SOPAC : How & Why it was selected and got connected with Symphony - Thursday 3/4

Laurie Lessner, SAILS, Inc., Sean Robinson, Allen County Public Library

Lessner have history of how SOPAC came about. They did a needs assessment with over 5600 responses. What was wanted most was facets, 90% had high speed internet, and the public was knowledgable.

They tested Primo, Zoom, Enterprise, Aquabrowser, Endeca, WorldCatLocal, Vectors. This was a couple of years ago and Lessner mentioned that the field has changed some since this occured.

Evaluation requirements were shown, they did not believe they could not take away any current services and wanted to add others.

Evaluted specific vendors in RFI survey. Invitations sent to 6 companies. Three vendors were invited in to demo. Survey Monkey was used for staff input. Focus groups was used with patrons. Found that despite 6 sessions at libraries throughout their network and a community college, their needs were similar. Simple entry box.

SOPAC was selected. Open source product was also good for the public funded institutions since this was grant funded. CraftySpace was hired as a part of the grant. CraftySpace is a Drupal site which SOPAC is written on.

Issues - patron authentication - 2 logins DRUPAL account (SOPAC) and ILS (Symphony)


SOPAC - Social OPAC
Robinson covered this history of SOPAC and how he developed the connector to Symphony
John Blyberg developer was present.

Used XMPAPI to get data.

Used DRUPAL for flexibility in future


3 connector pieces needed
Sirsi_patronapi.php -- gets patron information
Sirsitools_3125.php -- renew, cancel hold, place hold
Locum_sirsi_3125.php -- bibliographic info (cat key not item key), item status

Robinson showed screen shots of the Allen County Public Library

Robinson's blog www.tscrobinson.com with information/code there.

Audience comments:
Is this live yet? no alpha at this time.
is API training from SirsiDynix needed? yes
What version of Drupal is SOPAC on? 7 developed at 5 and beyond