Key Notes Blog

Bringing you weekly posts on conference planning, happenings at Keystone, or how better to put KLAS to work for you!

2021 KLAS Users’ Conference Registration

Details: Category: Key Notes; Last Updated: Wednesday, 21 April 2021 18:55; Published: Tuesday, 20 April 2021 20:23; Written by Katy Patrick

As announced on the e-list yesterday, registration is now OPEN for the 2021 KLAS Users’ Conference! The deadline to register is 8:00 PM Eastern / 5:00 PM Pacific Friday, June 4.

To make this year's process easier than ever, we chose to use the PheedLoop platform to handle registration and even credit card payments. Yes, you can pay via a credit card this year! If you prefer or need to still pay by check, you can also download an invoice directly from the registration page.

$25 for individual attendee tickets
$50 for small group tickets (2-5 persons)
$100 for large group tickets (6-10 persons)

Group Ticket Purchases: If you're purchasing more than an individual attendee ticket, one person from your organization can register, select the combination of the tickets needed, and include each individual attendee's name and contact info. Each listed attendee will be emailed their ticket info separately. An organization can purchase whatever combination of individual, small, and large group tickets makes sense for the number of staff they want to attend.

Example: To purchase one Large Group Ticket for 10 people, select 1 "Large Group Ticket" with your name listed as the "Attendee". Then proceed through the payment and checkout options and then add the other 9 persons as "complimentary ticket" holders when prompted to do so.

Follow this link to begin your 2021 KLAS Users' Conference attendee registration or read on for more information about the registration platform.

Automatic Status Updates for Duplication-Ready Titles

Details: Category: Key Notes; Last Updated: Wednesday, 14 April 2021 14:53; Published: Friday, 09 April 2021 14:30; Written by Katy Patrick

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...

March 2020-March 2021: A Year of COVID

Details: Category: Key Notes; Last Updated: Tuesday, 02 March 2021 18:44; Published: Tuesday, 02 March 2021 18:45; Written by Andrea Callicutt

It's March 2021. By mid-month last year, all of Keystone's staff started working remotly full time for an undetermined amount of time. Personally, I never thought I'd still be working in my home office across the desk from my husband a full year later! We made changes to how we met as a staff, set expectations for communications and interactions with our coworkers and customers, and started writing blog posts with tips & tricks about remote work with KLAS and how users might continue to serve patrons.

We intially thought we'd be back sometime early that summer. When that no longer seemed likely, we began making adjustments to how we offer KLAS Admin Training, helped more libraries move to Duplication on Demand, and shared a blog series from libraries about the impact of COVID on their operations. Check out the COVD-19 Keynotes Blog Posts to Date from July 2020 to see the intial ones we wrote and those authored by KLAS Users.

2021 is written out in a sketched font. In place of the 0 is a virus with the red "No" symbol stamped over it, and in place of the 1 is a vaccine syringe.

Registration Fees and Call for Proposals for UC2021

Details: Category: Key Notes; Last Updated: Monday, 15 March 2021 21:41; Published: Friday, 12 March 2021 16:31; Written by Katy Patrick

We have an important update about KLAS UC 2021: finalized registration costs are now available! Our first online KLAS Users' Conference will occur June 7-10, 2021. Check out the "2021 KLAS Users' Conference Take 2" blog post for the proposed conference schedule.

Conference registration costs are:

$25 for Individual attendees
$50 for small groups (2-5 persons)
$100 for large groups (6-10)

An organization can purchase whatever combination of individual, small, and large group registrations makes sense for the number of staff they want to attend. For example, a library could purchase one small group and one large group registration for a total of $150 to cover up to 15 attendees.

Conference registration fees will go towards the conference platform and video streaming services. This is not intended to be a profit-generating event! That said, the math on this kind of thing is difficult. The per-attendee cost of the event will vary significantly based on how many attendees we have, and while we have a lot of experience budgeting for and operating an in-person conference, an online conference is new to us. If we find that we undershot on the registration fees, Keystone will cover the additional costs. If we end up generating a little extra, it will be used towards the next conference.

We have been working hard to plan an online conference just as worthwhile as an in-person one, with convenience and a lower cost to make up for a lack of local cuisine and charming wildlife (I’m not the only who misses those lizards that were all over Palm Beach...right?). These registration costs will cover the technology needed to make attending sessions, presenting, and networking with your fellow attendees easy. And the group rates will hopefully allow libraries to take full advantage of the absence of travel costs and allow more staff members than ever to attend.

Call for Session Proposals

If the low registration costs and/or group rates do open the door for you... please consider not just attending, but presenting as well!

Now that the registration costs are finalized, we have reopened the Call for Session Proposals until Friday, March 26.

Anyone is welcome to present, so don’t feel like first-time attendees or KLAS rookies need to sit it out. Everyone has something they can share with their fellow users!

What do you do about Withdrawn Titles?

Details: Category: Key Notes; Last Updated: Friday, 26 February 2021 15:20; Published: Friday, 26 February 2021 15:20; Written by Katy Patrick

The Duplication Service model opens up a ton of new possibilities for serving patrons, and with that comes a whole host of new edge-cases, problems, opportunities, and workflow questions. Today, let’s look into one of those new workflow questions: what do you do when a Title is Withdrawn?

First up, what exactly do I mean by “Withdrawn? For this post, I’m referring to Titles NLS has recalled due to Quality Control or other concerns as well as Titles with a status of “W / Withdrawn” in the KLAS Catalog. Most points will be the same or pretty close for NLS recalls, Locally Produced titles you have withdrawn for quality or timeliness (such as a corrupted file or a voting guide from a previous election), or for NLS titles you have decided to no longer offer (such as computer “how-to” guides from the early 90s).