Aspen Discovery

Aspen Discovery Announces 20.07.00 Release and Notes

by Jessie Zairo on May 21, 2020

Aspen Discovery announced this week that the 20.07 release is available. This major release includes 46 improvements and 7 performance & reliability fixes.

Mark Noble, Aspen Discovery Developer, recently commented on the release:

Aspen Discovery version 20.07 makes it easier for librarians to promote special collections within Aspen. By allowing archival materials and lists to be added to lists, librarians can more easily promote these items on both the Aspen home page and within collection spotlights on their website. There are also several enhancements to make Aspen easier to administer.

Administration Updates

  • Add tracking of when settings change within the Administration interface and add a display of the history for administrators.
  • Update creation of default libraries
    • Set default theme to responsive
    • Allow default grouped work display settings to be defined (defaults to public)
    • Set more appropriate default lists to include
    • Turn off Genealogy by default

API Updates

  • Allow the source of materials to be specified when calling getPatronCheckouts and getPatronHolds from User API

CARL.X Integration Updates

  • Correct loading holds from CARL.X

Cloud Library Updates

  • Correct loading of MARC records to properly handle special characters
  • Add first detected and last change dates to staff view for Cloud Library Records

Grouped Work Updates

  • Alternate titles for grouped works can be deleted from staff view by users with appropriate permissions
  • Users with Cataloging or OPAC Admin permissions can specify title, author, and series information for a grouped work from staff view
    • Information specified is shown within staff view
    • Specified display information can be deleted within staff view
    • The provided information will replace information from MARC records or eContent within the index

Help Manual

  • Add additional content to the manual

Indexing Updates

  • Update to ignore subfield 9 when indexing subject fields
  • Add a nightly index mode to full reindex which runs based on a setting in the System Variables table
  • Automatically force a nightly index to run when relevant settings are changed in Aspen
  • Add the ability to check if nightly index is running
  • If nightly indexing is running, pause continuous indexing until it is done.
  • Add the ability to get the format of items by collection code for Koha
  • Updating Accelerated Reader Data now happens as part of the nightly index on a weekly basis
  • Log additional errors to indexing logs
  • When adding notes to logs, always record the time the note was added.
  • Remove regrouping records from the command line since it is no longer used
  • Move Reindex Log to system reports and rename to Nightly Index Log
  • Add errors to nightly reindex log
  • Remove unused maxWorksToProcess option from config files
  • Additional error trapping when loading Hoopla scopes
  • Remove irrelevant code

Koha Integration Updates

  • Allow display of opac notes entered in Koha to be displayed within Aspen
  • Update to allow a single work to be manually exported from Koha
  • Load volume information for checked out titles if available
  • Update extract of changed bibs to include bibs where only metadata has changed
  • Update translation maps from Koha based on settings within the indexing profile
  • Update Novelist settings in Aspen based on settings within Koha

New York Times List Updates

  • Add the date that the New York Times List last updated a list as well as copyright to the description.

Novelist Integration

  • Improve performance when loading Novelist information for titles with many ISBNs
  • Upgrade to newest API version

Performance & Reliability Fixes

  • Update Index Status API to return more information about each check which it performs
  • Add checking for available memory and system load during status checks
  • Add checking of a nightly index for errors during status checks
  • When loading More Like This for a record validate that the record exists.
  • Redirect additional URLs that are improperly formatted or that contain spammy searches to the 404 page
  • Fix cron to automatically restart Aspen services on reboot
  • Error trapping when OverDrive product does not have formats

Record updates

  • Allow Supplemental Files (XLS, DOC, etc) to be attached to MARC records for download by patrons to provide additional information for a record.

User List Updates

  • Automatically remember the last list a user was using
  • Lists that a title is on are shown within search results
  • Allow adding lists and open archive titles to lists
  • Allow collection spotlights and browse categories to Open Archive and List entries that are part of a list shown

Other

  • Update default site creation for Koha to use current location rather than owning location
  • Wrap button text for You Might Also Like and While You Wait
  • Make collection spotlight title bars use secondary colors
  • Fix color of collapsible panels when they are expanded in the default theme
  • Updates to session handling
  • Automatically enable the Koha module when setting up a new Koha site
  • Return fatal errors that occur during AJAX operations as JSON for a display to users
  • Cleanup of redundant information in staff view

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