At Texas Tech University Libraries, our solution for over 12 years has been Google Calendar along with a custom PHP script with MySQL database backend. Every summer our circ staff creates the next calendar year's hours in a spreadsheet; this is imported into Google Calendar and also ingested into our MySQL database. The purpose of the PHP script is to provide quick information to web pages about the current day's hours, and the Google Calendar gives a look-ahead for future hours and library events.


Kenny Ketner
Software Development Manager
Texas Tech University Libraries
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806-773-5323
Strategic - Ideation - Connectedness - Relator - Learner

________________________________________
From: Code for Libraries [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Katherine N. Deibel [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, July 07, 2016 11:20 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Hours on Library Websites?

Hi Matt,

Coincidentally enough, UW is currently looking at how to easily and centrally distribute hours information to our website (and potentially some other campus web apps). We're looking at LibCal but also considering rolling our own with some harvesting through the Alma Hours API. LibCal's REST API is still in development and has a limitations that we've noticed:

* Can only request times from today to the future. We'd have to cache older results if we wanted to display them

* Can only show up to one year in advance (we sometimes need to show a full schedule fro 15 months)

* Identifiers for locations and sublocations is an ID number, so you'd have to write a mapping if you want others to use it easily.

* Given our large number of libraries and sublocations within them, we'd really like to be able to set hours relative to the "containing" library.

We're still debating as you can guess, but the basic gist I've gotten is that if you want to use LibCal, you're going to probably write some intermediary JavaScript to make your life easier.

--

Kate Deibel, PhD | Web Applications Specialist
Information Technology Services
University of Washington Libraries
http://staff.washington.edu/deibel

--

"When Thor shows up, it's always deus ex machina."

-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Matt Sherman
Sent: Thursday, July 7, 2016 7:34 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [CODE4LIB] Hours on Library Websites?

Hi all,

We are working on a website migration/redesign into WordPress and I am trying to figure out an automated solution for posting and keeping up to date the hours on the home page.  I am wondering, how do other institutions manage this?  Are there any good tools I should be looking into?  Any insights or suggestions are appreciated.

Matt Sherman