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Hi Cristina, III wasnıt directly involved in this code, but Sierra customers to have access the the Postgresql database behind the ILS. Itıs read-only so thereıs no risk of breaking all your things. Thanks, James James Van Mil Collections & Electronic Resources Librarian University of Cincinnati Libraries Telephone: (513)556-1410 [log in to unmask] On 5/8/14, 2:38 PM, "Salazar, Christina" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >We don't run III Sierra but I'm still finding this news to be very >interesting. > >You don't mention how III was involved (IF they were involved) and I'm >curious to hear about that piece. For our vendor (not naming names) >certain things that you might think to do with the database voids our >maintenance agreement and I'm just wondering if that situation applies >with III's Sierra. > >Thanks for sharing the news. > >Christina Salazar >Systems Librarian >John Spoor Broome Library >California State University, Channel Islands >805/437-3198 > > >-----Original Message----- >From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of >Van Mil, James (vanmiljf) >Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2014 11:29 AM >To: [log in to unmask] >Subject: [CODE4LIB] ActiveSierra - Gem for connecting to III Sierra db > >My colleague Sean Crowe and I have written a simple Rails engine with >models for the Postgresql database backend to Innovative Interfaces Inc. >Sierra ILS. Within a host rails app, it can be used to spin up mediated >access to the database via Ruby objects. With a few additional >controllers, it would also be straightforward to enable the serialization >of database contents over http via json or xml. Though there is a pending >release of API functionality for Sierra, this gem offers broader and more >granular access to the database. > >See the github repo: https://github.com/uclibs/active_sierra/ > >We're both primarily tech services librarians, and our first use cases >for this gem have focused on back-end workflow. For example, we're >developing a Rails app to track and report lost, missing, or long-overdue >items in Sierra. With a rake task, a webapp will query Sierra monthly and >build a local database of targeted item record numbers and values, which >will be served to a site for use in making decisions about replacement. >Other possible use cases could be record quality control reports. > >Out of security concerns, we've purposefully excluded models for patron >tables but we haven't ruled out adding these once we can ensure the >security of this data. > >We still have some short-term development planned, but we noticed that >the repo was getting some attention yesterday, and thought it would be a >good time to share. Some of our planned work includes: > >- Developing tests for the models and methods >- Adding more scopes and methods to abstract the tables (we have a goal >of making our testing application backend as friendly as possible to >other tech services staff, and so we'd like the code to be readable to >anyone who is familiar with both MARC cataloging and III system >conventions) >- Modeling additional tables > >Please feel free to use, fork or contribute. We are very open to comments >and suggestions (especially from experienced Rails developers who may be >able to offer some perspective on our direction - we both started >learning about Rails at Code4Lib2013). > >And of course we welcome any questions. > >Thanks! >James > >James Van Mil >Collections & Electronic Resources Librarian University of Cincinnati >Libraries >Telephone: (513)556-1410 >[log in to unmask]