

Inventory lists

New cataloguing developments

Interface improvements

Importing records

New feature: receive an issue

Items: duly noted

A feature-rich version

Research improvement

Release `v0.6.0`

Release `v0.7.0`