On Tuesday, January 25 at 2 PM Eastern / 11 AM Pacific we hosted a webinar discussing "Cataloging for Duplication" . During this online training, Katy addresses topics such as including handling withdrawn titles, updating new title records without physical copies coming in, and what eDocs are and where they come from. Below is the recording of the webinar. Run time is 1:01:53.

Are you looking forward to circulating electronic braille for your patrons? Curious about braille Duplication but not sure where to start?

On  April 13, James Gleason, Deputy Director, Perkins Library, and Katy Patrick, Technical Writer, Keystone Systems, discussed some cleanup you may want to work on, settings to check on or think about, and the setup Keystone can do for you.

Below are the slide deck in PowerPoint and PDF format, chat transcript, and webinar recording:

• Preparing for eBraille.pptx
• Preparing for eBraille.pdf
• Preparing for eBraille Chat Transcript.txt 

On May 1, 2025 we got together and talked magazines on cartridge (MoC)!  We shared the current status and coming improvements, answered questions, and did our best to start you out on the right foot. As usual, this session was recorded for those who can't join us live.

• What: Issuing Magazines on Cartridge (MoC) Webinar
• Presenter: Katy Patrick,Technical Writer, Keystone Systems

5/1/24 Issuing Magazines on Cartridge (MoC) Webinar Part 2 

5/1/24 Issuing Magazines on Cartridge (MoC) Webinar Part 1  

Query to find BARD Only Patrons with Active Subscriptions

Here's the query Erin, AZ, requested during the webinar to find BARD Only patrons with active subscriptions:

Quick Search-

• Main Status | Equals | a

Advanced Search-

• Media | Pat Medium | Equals | db
• Media | ServeCode | Equals | bard [or "ob" or whatever code is used for "BARD only" patrons]
• Subscription | KLAS ID | [see below]
• Subscription | End Date | Is Blank

For the subscription IDs, either use "In" and a comma-separated list of all MoC Serials
OR
use "Not In" and a list of the most common non-MoC serials, ex: SER-TBT2,SER-TBT4,SER-TBN2,SER-TBN9,SER-DDB9,SER-NWL8,SER-CAW1,SER-CAP1,SER-VET9,SER-CAL2

This query is not perfect, but it should give you a reasonable list of BARD-only patrons with active subscriptions (which may or may not be MoC serials) for you to review. 

Bear in mind that these patrons have been receiving MoC Direct serials despite their BARD Only status, and may want to continue receiving them.

Below is the recording and chat transcript for our KLAS Users' Roundtable: Duplication on Demand Tips & Tricks for Serving Patrons that was held on Thursday, May 20, 2021. (57:24 Run Time)

Chat Transcript

Do you know how to get statistics for the count of titles duplicated? Cartridges circulated? How about splitting those out by books vs serials?

Dive into duplication statistics in this recorded webinar:

Notes:

Reports stay available on the server for 1 week. Make sure to save any that you want to refer back to later!

Circulation Report:

• Circulation Module - Reports - Circulation - Circulation Report
• Go-to report for pretty much anything: physical (tracked), consumables, downloads, duplication
• Tracked (physical) circulations include the duplication cartridges; to get the total for only books, use the range to exclude the cartridge (ex: DB-CART) record, or run again for only the cartridge and subtract that from the total tracked
• Tracked is an Item count (i.e. Braille volumes, not titles)
• Duplication is always a title count
• More info: Get to Know the Circulation Report

Circulation by Category:

• Pending further investigation as I spotted a potential issue with this serial during the webinar. Apologies for the inconvenience. 

Cartridge Record:

• Catalog Module - Statistics tab for each cartridge record
• Inventory counts including # added in a period, # Lost, etc
• Cartridges used for one media then a different one will still show as Available in the original media as well as Avl or Out in the current media

Walk-in and hardware-specific statistics:

• Gutenberg has its own statistics interface (if I have understood correctly); we can also pull Walk-In statistics on request
• Scribe libraries can receive Walk-In statistics on request
• Detailed statistics interface coming soon to the Scribe WebMonitor

Dup Orders by Status Report:

• Patron Module - Reports - Statistics - Duplication Order Status
• All orders currently in select status(es) and/or all orders Created/Assigned/Duplicated/etc in a date range
• Totals coming, but until then, copy and paste to Excel
• =CountIf(range to check,value to match) 

We just released a new feature to help Duplication-on-Demand libraries keep their catalogs up to date!

From the 7.7.50 Release List:

You can now choose to have titles automatically updated to an Active status when you add an eDoc, just as you can have titles make themselves Active when you add the first physical item.

But let’s talk a little bit more about what this can do, and who will want to use it.

We expect this will be primarily for libraries using Duplication on Demand, and especially the ones who are (or will soon) be going collectionless. If you don’t have physical copies of anything or have very few physical copies, it only makes sense to make everything you can duplicate “Active.”

Even if you still have a physical collection, if most of your patrons are getting DoD will they be confused that some titles are listed as Active and some are Download Only? Once you zero out your copy allotment, do you want new titles to linger in “In Process” status long after you start duplicating them for patrons?

If any of the above has you thinking, “yes, I want to use this feature!” here’s what to think about...

• What title statuses should update when they get an eDoc?
• What status should they update to?
• What about the back catalog?

What title statuses should update when they get an eDoc?

Open up the catalog and look at the list of Title Statuses. Are there ones that shouldn’tbe over-written, like Withdrawn? If there are titles you purposefully removed from your collection (Ex: outdated medical information or obsolete guides to the internet) we don’t want to accidentally resurrect them.

If you have a Special Order Only or similar status, do you want to keep those titles segregated? Or if you’re duplicating at full steam, are you ready to fold the ones you can duplicate back into Active?

When you’re ready, send us the list of statuses that should be updated by this feature.

What status should they update to?

I mostly talked about the feature updating duplication-ready titles to Active, but that isn’t your only option. Any status other thanWithdrawn can be duplicated, so it won’t cause problems if you do want to keep these titles under a different status. You could do an “Active – Duplication” or “Active for Digital” title status. Or,  you can put them under “Download Only” if you have that labeled clearly for your OPAC (something like “Available for Download or Books on Demand”). And, of course, if you’re changing things to Download Only, that shouldn’t also be in your list of statuses to be updated.

Figure out what makes the most sense for your collection and your patrons, and tell us what status titles getting their first eDoc should update to.You can also let us know if you want to set up a new title status or re-label any of the existing ones on your OPAC.

What about the back catalog?

Once you’ve set both your statuses to be updated and the status to update them to, those rules will automatically apply whenever a title gets its first eDoc. But what about any titles that already have an eDoc but are lingering in a no-longer-accurate status?

We have a program we can run through your batch manager to clean those up! We’ll want to run it sometime when you aren’t doing anything in the catalog module, to avoid any conflicting record locks. Most likely, we’ll run it overnight or early in the morning before you get to work.

Just bear in mind that it can be messy to try to undo this kind of thing, so do your best to be sure about the changes you are making before telling us to run the cleanup.

As more Talking Book libraries are considering which Duplication on Demand equipment and workflow to implement, we're working to help you make an informed choice about what will work best for your library, your staff, and your patrons. That means more resources and more opportunities to ask questions and get in-depth answers.

Two specific things we're working on are:

• Scribe Cartridge Recycling video
• Duplication on Demand Q&A webinar

Scribe Cartridge Recycling Video

For the past month or so, Katy and I have been working to create a video demonstrating the Cartridge Recycling workflow for Scribe. In the video, we show and describe using Scribe to duplicate cartridges that are not tied to a specific patron. It is in the final editing stages and should be ready for prime time in the next week or so. Until then, here's a couple of teaser pics and a promo version. 

Yes, Katy and I had a few laughs while making the video, but we hope it will provide you the info you need. Below is our Cartridge Recycling with Scribe Promo Video

Cartridge Recycling with Scribe Promo Video on Vimeo

Duplication on Demand Q&A Webinar

Next up, mark your calendars for 2:00 PM Eastern Time on Thursday, September 12 for our next webinar. Katy will be answering your questions about Duplication on Demand.

This will be a live webinar offered via Join.Me. We will record it for later viewing, but also encourage you to think about what questions you have and make plans to join us. Details about how to log in will be posted to the klasusers.com discussion forum a week before the webinar. The recording will be posted on klasusers.com as soon as it is available.

NLS is interested in tracking cartridge availability and use system-wide, and may be contacting you for some statistics.

Duplication Cartridge Use 

The cartridge use statistics NLS is requesting are:

• Number of unique cartridges that have been put into circulation to date
• Number of cartridges currently checked out to patrons
• Number of cartridges marked lost

The easiest way to retrieve those numbers in KLAS is to check the catalog records for your cartridges: DB-CART, BR-CART (if duplicating braille), and any other duplication media, such as DS-CART.

For each cartridge record, check the Statistics tab, and set the Holding to your branch. 

• "Unique cartridges that have been put into circulation to date" is your combined Total cartridge counts.
• "Cartridges currently checked out to patrons" is your combined Out cartridge counts.
• "Cartridges marked lost" is the combined NAC - Lost count.

 Single-Title Cartridge Inventory

To get the current number of pre-recorded, one-title per cartridge items still in your system, you will need to run the Holding Summary Report twice.

1. In the Catalog module, select Reports - Holding Summary.
2. Select your Library ID, set Rec Type to Monograph, and Run the report.
3. Note the #Items Available for DB.
4. Add Begin KLAS ID: DB-CARTand End KLAS ID: DB-CART, and Run the report again.
5. Subtract the Available DB-CART count from the total Available Monograph count to get the number of available cartridges in your system (that are not DB-CARTs).

If you need assistance or have questions about any of these statistics, please let us know!

"Duplication" is the word of the day / week / month / year for National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled network libraries. Whether you've already made the fundamental shift to providing duplication on demand materials for your patrons or are still trying to make decisions about how to shift your library to a duplication on demand service model, there's many questions, decisions, and challenges faced during the process.

With this in mind, the KLAS Users' Group Program Committee is providing another opportunity for KLAS Users' to come together in a session focused on this topic. Go ahead and mark your calendar now for the upcoming KLAS Users' Roundtable: Duplication on Demand to be held on Tuesday, December 15 at 3 PM Eastern / Noon Pacific.

Note: We expect this session to last two hours rather than the usual one. Also, we plan to record this roundtable and post it to klasusers.com for later reference.

During this roundtable, three representatives of libraries using Gutenberg and three representatives of libraries using Scribe will each discuss their experience implementing duplication equipment, decisions regarding policy and staff changes, and more! After each shares a brief description of their process, there will be an opportunity to ask questions, discuss issues they've brought up, etc.

Gutenberg Panellists:

• Hope Williams, Nevada Talking Book Services
• Elke Bruton, Oregon Talking Book & Braille Library
• Ricardo Cisneros, San Francsico Public Library - Talking Book and Braille Center

Scribe Panellists:

• Connie Sullivan, South Dakota Braille & Talking Book Library
• Angela Fisher Hall, Alabama Regional Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped
• Nancy Holt, Idaho Talking Book Library

Before the roundtable...

To help you prepare for this roundtable we encourage you to review Duplication Info Quick Reference page where you will find articles, quick tips, how-to documents, and more related to using either Gutenberg or Scribe. Several of the documents have just been updated to reflect changes in recent versions of KLAS, so make sure to check those dates to make sure you have the most current info!

You can also help our panellists prepare for this session by posting questions to this KLASUsers Discussion Forum post. Of course, day-of questions are also welcome, but posting your questions ahead of time will ensure that we get to them (even if you can't make the session itself) and that the panellists will be able to consider their answers.

Access Info:

Tuesday, 12/15/2020 @ 3pm Eastern Time / Noon Pacific

To connect:
Google Meet Link: meet.google.com/rmv-fgvs-eba

Dial-in audio option:
‪US‬ ‪+1 575-459-0037‬
PIN: ‪950 920 249#‬‪

Both Gutenberg & Scribe

What do you do about Withdrawn Titles? - Key Notes post February 26, 2022

Automatic Status Updates for Duplication-Ready Titles - Key Notes post April 19, 2021

Shuffle the Deck- Key Notes post August 26, 2020

Locally Produced Titles- Key Notes post March 12, 2020

NLS Duplication Supplies - Key Notes post Sept 10, 2019

Cartridge Capacity Information - Forum post Aug 23, 2019

System-specific

Notes from the Scribe - Scribe implementation guest post series

Hot off the Press - Gutenberg implementation guest post series

Downloads

Please log in to view available downloads. Thank you!

Remember: You are always welcome to call or email Keystone Customer Support with questions or requests! 

Many KLAS libraries are already wrestling with (or soon will be) the challenges of reduced space to house their collections and / or less circulation and support staff. With these issues and other in mind, we designed KLAS' Patron Centric Cartridge functionality to provide library staff with the ability to quickly select and reproduce a specific set of books onto a cartridge for a specific patron.

While this works well for many libraries, we know this is not the best option for ALL organizations.

In our discussions at Keystone, we have identified at least three different duplication on-demand workflow scenarios including two patron-centric and one title-centric:

1. A single cartridge tied to a single patron which is reloaded with books for that patron each time it is returned.
2. Cartridges that are loaded with titles based on a single patron's preferences but are not tied to one in particular. Rather, whichever cartridge is available at the time is loaded with the patron's books.
3. Cartridges loaded according to inventory (Examples: The Harry Potter Series, Nonfiction titles added in the last 30 days, 1 year of Southern Living)

Some questions we have as we prepare to move forward with providing additional duplication-on-demand functionality within KLAS are:

1. Do any of these options appeal to your organization and how it operates more than another?
2. What considerations do you think need to be made for each?
3. What specific challenges and / or benefits do you think you may see from operating under each?

Please share your answers / thoughts / feedback on the "Duplication on Demand: What works best for you?" klausers.com discussion forum thread.

Interested in moving to a Duplication on Demand service model, but not sure how you’ll get enough cartridges and other supplies? There’s help available! NLS is offering supplies to all network libraries that are willing to transition to zero copy allotment--whether they plan to implement Gutenberg or Scribe.

Many of you have already heard about this and some have already put in their request, but please read on anyway—we’ve worked with NLS to make sure we’re accurately covering all the important details.

On top of that, we’ve developed a worksheet to help you plan your implementation process, including when you will need additional supplies.

Just the Facts

When you are ready, you can order from NLS:

• Up to half of your total need for cartridges and containers.

(Total need is calculated based on 5 cartridges per active audio patron, so half works out to 2.5 cartridges and cases per active patron.)

• Pre-printed cartridge and container labels with your library information

In return, you will need to work towards full duplication service. NLS expects libraries to zero out their copy allotment within 12 months of implementing duplication on demand.

Good Stuff to Know

Be aware that your supplies will arrive in one shipment on pallets. This is intended to be a lifetime supply, so please be prepared for a large shipment proportional to your patron base.

The cartridges will have the standard “white cartridge” passphrase, and will need to be reset to the peach passphrase using the NLS device, or using the Repurpose mode of the Gutenberg.

NLS encourages libraries to repurpose cartridges and containers from their existing collections to make up the other half of their need, and they can loan Scribe libraries a stand-alone device that will unlock white cartridges for re-use. The cartridge is then re-locked with the peach passphrase, so it will continue to be protected. (Check out our Thursday Tip on High-Capacity Cartridges for the trick to easily identify the best cartridges to keep for duplication.)

Timelines

NLS can only get so many supplies ordered and distributed per month. Currently, they are asking for two month’s lead time.

Being clear about your timeline and need will help NLS prioritize orders, as will holding off on requesting supplies if they will not be needed soon. NLS will also ask Keystone to confirm that we have an “authorized commitment” to proceed and a clear implementation schedule in place, so please coordinate with us before you make your request for duplication supplies to NLS.

To help you estimate when supplies will be needed, and in what amounts, we have developed the attached worksheet. Take advantage of our experience with several implementations, and have a look! Of course, we know you may still have questions or need more help making your estimates, so don’t hesitate to get in touch with us for assistance.

Worksheet

The attached questionnaire is intended to help guide you through planning your implementation of a Duplication service model using Scribe or Gutenberg, including generating estimates of supplies needed for the initial stages, specific goals, and action items.

It will be most useful before contacting NLS to order supplies.

• Duplication Questionnaire - Word
• Duplication Questionnaire - PDF

Keystone is excited to announce that we've signed an agreement with the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS) to allow our Scribe Duplication on Demand system to unlock the white, pre-loaded NLS cartridges for repurposing.

Our developers have already begun working on adding this feature to KLAS and expect the initial release of this new functionality to be in the next month.

We plan for the unlock process to be very simple. When you plug a cartridge in to the Scribe to duplicate onto it, the Scribe will check to see if the cartridge needs to be processed. If the cartridge is one the system hasn't seen before, it will process it, ensure we can unlock it, and then follow the NLS guidelines setting the passphrase to be consistent across the network for all repurposed NLS cartridges.

For any cartridges that can't be processed as part of duplication, there will also be a separate mode which allows staff greater control, ensuring all cartridges can be processed and unlocked.

We know this functionality is something our current and future Scribe libraries have been hoping for, and we're thrilled to now be able to bring it to you! Be on the lookout for a Weekly Wrap-up in the near future which will detail exactly which KLAS release includes the capability for Scribe to unlock ALL NLS cartridges. 

Please be sure to let customer support know if you have any questions about the timeline or implementation process.

For this week's Key Note, I wanted to highlight a reply that James Burts recently posted to the forums--it's exciting news and we don't want you to miss it!

"We will be adding support for Gutenberg from KLAS. Time will tell if Scribe has any purpose beyond being a valuable testbed for our duplication efforts, but we have certainly heard loud and clear that you all want us to integrate KLAS with Gutenberg.

However, in order to be able to do this, there are some foundational parts that must be in place first. The biggest and most important of them is what we are calling the "Duplication Queue". The Duplication Queue is just what the name implies-- a prioritized list of titles to be duplicated to cartridges. We are adding to the nightly routines to make sure every patron's Duplication Queue is automatically filled with books that the patron would want. This automatic selection will function with similar rules as the current nightly auto-select to allow KLAS to pick books to be added to the duplication queue, but with a few very important differences from what nightly currently does.

1. The duplication queue will be books that the system has selected in advance.

• • The system re-fills the queue the night after a patron receives a duplicated cartridge.
  • Once titles are on a patron's duplication queue, entries can be added, re-prioritized, or deleted whenever you want. This will allow the RA's (or the patron themselves) to modify the items queue as they want--- like you can adjust the items in your NetFlix wishlist.

2. The selection of items in the duplication queue will be based on the full BARD collection, not just the titles you have available in inventory (which is how the current nightly programs operate).

• • We are basically needing to create a process very similar to our nightly selection routines, but with some significant differences. The two processes are having to be somewhat aware of each other, and make sure they don't step on each other's toes. (for a simple example, if a patron returns a cartridge and is now due for service, we don't want both systems sending both a book from inventory/turnaround as well as a cartridge from Duplication on Demand.) Weaving these systems around each other is the cause of much of the difficulty in the Duplication Queue.

Having the automated selection of books for the duplication queue is a huge step. It takes away the current need to manually click the "Serve Patron" button, and pick the books that will be written to a cartridge. Having a manual step to select books would severely hamper the ability for Duplication on Demand to scale to support a collection-free workflow."

We want to make sure that KLAS' Gutenberg integration doesn't just work, but works well. That means a smooth workflow for selecting titles and duplicating the cartridges, and it also means tracking what actually happened at each step along the way. As part of our integrating with Gutenberg, we will be making sure that enough information is recorded to be able to track down issues, troubleshoot bugs, and answer patrons' questions, such as "Why didn't I get this title?" and "What was on that cartridge?"

The developers are hard at work, and we expect that the Duplication Queue should be finished in late September / October. Then they will work on tying that piece into the Gutenberg itself, which could take another couple of months. The current estimate is that they should be done sometime in December / January.

We expect to deliver a robust process that will work with Gutenberg (or other hardware) to provide your patrons with the right titles at the right time--with the right amount of work needed to run it.

In the meantime, please continue to contact us with your questions, workflow preferences, and suggestions!

Welcome to the "Hot off the Press" blog series from guest blogger, Teresa Kalber. Teresa is the Network Systems Administrator at Colorado Talking Book Library. In this series, she will be sharing her library's experience being one of the first two KLAS libraries to implement NLS' Gutenberg equipment.

Hot off the Press: Part 1

A little delayed, but as promised we are sharing our experience of converting over to Gutenberg duplication as our main circulation method. This first installment will cover our pre-planning steps.

Our Director has been excited about using duplication on demand since she first heard about it. Knowing this and also knowing our KLAS server was reaching end of life and would not support KLAS 7.7, I began conversations with both our IT department and Keystone as early as December 2018 with a plan to have our server replaced by June 2019. I also started discussions with our security officer and our network administrator about DoD to ensure we would be able to use the equipment on our network without issues.

In May 2019, we found out we had been chosen to be the self-hosted pilot site for Gutenberg integration with KLAS. Our IT department had set-up a new virtual server for me and agreed to allow Keystone to submit an image to be placed on the server to run KLAS. Their caveat was that they would not provide support since the software didn’t conform to standards. Since they have never provided support for our servers anyway, I didn’t see this as a problem.

Things we needed to think about between finding out about the pilot and getting the Gutenberg equipment in September:

• Placing an order for additional mail cards beyond what NLS provides
• Preparing cartridges and containers to use for DoD
  • Placing labels on unused cartridges and containers
  • Stripping labels from used cartridges and containers and replacing with new labels
• Notification of patrons – we did a blurb in our newsletter and that was our only notification to patrons.
• Selecting patrons for the pilot (if you do one)
• When to start new patrons on DoD (we started new patrons when we started the pilot)
• When to zero out copy allotment so no new books come
• How to cut-over patrons once the pilot is complete
• Initial default number of books on a cartridge and default number of cartridges (We used 10 books/3 cartridges per patron as our default)

Both NLS and Keystone have documents of things to consider during planning stages. NLS also has a great overview of the necessary IT requirements. Once I received this document, I forwarded it to our Security Officer and Network Administrator to ensure there would be no problems in using the Gutenberg equipment on our network. I think opening these lines of communication early helped the process go more smoothly.

We were finally able to convert to KLAS 7.7 on August 19, 2019. This gave us about a month to iron out any issues before receiving our equipment from NLS on September 20th.

"Hot off the Press" is blog series from guest blogger, Teresa Kalber. Teresa is the Network Systems Administrator at Colorado Talking Book Library. In this series, she will be shares her library's experience being one of the first two KLAS libraries to implement NLS' Gutenberg equipment.

The first two posts in the series are here:

• Hot off the Press: Part 1
• Hot off the Press: Part 2

Hot off the Press: Part 3, The Pilot

We received our equipment on a Friday and got everything working on the following Monday. Even though we had the system working on Sept. 23rd, we didn’t do any testing until I returned to the office on Sept. 30th.

When the Gutenberg system is first installed, it is operating in “sandbox” mode and is connected to the preview database for KLAS. We tried to push through a few orders for staff from the preview database, but they weren’t being copied onto cartridges. It was finally determined that KLAS and Gutenberg weren’t syncing with each other so the orders weren’t getting processed. Once Keystone restarted the syncing process, the orders came through. So on Oct. 2nd, we switched from sandbox to production mode so we could really test the system by starting the pilot.

We began the pilot with 50 existing patrons. For the existing patrons, we decided we would send out 2 cartridges with 3 books on them so we could get them back during the month long pilot and test the return part of the system too. We also made the decision to not send books out to new patrons about a week before we started the pilot. So since the end of September, all the new patrons have been put on the duplication model. New patrons were set-up to receive 3 cartridges with 10 books each on them.

On Oct. 3rd, we sent out our first 76 DoD cartridges! Yay!

The most consistent problem we noticed in the first few weeks of running Gutenberg was that daily KLAS and Gutenberg would stop syncing and we’d have to contact Keystone to restart the process. Because the problem was so consistent they wrote a temporary fix to automatically restart the service each morning to try to help with the process. Within 2 weeks of starting the pilot the problem has been solved and a fix applied during an update of KLAS.

We also had problems with serving walk-in patrons due to the time it would take to process an order. At first, Keystone and Gutenberg were only syncing every 15 minutes. So we would place an order and potentially have to wait up to 15 minutes to see if the order synced or not. If it didn’t sync and we needed to contact Keystone to restart the service, another 15 minutes would pass. Many times we would just pull individual books from the shelves and check them out using front desk since we are unable to assign books to a duplication patron. However, I believe the sync times have been cut down and we don’t usually have problems serving walk-ins now. An order for a walk-in patron, will be sent fairly quickly, even if we are still in the midst of making cartridges for the day. So mail room staff have to check mail cards as they scan each completed cartridge to look for the walk-in patron’s order.

A big learning curve came in how to best figure out how to set the nightly settings for DoD, since it works a little differently than it did before. When I would call Nancy, she would tell me “theoretically” it should work this way. I had to just make adjustments and then see what happened afterwards. Luckily our pilot patrons were very understanding during the process.

Other minor problem we encountered (that have all been fixed now):

• Service queue was adding all the books in a series, even if the patron had already had them before.
• Service queue was adding oldest books from request list, when we had the system set to add the newest books first.
• KLAS would allow orders larger than 4GB, which would then sit on Gutenberg since we didn’t have a cartridge big enough to copy the order
• Duplication orders were still being processed for patrons with a block on their account.

On Oct. 22nd, we participated in a conference with NLS, Keystone and Georgia to discuss how we felt things were going with our pilots. Both of us agreed that there were some minor problems, but nothing to prevent us from moving forward with beginning to convert the rest of our patrons over to DoD. We decided to start the conversion process at the beginning of November with the goal of being completely done with the conversion by the end of the year.

Statistics for our pilot (10/3 – 11/1):

• 644 cartridges sent out
• 192 patrons on DoD
• 91 cartridges returned

Up next: Converting existing patrons

"Hot off the Press" is blog series from guest blogger, Teresa Kalber. Teresa is the Network Systems Administrator at Colorado Talking Book Library. In this series, she shares her library's experience being one of the first two KLAS libraries to implement NLS' Gutenberg equipment.

The first three posts in the series are here:

• Hot off the Press: Part 1
• Hot off the Press: Part 2
• Hot off the Press: Part 3

Hot off the Press: Part 4, Converting existing patrons

On November 4th, we began the process of converting our existing patrons over to the duplication model. We decided to go with our high-demand patrons (we have a separate patron type for high-demand) first, followed by students. Then we worked on converting the remainder of our patrons based on the number of books they were receiving. We initially set patrons up to get 1 cartridge with 10 books on it.

The first day I converted 100 patrons over. However, I realized that in order to complete the conversion by the end of the year, we would need to convert more than that each day. After discussing this with our mailroom supervisor, it was decided to convert 200 patrons each day.

As I ran queries in KLAS to find the patrons I needed to convert, I created Excel spreadsheets with lists of 200 patron ID’s and saved them as text files with the date I was converting them to DoD. Then I could pull the query into KLAS and use the Batch Update Profile tool to convert all 200 patrons at one time. Then I would scroll through the records to verify everything looked like it should.
One of the problems we had early on was duplication orders being sent to patrons that had a block on their account. As I was scrolling through the patrons, I would find those patrons and make their digital book service inactive so no cartridges would go out. Once the problem was fixed in KLAS, I changed all these patrons back to active for digital books, so those that had an automated date to restart service would get a cartridge.

One week after a patron was converted to DoD, I would to run the same query again and bump their number of cartridges up to 2, and after another week, set them to our max of 3 cartridges. We gradually increased their number so they didn’t get all 3 cartridges at once and also to try and not overwhelm mailroom staff.

Most days, we were getting around 250 orders. We figured once our conversion was done, we would get somewhere between 300-400 cartridges per day. In order to try and meet those numbers and see how it would affect mailroom staff, I upped the number of patrons being converted to DoD to 300 per day.

Around mid-November, we noticed that KLAS and Gutenberg didn’t appear to by syncing again. Orders we created in the morning we not being sent to the Gutenberg machines. We were unable to serve walk-in patrons because their orders wouldn’t go through. After looking into the problem, we discovered that the batch manager was being overwhelmed with creating service queues for the patrons I had converted that morning. After figuring out this was the problem, I didn’t do conversions until after 3:30 in the afternoon. John C. at Keystone also mentioned putting something in place on KLAS so the service queue would function more efficiently (not sure if this was done or not).

Around the same time, NLS had problems with one of their servers, and our duplication order didn’t run in the morning. Because I had converted patrons in the morning, our order didn’t start copying until 3:30 in the afternoon. That caused us to have almost 1000 cartridges the next day. I guess it was a good test for how much duplication we can get done in a day.

With this large order, we realized the copying process went fairly quickly and we could easily make this many cartridges each day. However, printing the mailing cards took most of the day. So we decided to invest in a 2nd printer to alleviate the bottleneck at the printer.

On 12/3, I converted the remainder of our individual patrons to duplication and also the 200 organization accounts we had on automated digital book service. This resulted in our largest duplication order of 1,015 cartridges, although I’m not sure why. Once this conversion was done, I spent the next 2 weeks moving all the patrons up to 3 cartridges each. The process was completely done by 12/11/19, which worked out great since we needed to be closed the week on 12/16 due to a building maintenance issue.

Statistics for 11/4/2019 – 12/31/2019:

• 15,721 cartridges sent out
• 3,790 cartridges returned
• 4,711 patrons received duplication cartridges

Up next: Problems and ongoing issues

"Hot off the Press" is blog series from guest blogger, Teresa Kalber. Teresa is the Network Systems Administrator at Colorado Talking Book Library. In this series, she shares her library's experience being one of the first two KLAS libraries to implement NLS' Gutenberg equipment.

The first four posts in the series are here:

• Hot off the Press: Part 1
• Hot off the Press: Part 2
• Hot off the Press: Part 3
• Hot off the Press: Part 4

Hot off the Press: Part 5, Problems and ongoing issues

Here is a recap of some of the issues we have/are experiencing with Gutenberg.

Service Queue/Order issues:

• With DoD, patrons now have to the entire collection on BARD. Because of this they are getting books in subjects they may not have been before and also getting a lot of the newer books. We get a lot of RA calls for patrons saying I would never order books like this. The RAs go through their subjects and work with them on getting them the type of books they like. This has brought up the issue that there is no easy way to empty the service queue. Each item must be deleted one at a time. If all the items are deleted out of the queue, KLAS hangs up and usually needs to be restarted.
• Because of the issue above, we are still in flux as to the default number of books we want in the service queue and where the refill point should be. This has also been problematic for us as it results in cartridges going out with less than the 10 we have them set for.
• When RAs are trying to create an order for a patron, it takes our system over 5 minutes to open the “Create Dup Order From Queue” screen. This makes it difficult to create orders for patrons when also taking phone calls because of the time involved. Many times they will have to make a note and go back and create the patron’s order later.
• Cartridges will go out for our on-demand patrons, so we need to have their NS Cutoff set to 0 to prevent that from happening.
• Local Recordings:
• We have been working with both NLS and Keystone to figure out how to get our locally recorded books that are not on BARD to work with Gutenberg. We think we have come up with a solution, but it will take some time to implement.
• Keystone is also working on having functionality for Serials in place for Gutenberg so that we can put our local newsletter on the duplications cartridges.

Cartridge Errors:

• When the service queue is filled, it will select books from our local recordings for patrons. Because we had not solved the problem with our local books, this would cause the cartridge have an “error” status. There is currently not a way to run reports or queries in KLAS to find these errors and make sure those patrons are getting service.
• Also for cartridges that are in error status – the books on the cartridge are not added as a has-had to the patrons record since the cartridge never got checked out. But since the cartridge is on the orders tab, those books are not eligible for selection. There is currently no easy way to get those books back on the service queue.

Gutenberg Hubs:

• Sometimes a cartridge is scanned and the internal and external barcode have not been linked. There is a way to configure a port on the Gutenberg machine to plug in a cartridge and have that connection made. NLS is now sending out the machines with this port already configured. Ours was not sent that way and I had to create the port myself. Once I configured the port, Gutenberg stopped recognizing the first hub in the toaster rack attached to that computer. I don’t know if the two events were related since we have ongoing issues with Gutenberg not recognizing hubs at various times. We are working with NLS on this. It’s a fairly simple fix, but it is an issue.
• Offender (Inmate) Accounts:
• We handle our offender mail separately from our other patrons’ mail. Because of this, we have not converted our offenders to duplication service since we don’t currently have a way to run their cartridge orders separately from the rest of the orders.
• Cartridge issues:
• We ordered a supply of cartridges from Perkins to help with the problem of large orders being created. The Perkins cartridges do not have external barcodes on them. We had to work with NLS to figure out a way to be able to use these cartridges with Gutenberg. Since we placed the order, KLAS put a fix in place to prevent orders larger than 4GB to be sent to Gutenberg for copying.
• We also ran into problems trying to repurpose the green cartridges we purchased to use. NLS had to make a setting change in Gutenberg for us to be able to use these cartridges with the system. However, we have to go into another computer, plug in the cartridges and unlock them with the DTB Protect software before we can use them with Gutenberg.

I hope you enjoyed my posts on our conversion experience. Both Debbi and I have documents we kept during the process that we would be happy to share. I’ve also started a post in the discussion forum if you have questions or would like me to cover something not included in these posts.

We’ve got some new information up for you this week! Let’s have a look...

1. Release Lists

As the v7.7 rollout continues, 7.7 itself has been under continuous improvement. I’ve just posted the most recent build, 7.7.14 (along with 12 and 13, which were very small builds targeted to fixing a few localized but important issues) to the 7.7 Release Lists page.

The new build has some great quality-of-life improvements, including some new options for your patron queries! For example, you can now query against patron subscriptions (including SER-DDB9 to find patrons with a BARD registration) and whether a patron is set up for Duplication service. A QuickRef with a list of all the new fields you can query against is also available on the Release Lists page. There are improvements for our IRC and other customers as well, so no worries--it's not all LBPH stuff.

2. Duplication Info

I’ve been sharing a lot of information about Duplication on this blog, to keep you all informed and up-to-date. But we know it can be a pain to have to go back and find something weeks or months later; especially if you aren’t sure if it was here, on the discussion forums, or somewhere else.

To address this, we’ve created a one-stop-shop for Duplication Info. You can access this page from the Main Menu, under Documents – Quick Reference (and it’s a static URL, so feel free to bookmark it if that works better for you).

From now on, all information having to do with Duplication that is posted to KLASusers will be added to the Info page to keep it easily accessible. I have a lot more planned for you (and would love to hear what you need most!) so I hope this Info page will be helpful for keeping it all organized.

3. Scribe Specs info sheet

A new document is available on the Duplication Info page--one that I think plenty of you will be interested in!

The Scribe Specs & Cost document briefly lays out all the specifics of the Scribe system. It covers what is included with a Scribe, the details for each component of the system, and how much it costs all in a streamlined front-and-back info sheet, perfect for your IT folks or funding agencies. Head over to the Info page to give it a download!

Meet the Scribe and see it in action. This video shows the Scribe in PCC mode; cartridge recycling mode is also available.