Have you ever noticed the “User tools” toolbar, or seen something that says “Assign user tools” in Connexion? How about the blue numbers on some of your coworker’s Connexion screens, that may not be on yours? Well, I’m here today to explain what these are and how YOU can set some of them up.

There are special keys which can be set up to replace a certain keyboard command, or run a macro. I have 4 of them set up on my computer, but most people will have fewer. My setup is:
1 = Make an authority record – creates an authority record for you from the line you have your cursor on.
2 = Add an 043 field – Searches your subject headings and adds the appropriate 043 field.
3 = Generate a CONSER e-serial record (Take the print serial recod you have, and convert it to an e-Serial record)
4 = Add an 034 field (Adds the appropriate 034 field on a MAP record based on the latitude and longitude you have supplied in your 255 field.

So – where do I find these hotkeys? I don’t see them on my toolbar?!?

Yes, you do, and No, you don’t. The big buttons with a number on them is not part of the initial setup, but can be added easily (I’ll explain soon). However; there is a “User tools” bar (it looks to me like a double-sided wrench) and if you click on it all your assigned keys will show up. You can always call the numbered icons up from there – although I have actually removed this from my Connexion setup.

To assign a macro to a hotkey:
1) Click on Tools
2) Trace down to User tools, then over to “Assign” (at the bottom)

This will bring up a box that says “User tools” at the top. Since we are looking at adding macros …
3) Under “Display Commands for Category” click the radio button next to “Macro”
4) You will see a list of available macros. Highlight the one you want by clicking on it once
5) Check to see if anything is listed under “Current User Tools” – if there is something there, consider using that instead of assigning a new user tool. If it is blank or you want a duplicate tool assigned anyway …
6) Click the down arrow under “Select New User Tool” and pick the number you want. Call me silly, but I like to start with Tool 1 and work my way down the list.
7) If the tool you have selected is assigned to ANYTHING, it will have this listed next to the lable under the heading “User tool assigned to”. If there is something there, then that tool will be wiped out, so consider how much you want this to be the assigned tool.
8 ) If you want to assign this number to this tool, then click “Assign tool”, then click OK to close the box or assign your next tool.

But wait!! I can’t see the number in my toolbar?!?
That’s because you have assigned the tool, now you have to put the number on your toolbar.
9) Click on “Tools”
10) Trace down to “Toolbar editor”
11 Go WAY down the list until you find the number button you just assigned something to, then click and drag it to where you want it on the toolbar.

All done – and now you also know how to add some buttons for things you wanted to add – AND (come closer, I have a secret to tell you!) You can drag useless icons off the toolbar and into this box and they will be off your toolbar!!!

Pretty neat!!!

Next time, I will go over how to set up text strings again … unless I can con Jorge into writing it for me.

The previous codes were “REF” (for all non-Atlas books) and “ATL”  (for atlases). Now all books and atlases will be coded “GEN.”

Example:

852 0_
$$a FU
$$b UFMAP
$$c GEN    (Not: REF nor ATL)
$$h G1021
$$i .R185 1992

This change includes not having to write “MAPREF” or “ATLAS” under the call number in the back of the book, nor type the same words in the Description field in the Aleph Item Record. On the other hand, the materials will be stamped (or penciled in) “Map Lib.” under the call no. to differentiate it from all other Main and Branch books.

Additionally, the Map Library includes that ALL map sheets will have the Collection code changed from “GEN” to “MAP.”

Example:

852 0_
$$a FU
$$b UFMAP
$$c MAP (Not: GEN)
$$h G4104.C6E635 2003
$$i .M5

Please note that ALEPHPRO procedures that are affected by these changes, have been revised. These include:

Atlases and Map Reference materials

Books and Serials with accompanying maps

Cataloging for Map Library: Maps

We certainly can.

CTRL-O in Aleph will open a browser window right in the bottom section of your client (same place where the list of HOLs shows up). You can view your website and even do a little browsing without having to close down Aleph — now how cool is that?!?

(Thank you to Fern for clueing me in on this … I knew it could be done, but I’ve been too lazy to look it up!)

In answer to the question “What in the heck am I supposed to do with this book jacket?”, Doug let us know Monday that the procedure has been updated now that Library West no longer wants to keep theirs. He also has elaborated a bit more on how to handle special requests concerning book jackets.

For more details, see the AlephPro document “Book Jacket Handling Guideline” here.

We use the 740 field to identify analytic titles within the item. So if you have a collective 245, the 740 will contain the titles of the individual parts that make up the collection (2^nd indicator being 2). If we use the 740 to function as a related title, this will be a 2^nd indicator 0) and you are compelled to have it traced.

So far I have gathered that the 246 is for the related work specifically in whole representation, and the 740 for any analytical work that is only part of the whole item or an unrelated title that is worth being traced.

I hope I have not oversimplified the distinction, but contributions and examples are encouraged for a better understanding.

On the Google homepage ( http://www.google.com … does anyone not know this already?) to the right of the input box there is a list of three choices, the bottom one is “Language tools”. I use the “Translate text” box quite often. One hint, type out what you want in Word first if there are any diacritics. Do not try to copy and paste from OCLC because the ALA characters for diacritics will not be recognized.

Copy and paste your text into the translate box, select the language it is in and hit the button. What could be easier??

Well, what if you don’t know the language? I had an item I was fairly certain was in Dutch, but I could not be sure. It turned out I was right, but what if I wasn’t? Google translate has a new feature that can help. Once you have tried to translate a text, you can change the language to “Detect language” (the top choice) and it will figure it out for you!

Give it a try!!
Copy and paste: Statistiek van het personeel in Overheidsdienst naar de toestand in the box and tell it to translate from Spanish to English.

You should get the same thing you had before.

Now, click on the arrow in the box that says “Spanish” and change it to “Detect language” and try again.

Not only do you get the translation, it also tells you what language it translated this from.

Once again, I am not recommending this for research or reading the latest Russian novel, but if you just want to find out what the heck the title page says, it has worked really well for me!

The 245 field must end with a punctuation, the closed bracket    ] will not do it.     Ex.:   [et al.].

As opposed to the 260 field where the date can end in the closed bracket    ] Ex.:     [1987]

There is a cheat sheet for almost all other fields End of punctuation rules in Alephpro:

http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/alephpro/EndofFieldPunctuation.htm

All joking aside, the rules seem almost too easy. Basically, use 490, first indicator 1 or 0 just as you always have (copied from the piece) even if it is the same as the 830 (second indicator 0), which you now have to include. Just remember to place a period at the end of the 830, but not the 490!

BEFORE:
440 _0 Classical Armenian texts

AFTER:
490 1_ Classical Armenian texts
830 _0 Classical Armenian texts.

Now, I need to retract one thing I said in the first class, and add some information I learned after the second one.

First of all, the 853 for a monograph should be:
853 00 8 1 $$a v. (or pt. or t. or ed. etc….)

There was some confusion (on my part at least), so I checked this out with Doug Smith.

Secondly, Beth Zavorski brought up something in the second session and did some great research on our displays in the Endeca OPAC (Mango).

Whenever you have a gap in the middle of one part, you *should* not need to record the larger part more than once. An example of this would be a monthly magazine where we are only missing the April issue if the first year.
Below is the way I explained it in class on the left and the way you should be able to do it on the right.

853 20 8 1 a (year) b (month) 853 20 8 1 a (year) b (month)
863 40 8 1.10 a 2009-2009 b 01-03 863 40 8 1.10 a 2009 b 01-03
863 40 8 1.20 a 2009-2009 b 05-12 863 40 8 1.20 a 2009 b 05-12

Well, it turns out you can do it the way it is supposed to be done (the right) because the display is actually quite easy to read. The way the two displays show up are:
2009:Jan.-2009:Mar. 2009:Jan.-Mar.
2009:May-2009:Dec. 2009:May-Dec.

The way it is done on the right is actually the standard – we were just doing it the other way to correct display issues at one point. The nice thing is that there is no need to go back and change any old records, but the record done according to the standard does work fine.

Thank you Beth!!

Now that the HOL class is history, I hope to get onto another subject soon … I’m tired of this one!!