Polaris Glossary

One thing that’s making this interesting for us all is Polaris doesn’t use all of the same terms we used with CARL (r.i.p.). Plus Polaris has more capability, and thus there are some new terms for us to use. There’s a new document posted to the Intranet to help us learn all these new terms: [...]

Polaris PAC Videos for Staff and Customers

Three PAC training videos are ready for viewing and there are more to come soon. View the list here. These will also be made available to the public very soon.

Rollout Day in the Circ Department

Here at OAK we had a very enjoyable Polaris rollout day. But that doesn’t mean it was a mellow and relaxing experience! Two of our 3 Express Check machines didn’t work at first, so that created some backups at the checkout desk. We had a staff meeting that afternoon also, so three Island PSA I [...]

Magazines in Polaris

In early March, Acquisitions staff learned how to handle magazines in Polaris. The new ILS will enable much better customer service from our magazine collection but because we are moving to such a robust system, we must also be robust in our data entry… Read more about it in this TechNews article.

PAC view now the default in staff client

Effective this morning, March 9, the default view when you open a bibliographic record is now the PAC view (what customers will see on the Web). The MARC view is available by clicking on the icon just below the vertical “Bibliographic Record” on the left-hand side of the record. If anyone prefers the MARC view [...]

Now Available From Staff Computers – Polaris PAC!

Please visit http://ils-test01/polaris to see our new Public Access Catalog! Colleen Brazil, Mike Longley and the ILS PAC Committee (Chris Sorenson, Nate Cushman, Mark Barnett) have tailored Polaris’s out-of-the-box interface.  What you see reflects input from Sno-Isle staff as well as reactions from members of the public who participated in usability tests a few weeks [...]

Hearing the Audio in Elluminate – How to Verify

Some Polaris PAC training attendees have had problems hearing the moderators speak in their Elluminate training session. No worries, a fix has been identified, and only needs to be done one time on each staff workstation. First of all, you’ll want to make sure the speakers or headphones are plugged into the correct port on the pc. [...]

Communication with Schools Regarding the Transition to Polaris

As usual, Sno-Isle staff are doing a lot of good lateral thinking about the transition to our new ILS, Polaris. One of the recent questions concerns informing the schools in the areas we serve, and how the inability to place holds for a time might affect teachers and students. Jenny Piper is creating an informational piece that community library [...]

Migration details

A Tech News published on Feb. 3 contains details of what will happen during the switch-over from CARL to Polaris.  https://intranet.sno-isle.org/?ID=3676&rid=732 Examples of questions covered:  Will self-checks work?  (Yes, we think so)  Can we register new cardholders? (Yes)  Can people place holds?  (No)  And more – click on the link above to read the article. [...]

PAC trainers announced

Ten staff members have been trained to provide Polaris catalog training for staff.  The Polaris catalog (PAC) training will be done via webinar, which will save many hours of travel time for staff. PAC trainers are Jane Crawford, MUK Lesly Kaplan, EDM Roxanna Garrison, LYN Chy Ross, SNO Mary Campbell, OAK Jocelyn Redel, ARL Joy [...]