[iBorrow] New Life for iBorrow

[Al Carlson]

iBorrow Users,

You'll be excited to hear that Holly Harvey was here Monday and Tuesday
of last week!
Well, maybe not so excited, if you don't know who she is.  So, let me
explain.

Holly is the new Product Manager for iBorrow.  And she's not some new
kid they've hired to try to make that goofy ILL software project work.
Holly has been with SirsiDynix since they were just "Dynix" (The first
time around.)  She has the experience, skills, knowledge, and clout to
get this stuff working the way it should.  

When she visited TBLC early last week, we mercilessly exposed every flaw
we knew of in the current product, as well as listing its strong points
and the potential we felt it had.  We also solicited input from many of
you and shared that with her.  We didn't pull any punches, and she
didn't blanch or get defensive, when comments like "slow and clunky" and
"our patrons hate it" kept coming up.

"So, then, (I hear you ask) how soon will iBorrow be perfect?"

Oh, come on!  You know I can't answer that.  
But here's what I can say.

We laid out three main goals for iBorrow.
1.  It should work flawlessly all the time.
2.  It should work with all the major vendors' ILS systems. (e.g.
Polaris, Carl, Triple I)
3.  It should work so smoothly with OCLC that OCLC feels like a
'subroutine' within iBorrow.
In addition we want several features that make life easier for ILL and
public service staff and a way better portal.

Holly knows SQL (the Structured Query Language you use to get reports
from a Horizon or URSA system).  On her first day back in the office she
figured out how to turn a search in the client that ran for seven
minutes and then crashed at Safety Harbor into a search that gave the
correct results.  
In ten seconds!!  
To quote Jim Carrey in The Mask:  "Smokin!"

She and I went over the Mediated Borrowing work space in the URSA client
and came up with an idea that we hope can cut work by ILL staff there
down by 80%.  We don't know if it will work when it gets to Engineering.
But if it does, we'll name it after ourselves.  (Actually, we came up
with several ways to improve the client, but this one is just a killer.)

The short version is that she seemed to agree with us 100% on what
iBorrow ought to be able to do, and she should have enough clout at
SirsiDynix to get the engineering resources to get it done.
As soon as we hear what's coming in the next build, we'll share it with
you.
And visit Beth's blog every so often.  (http://www.tblc.org/bethsblog/)
We may sneak some data in there.

So, hang onto those iBorrow T-shirts.  They may soon be worth something.

Al Carlson
System Administrator
Tampa Bay Library Consortium
1202 Tech Blvd. Suite 202
Tampa, FL  33619
813-622-8252 ext. 223

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