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Note: We are a consortia of 249 public libraries on a centralized union catalog, with 7.8 million items, 1.1 million patrons, and a FY2003 circulation of 15 million. This has a dramatic impact on any technical solution we make use of. > What programming-type projects have you undertaken that really had > some benefit in that context? > (Alternatively, what projects would you like to undertake if the time > and/or skills were available?) My first library project was to a create a statistical reporting system to alleviate some of the inadequacies in our existing system. We ended up dumping our database into MySQL every night (our existing reporting system was already segregated and working on day-old data in a separate environment because of performance issues), and used Perl's DBI and CGI modules for creating a web-based frontend where users can create, schedule, and download reports (which are made pretty with Spreadsheet::WriteExcel). Since then we have done a lot of data work with MARC::Record, for the purpose of migrating other libraries into our system, and for cleaning up our database (looking for duplicate records), and have made much use of Perl for system administration. We've filled in a lot of gaps that our vendor has refused to address. We created a webpage for uploading "standalone" transactions (for bookmobiles and when the network is down) so that libraries could get instant feedback on errors, and eventually created a friendlier and prettier standalone client (using Tcl/Tk of all things) that was actually stable and could manage the uploads itself if brought into a network. We created a web-based management interface so that libraries could manage their own closed dates, login PIN's, and override codes, and not have to go through a few individuals. We provided a MySQL instance for 3rd party software requiring access to our patron DB, since our vendor didn't support the SIP2 protocol at the time. We replaced a component of our ILS to allow for randomization when fulfilling holds, since our ILS was preferring the last copy added to the catalog for any given title, and this became very apparent when we migrated a single library system which had a really good collection--they were getting an abnormally high number of hold requests. The vendor didn't think it was "feasible" to fix this. We're considering in-house development of our own ILS (which would be open sourced), since there isn't a single vendor out there that meets all of our needs, and it is very irksome to be treated as a "minority customer" with needs so unique that they are not worth catering to. -- Jason Etheridge, PINES System Support Specialist Office: 404-982-3488