Athenaeum - SumWare Consulting

SumWare Consulting
February 2013
Athenaeum
Welcome back. 2013 is the year that SumWare Consulting celebrates 21 years of providing library solutions in
one form or another and the year that Athenaeum turns sweet 16.
Busiest (most interesting) time of year
The start of the year is always, for us, the busiest time of the year as libraries come back on board and everyone
wants to get back into the rhythm as quickly as possible.
The best point of contact is, as always, [email protected]. We prefer this
address to individual addresses, as whoever is available first will answer. We endeavour
to answer all e-mails, however, support contract holders do take priority. If you want to
know more about support contracts, e-mail us at that address or go to http://
www.librarysoftware.co.nz/support/ (or both!).
New year tasks
There are usually only a few things you need to do at
the beginning of the year
• update your borrower lists (this should be automatic
for KAMAR users)
• ensure your recesses and holidays are correct
• ensure latest dates are set correctly or cleared
• get those jolly teachers to return last year's books
Update recesses, holidays, latest due
When Athenaeum Pro issues items, it tries to calculate
due dates so that items are not due on weekends,
during library recesses or on public holidays and is
before the calculated "latest" date for the borrower.
You define
recesses and
public holidays in
the dates tab in
the Admin section of Athenaeum (press "A" on the
keyboard at the main menu to get there quickly). You
can manually enter recesses (e.g. school holidays for
school libraries) and "public holidays" (days where the
library is closed - these can also be days like teacher
only days for schools) or you can have Athenaeum
import them from the internet. If your network does
not lock down Athenaeum, it will make these
processes each a single click action. The data is
imported either from www.librarysoftware.co.nz or
from www.sumware.net (so ask your IT administrator
SumWare Consulting Limited
PO Box 480, Kumeu, 0841
to ensure those domains and FileMaker - are not
blocked).
Useful links:
Athenaeum Pro Manual
Athenaeum Pro downloads
Support e-mail
Support details
Athenaeum Notes
YouTube Channel
Customer Quotes
There are potentially three sets of latest due dates:
• the system latest due (on the dates tab in admin)
• latest due dates for each individual borrower types
• individual latest dates for borrowers.
Dates are entered in your computer's default format.
In Australia and New Zealand, that is usually d/m/y
format though not if your region setting is incorrect.
The date picker will default to the correct format.
Athenaeum will NOT recognise full date descriptions
like "Wednesday, 24 April 2013".
Do you have to "Close" off financials?
No. Athenaeum calculates financials on the fly. The
annual report can be calculated for any year you
specify at any time. Financial summaries of "found
sets" of catalogue items, issues or historical issues are
also "real-time". There are many reports you can
generate, if you are not sure or can't find what you
want in the manual, simply e-mail us with your
specific requirements and we will work out what your
accountant is really wanting!
Importing from an “SMS”
School libraries need to update their borrower lists
quite regularly. The lists normally come from your
school administration system. KAMAR users will be
familiar with the integration with Athenaeum and
KAMAR and that this is a "no-brainer". It's not hard
http://www.librarysoftware.co.nz
[email protected]
to set up exports from other systems (we are not
aware of any that can't export) and then import and
update your Athenaeum lists. Usually, this is a 5
minute job. The hardest thing might be getting
harried IT or office admin staff to create the export
file. If this does seem hard, please contact us and we
will help you.
Remote Training
We can schedule a quick 15 minute remote training
session or stretch it out up to 2 hours and help you
with any of the above. For those with current Support
Contracts, this is a no-brainer, just book a time. For
ad-hoc support, we are invoice that in 15 minute
blocks at $25+GST per block. To get the most out of
your support session, e-mail your questions and topics
to us before hand.
Where is that Jolly Catalogue Archive
Button?
Possibly the most asked question for all
libraries who have upgraded to
Athenaeum Pro 2012 is "Where is the
Archive button that used to be on the
main menu?".
It's still there, but it moved out of the
way to the Nav sub-menu.
But really, just press the "R" key on the keyboard
(think of a pirate saying "archive" to remember this)
and you will jump straight to the catalogue archive.
Late 2012 update
While we are talking about the catalogue archive, late
last year we added some convenience buttons making
it much easier and quicker to return many items in
one go. If you are not up to date, then have your IT
staff chat to us (for many support contract holders
who have given us access to your server, we might
have already done those updates for you).
Taking Stock of Items Returns Them
Another oft asked question, at least by newer users.
During your stock take, when scanning an item that
was issued, Athenaeum worked on the assumption
that, if you were holding the item in question in your
hot little hand, then it probably was no longer issued
and returned it automatically for you.
SumWare Consulting Limited
PO Box 480, Kumeu, 0841
Work on Athenaeum Pro 2013
We hadn’t completed Athenaeum Pro 2012 when we
had already started planning and work on
Athenaeum Pro 2013. This is an ambitious project
that re-engineers many aspects of the programme,
enabling new features, more web features and
electronic document storage with a goal of strong
performance and flexibility. With a bit of luck, this
will be available in the second half of the year. There
will continue to be tweaks to Athenaeum Pro 2012
where we can-if you ask for them (hint).
Athenaeum Light 2013
A new "lightweight" Athenaeum Light is almost done.
A single, tight file that works well on iPads and
netbooks, it is also picking up some options more
suitable for resources and rental.
Web Templates
Late last year, there were
performance optimisations to the
web templates as well as some
new "skins". And keep an eye out
for some new features.
Generating Statistics
An easily answered questions is "how many issues
were there last year?". This 30 second youtube video
shows you how:
http://tinyurl.com/bhmdl2l
You can easily summarise the results of that search
using any one of the print reports. One of the more
useful reports is the most issued "titles" or top
"copies". This video on the Athenaeum Notes web
site shows you how:
http://sumware.net/athenaeum/athnotes/?p=135
Curliest Question...
I have set the latest due date to the end of 2013, yet
some of my borrowers still can't borrow without me
needing to override.
You may have had a latest due date set against a
particular borrower type -- maybe the senior
borrower type had an earlier date than everyone else
to accommodate their earlier leaving date. Simply go
to the Types (press "T" on the keyboard at the main
menu or choose "Types" from the Nav menu) and
check the latest due date for each borrower type and
adjust these if necessary.
http://www.librarysoftware.co.nz
[email protected]