Serials

Our March KLAS LBPD Users' Roundtable occurred on Thursday, March 17 at 3 PM Eastern / Noon Pacific. During this session, user panelists discussed the ins and outs of Serials Duplication using KLAS. Additionally, members of Keystone staff will be available to answer questions, listen to feedback, and provide insight. So, set aside an hour and join us for to learn more about handling Serials circulation within a Duplication on Demand service model.

KLAS LBPD Users' Roundtable: Serials Duplication

User panelists included:

• Josh Easter, SD
• David Statz, MN
• Teresa Kalber, CO
• Amanda Diggs, KS

The recording of this roundtable is now available for review:

Below are the recordings, presentations, and other resources shared in the library for the blind and print disabled track of the 2024 KLAS Users' Mini-Conference.

Note: You must be logged in to view / access content.

Did you attend our last webinar on Serials for Duplication, or watch the recording? Our panelists did a great job talking through their approaches and processes, and answering questions from attendees. Since this is such a big topic, with plenty of new complexities thrown in by the transition to Duplication, here’s a little extra follow-up.

To separate by Medium, or not?

In the roundtable, you heard some of our panelists use a separate Medium, such as “LDS,” for locally duplicated serials. Others use the same DB Medium used for books and physical DB serials. We covered some of the reasons in the roundtable, but just to clarify in black and white:

• Both approaches work—choose the one that fits your library’s needs.
• Using a separate Medium requires the patron to have a separate Medium Profile and a separate Service Queue.
• This allows you to set a Cutoff, Max Per Cart, and other settings that apply only to Magazine cartridges.
• This means Duplication Orders only contain books or magazines, never both.
• For Scribe, a separate Medium allows you to set a different leaflet or announcement file to include on Magazine vs book cartridges.
• We are looking into methods for separating Dup Order batches for handling by Medium, but nothing is in place just yet.

If you want to start Duplicating Serials as a separate Medium, several pieces of set-up will be needed. Contact Customer Support to get started.

Receive an Issue to trigger Retention

Some issues have been reported with getting Duplication-only Serials to obey the Retention settings. This is because the settings are attached to the Holding, which is associated with inventory. In other words, it was programmed expecting physical circulation, before we had any inkling of the need to duplicate serials on demand.

Right now, KLAS is not following Serial Retention settings if there isn't at least one Copy of an issue. So the fix is to Receive at least one Copy of each issue, even if you only plan to circulate the issue using Duplication. This allows you to “activate” the settings associated with the Holding, such as Retention.

Subscription Start Date

John Owen shared this tip in the roundtable. To prevent unnecessary Serial Reserves being created (and Assigned if the patron is not yet set up for Duplication), set the Start Date for new serial Subscriptions to tomorrow.

By forward-dating the subscription, you tell KLAS not to run the usual programs designed to get physical inventory assigned and out the door to new subscribers ASAP. Instead, the subscription will quietly become active overnight, overnight, and all new issues will be added to the patron's Service Queue as they are Received and the eDocs created.

We hope these insights are useful as you enter the brave new world of providing serials within a duplication on demand service model. As always, please don't hesitate to contact support with any questions.

Do you have questions about maintaining or circulating serials?

The new Serials Manual is here to help!

Like the Reader Advisors Manual and the Front Desk Manual, this document was designed for easy reference both in print and digitally. We also made every effort to ensure this document is accessible for AT users, though the AT Reference Guide may still be helpful in providing additional screen context and description.

A few tips for using this manual:

• If annotating the file to add local policies, consider using Word's comments feature which will maintain the pagination, plus make your comments stand out for easy identification.
• If using the manual in Word, turn on an interactive index by selecting the View ribbon, then marking the Navigation Pane checkbox. In the document itself, Ctrl-Click any section or page reference to jump to that section (including from the Table of Contents).
• If using the manual in a PDF reader, the interactive index and hyperlinked references should be available by default (depending on the program used). 

I hope this manual will prove helpful for all your serials needs!

Last Updated 5/5/2025

Did I miss something? Let me know! 

Correction: NLS willcontinue distributing the TBT4, there have just been interruptions. I apologize for our earlier miscommunication as we rushed to confirm and distribute information before the holidays. 

The Nov/Dec issue was not made because of the shut-down. The Jan-Feb issue is on schedule for production, but the new contractor may not be able to distribute it. While NLS is working with the contractor to get everything back up and running, there are a lot of moving pieces. 

If libraries choose, they can take on duplication of Talking Book Topics for their patrons. The good news: you cantreat this like any other NLS-provided serial for duplication. You also have other options. 

First things first, understanding the scope:

How many copies do you need/want to send?

How many Active TBT4 subscribers do you have? 

You can easily check this on the SER-TBT3 or SER-TBT4 record in your Serial’s module: the Active Subs (subscriptions) count is on the Title tab. 

If you want to take a deeper look and exclude patrons that haven’t had any other activity lately, you can Query from the Patron Module:

Quick Search - 

• Main Status - Equals - A
• Last Served Date - Is Between - 01/01/2025 - (today’s date)

Advanced Search - 

• Subscription - KLAS ID - Equals - SER-TBT4 (or 3, if that is the version used in your database)
• Subscription - End Date - Is Blank

Once you know how many patrons you’re dealing with, some questions to consider:

• Can you duplicate a cartridge for each TBT4 subscriber on a single day? Over the course of a week?
• Do you want to combine TBT cartridges with other serials when possible, or always send it on its own?
• Do you want to make sure it always goes to all Active patrons, even if they haven’t returned previous issues?
• Do you / will you continue to treat TBT as a default subscription, or will you want patrons to Opt In instead of Opting Out?

And one final question to think about:

• Should TBT be a CirculatingSerial (and so update the patron’s Last Served Date), or a Publication(which doesn’tupdate the Last Served)? 

In other words, should a patron that only receives TBT and nothing else still count as Active? 

(Note: Either Cir or Pub can be used for TBT regardless of whether you decide to go with Option 1 or Option 2 below.)

Option 1 - Send as a Standalone (Our Recommendation)

You can give the duplication-version of the TBT4 serial its own unique Medium. This is our recommendation for most libraries.

Benefits:

• Will ensure that the TBT is sent on its own cartridge without other serial issues.
• Counts towards its own Cutoff, which can be set high to ensure that it goes out quarterly even if the patron is at Cutoff for their books or regular Serials.
• Makes it easy to get specific statistics about how many TBTs you are sending to how many patrons, without inflating your statistics for the other serials.
• Allows for a different schedule for the orders: Nightly so it goes out ASAP when available, or on a different day of the week than the rest of your Serials to help distribute the work.

Downside:

• Requires another entry on the Patron’s Profile tab.
• Yet another Batch to run.

Option 2 - Send with other Serials

Alternatively, you can treat the TBT4 like any other NLS-provided serial.

Benefits: 

• No change to your workflow.
• No new Medium required.

Downsides:

• May be buried in the middle of other serials on a cartridge.
• May not go out right away if the patron is at Cutoff.
• May make your serial run overwhelming, depending on subscriber count.
• Will get your TBT statistics mixed into your other Serial statistics.

Alternatives, Supplements, and Other Thoughts

As far as we can tell at this time, everything that is technically needed for you to duplicate TBT4 for your patrons is already in place with just a little set-up needed from Customer Support, primarily the SDS- or MOC-TBT4 title record.

However, as mentioned above, NLS will continue working with the new contractor to distribute TBT4, so you have time to consider how to best serve your patrons.

The PDF and HTML formats will continue to be produced, and the DB monographversion will continue to be made available (although it will continue to be delayed compared to the Serial version, due to the conversion process). 

Order forms are available from NLS, although they would need to be printed: Talking Book Topics - National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS) | Library of Congress

We know some of you are already providing your patrons with alternate ways of accessing the material, from mailing out Large Print excerpts (such as sending the chapter on Westerns to patrons who have requested it), to providing Browse links on your WebOPAC for patrons to easily review and request from the genres that interest them.

Are there other ways you want to provide this information, versus duplicating and mailing a cartridge with the full TBT issue?

For example, would you want to do a monthly query for the titles added in your biggest Genres, to print as a bibliography in Large Print and as a PDF?

If you’ve gotten creative with your TBT distribution, please share in the comments below what you’ve tried and what the reception was!