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- If the library shares an ILS with other libraries, but does not share a collection with those libraries, there must be some way of identifying which library a patron belongs to when querying the ILS. Usually each library has something lke a 'location code' that distinguishes it from other libraries on the same ILS. We need to know this location code for each library. Without this location code, we cannot validate patrons against the ILS, because we can't tell the ILS which library they're a patron of.
- We need at least four sample patron credentials for testing:
- A patron with borrowing privileges.
- A patron whose borrowing privileges have expired.
- A patron who has lost borrowing privileges because of excessive fines.
- A patron who has lost borrowing privileges for some other reason.
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- We need to know which electronic collections your library has access to. You may have access to a collection because your library paid for it directly, because you belong to a consortium that shares access to it, or because it's available to all libraries at the state level. You may have access to two distinct collections of the same type.
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- On top of basic things like blocking for excess fines, your library might have policies restricting the types of books a patron can borrow. For instance, NYPL has a rule that if your patron type (the "P TYPE[47]" field in Sierra) is 60, 62, or 152, you may only borrow children's books. If your library has similar rules, we need to hear about them. Again, we may not be able to enforce these policies immediately, but we need to hear about them so we can plan the work.
- Some library patrons may have multiple barcodes, due to library policy, or to agreements with governments or other libraries. For example, a single NYPL patron may have:
- A NYPL barcode (the number on their library card)
- An alphanumeric username (which they chose themselves when creating an account on nypl.org)
- A second barcode corresponding to their Brooklyn Public Library card (by reciprocal agreement between NYPL and Brooklyn Public Library)
- A third barcode corresponding to their NYC ID (by agreement between NYPL and the City of New York).
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- The hostname of the SIP2 server.
- The port on that hostname where the SIP2 server is running.
- If sending SIP2 requests to the server requires authentication, SimplyE itself needs a login user ID and a password. (This is not a patron credential--it's permission to access the SIP2 server itself.) You may need to create a special account on the SIP server for SimplyE.
- Some SIP2 servers require that the location code be set to a specific value. If your server is like this, we need to know a value that will work.
- We need to know if you keep track of a unique patron ID-that ID–that is, an account number that stays the same even if the patron gets a new library card. If you don't have a unique patron ID, that's fine-we fine–we just won't use the features that require one.
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