Pardon the mess! The Support Center is undergoing construction. 
20.12 Release Notes
6 May 2021
Cover art for the Overdue Items Notice report's email format will be included in an upcoming release.
Highlights
We've got some new user-requested features. Plus, see what we're doing with Reports!
Export also includes other search components (genre, medium, study program, etc) and total results.
Say hello to the Researcher Queries export! When you have search logging turned on in your Researcher Preferences, you can get a record of every search your patrons have performed in the last 30 days. Throw it into a spreadsheet to analyze what’s trending.
Be sure to check out our Researcher Statistics article for more information! And keep an eye out for a new Researcher Monthly Usage report coming soon.
(Inspired by a request from Holly from Churchill Co. High School!)
You can now include series and series volume on spine labels, making it a breeze to find the next volume. (Librarian only)
We are cleaning up and simplifying Reports to make your life easier! Take a look at the New & Improved section below for details. You can expect more helpful changes in the next few releases.
We've added a lot of cool new features over the year.
New & Improved
Items
- When searching by Titles Added, and trying to look for things added in a single day, you'll now get the results you expect.
Preferences
- Added a new Researcher preference that allows you to log search queries. (This needs to be turned on if you’d like to use the Researcher Queries export).
- Updated the Library of Congress Z39.50 address from DC - Public - Library of Congress z3950.loc.gov to DC - Special - Library of Congress lx2.loc.gov.
Reports
Most of these changes apply to both Alexandria Librarian and Alexandria Textbooks.
Category Cleanup
- Renamed and added some Reports categories. Here's a list of all the categories as they currently are:
- All Reports
- Popular
- Patrons
- Titles
- Copies
- Circulation
- Statistics / Usage (previously Statistics)
- Charges / Payments
- Holds
- Inventory
- Collection Analysis
- Study Programs
- Interlibrary Loans
- Special (previously System)
- Legacy
Bolded categories are new, and those with the 
icon have been added to Alexandria Textbooks as well as Alexandria Librarian. Some categories might be empty right now as we are in the middle of moving things around.
- Removed the Periodicals category.
- Removed all subcategories in the Collection Analysis, Statistics / Usage (previously Statistics), and Special (previously System) categories to save you some clicks.
Location & Naming Cleanup
Some things are moving around and getting new names! But don’t worry, we’re hoping this will make reports easier to find.
- Moved some reports to the Special category (previously System category):
- Operator Summary report
- Patron SIF Updates report
- Union Site Patrons report
- Union Site Copies report
- Subscriptions Information report
- Moved some reports to the new Study Programs category:
- Accelerated Reader Information report
- Fountas and Pinnell Information report
- Guided Reading Information report
- Reading Counts Information report
- Titles with Lexile Score report
- Titles with No Lexile Score report
- Patron Lexile report
- Patron Lexile Graph report
- Moved some reports to the new Legacy category:
- Archived Copies report
- Library Use Copies report
- On Order Copies report
- On Repair Copies report
- Unknown Copies report
- Routing Slips report
- Routes Patron List report
- Routes Information report
- Overdue Items Posting List report
- Patron Overdue List report
- Overdue Items Information report (old version)
- Severely Overdue Items Notice report
Legacy reports will eventually be phased out, so we encourage you to replace them with other reports. See each Legacy report’s documentation for our recommended alternatives.
- Moved some reports to the Statistics / Usage (previously Statistics) category:
- Patron Monthly Checkout Count (previously Patron Monthly Usage)
- Monthly Checkout per Patron (previously Patron Monthly Usage Detailed)
- Renamed some reports:
- Account Status Summary → Patron Details Summary (now generates Patron Details for multiple patrons at once)
- Patron Monthly Usage → Patron Monthly Checkout Count
- Patron Monthly Usage Detailed → Monthly Checkout per Patron
Formatting Cleanup
If you have any of the merged reports saved, you may want to review and resave them if necessary.
- Cleaned up formatting in the Lost Copies, Discarded Copies, and In Processing Copies report outputs.
- Merged all of these reports into one Special Status Copies report:
- Archived Copies report
- Library Use Copies report
- On Order Copies report
- On Repair Copies report
- Unknown Copies report
- Merged the Overdue Items Posting List and Patron Overdue List reports into the Overdue Items Information report. The new merged report has four formats with updated organization. You can also sort by Copy Call Number now!
- Added number of copies and publication year columns to the Title Lifetime Usage report to help with weeding.
- Improved the Patron Lexile report's Detailed format, making it easier to read.
Researcher
- Corrected a bug that was causing Search to crash when looking at an item’s Full MARC.
- All results now show when using Browse on mobile.
Self-Service
- The item now clears after clicking the I’m Done button after check in.
System
- Fixed a database issue.
- Improved performance and reliability. Always!
Self-Hosted Notice
If you self-host on a Mac, hold off updating your servers to macOS 10.15 Catalina. Alexandria will be 64-bit compatible in a future release. We highly recommend you consider Cloud Hosting.
This page has been moved over to https://support.goalexandria.com/release-notes/
All release notes 23.9 and onward are on the new Support Center.
Cloud-Hosted Updates
When you host with us, we take care of all updates! During these updates—the second to last or last weekend every month (Saturday and Sunday)—please plan for possible downtimes with Alexandria. And if you need to contact Customer Support over the weekend, please call us (emails are only responded to during regular business hours Monday–Friday).
Self-Hosted Updates
Once all of the Cloud-Hosted servers have been updated, we will make the update available to Self-Hosted servers.
We highly recommend you consider Cloud Hosting.
Not every version is able to update to the newest version, so the Available Updates window will only include those versions that meet your machine and version requirements.
Self-Hosted Notice - Mac
If you self-host on a Mac, hold off updating your servers to macOS 10.15 Catalina until you can update to Alexandria 22.8 or later (64-bit compatible releases).
If you self-host on a Mac, here's how to install the update on your Self-Hosted server:
- Log in to Alexandria.
- Append /admin to the end of your Alexandria URL.
- Click the Actions menu, then select Check For Updates.
- Select the update version from the list, then click Update. Your update will now download.
- The update screen will close automatically and you will be redirected to the login window.
Self-Hosted Notice - Windows
As of 2023 our self-hosted update process has changed.
If you self-host on a Windows machine and are on Alexandria 22.6 or earlier: Contact us for instructions and assistance updating to the latest version.
If you self-host on a Windows machine and are on Alexandria 22.12 or later, here's how to install the update on your Self-Hosted server:
- Log in to Alexandria.
- Append /admin to the end of your Alexandria URL.
- Click the Actions menu, then select Check For Updates.
- Select the update version from the list, then click Update. Your update will download to the Updates folder in your Alexandria Support folder.
- The download may take several minutes.
- The update screen will close automatically and you will be redirected to the login window.
- Once the installer has downloaded, and not before, quit Alexandria.
- Remove your existing Alexandria application using Add or Remove Programs in System Settings.
- Run the newly-downloaded Alexandria Installer.
Important Information
Version Numbering Change
As of 20.1, we've simplified our versioning scheme by dropping the series version. We now use the following:
- xx = academic year, beginning in June; yy = month
For example, 20.1 means:
- 20 = 2020 academic year
- 1 = The first monthly update (June)
Centralized Catalogs
If you have more sites than you are licensed for, contact our Sales team immediately at 1-800-347-6439. You can check this in Sites Management; the number of total sites plus the Union Site shows at the top, and the number you have licensed is at the bottom. The Union Site does not require an additional license.
Data Conversion
These Data Conversion notes are for Self Hosted users updating from v7 and switching from v6. If you are cloud-hosted or moving to cloud-hosted, we do everything for you!
Data conversions from older versions may not be supported. Before updating, please check the version you're currently running.
Updating from v7
If you're already running 7.17.12 or newer, you can update to the latest version. But if you're running an older version, you'll need to update a few times.
- Running 7.16.3? Update to 7.17.12 before updating to the latest version.
- Running 7.16.2? Update to 7.16.3, then to 7.17.12, before updating to the latest version.
- Running an even older version? Contact COMPanion Support for assistance. Depending on your current version, your upgrade path may go through one or more of the following: 7.15.3 → 7.16.2.6 → 7.16.3 → 7.17.12 → Current Version
Upgrading from v6
The process to update from 6.23.1 to v7 is quite a bit different than updating from a more recent version. Check out our v6 to v7 Conversion Guide for more information.
Running 6.22.9 or older? Update to 6.23.1, then to 7.17.12, before updating to the latest version.
Data conversion can take up to 10 minutes for a single database of average size or longer for larger collections and Centralized Catalogs, during which time the program will be inaccessible in your browser. Do not fear; it's still working. If you're concerned, check your server logs for a progress update.
