Dates & Currency

These preferences allow those who use Alexandria outside of the United States to have complete customization over their date formats and currency standards. You should only ever need to configure the Dates & Currency preferences if you are in a country outside of the United States; changes made to these preferences will take effect immediately.

In the United States of America, date formats are typically expressed in month, day, year order; however, aside from Belize[1], the vast majority of the world expresses dates in the ascending order of day, month, year. These two formats are largely incompatible and can cause massive date confusion. For example, in the United States, 03/07/16 generally means it is the 7th of March, 2016—in the rest of the world, it means it is the 3rd of July, 2016. Changing Dates settings will affect all circulation computations (e.g. reservations and holds) and nearly every date format displayed throughout Alexandria, including those found in Reports, Policies (e.g. hard due dates), notifications, etc.

Back to Top

Dates Settings

• Short Date Format. If you want month to come first, the short date format is typically configured as ‘M/D/Y’, providing output like 02/27/2018. If you'd like the day to come first, use ‘D/M/Y’, as in 27/02/2018. Keep in mind that some date-based commands entered into the command line are accepted only if their date format agrees with this setting (for example, override dates); this is because Alexandria depends on your date settings to determine if 03/07/16 means the 7th of March or the 3rd of July. Also, be aware that the date separator (e.g. “ / ”, “ , ”, “ - ”) required to parse the circulation command properly is the one that you configure here. Default date format/separator combination is M/D/Y.

• Normal Date Format, With Day. If you want month to come first, the normal date format (with an abbreviated preceding day) is typically configured as ‘W M D, Y’, providing output like Wed. Feb 27, 2018. If you'd like day to come before month, use ‘W D M, Y’, as in Wed. 27 Feb, 2018. Default is W M D, Y.

• Normal Date Format, No Day. If you want month to come first, the normal date format is typically configured as ‘M D, Y’, providing output like Feb 27, 2018. If you'd like day to come before month, use ‘D M, Y’, as in 27 Feb, 2018. Default is M D, Y.

• Long Date Format, With Day. If you want month to come first, the long date format (with an unabridged preceding day) is typically configured as ‘W M D, Y’, providing output like Tuesday Feb 27, 2018. If you'd like day to come before month, use ‘W D M, Y’, as in Tuesday 27 Feb, 2018. Default is W M D, Y.

• Long Date Format, No Day. If you want month to come first, the long date format is typically configured as ‘M D, Y’, providing output like Feb 27, 2018. If you'd like day to come before month, use ‘D M, Y’, as in 27 Feb, 2018. Default is M D, Y.

Back to Top

Currency Settings

• Use System Settings. If checked, local currency standards are automatically imported (and implemented) from the Data Station's operating system. These adopted standards will appear in the subsequent Currency fields, but are uneditable. However, if this checkmark is removed, you may edit the currency settings manually. Keep in mind that this will only change your Alexandria currency standards, it will not affect your operating system settings.

• Implied Decimals. This value, which must be between 0 and 4, determines how many implied decimals (numbers after the decimal point) are used for your local currency standards. For example, 2 is the correct value for United States currency.

• Currency Symbol. Currently, only a single-character currency symbols are supported (e.g. as in “$” for United States currency; others examples would be “¤”, “¢”, “€”, and “₤”).

• Decimal Symbol. Specify the symbol used as the decimal point (e.g. as in “.” for United States currency).

• Grouping Symbol. Specify the symbol used as the grouping separator (e.g. as in “,” for thousands in United States currency). Currently, only 3-digit groupings are supported.

• Get from O/S. Pressing this button will automatically import localized currency settings from your Data Station's operating system.

Back to Top

Language

These preferences reconfigure Alexandria to operate in your native language; the language selected here will apply to all Alexandria systems and modules. You may choose from one of our currently supported languages: English, Français, or Español. Changing the default language requires a browser refresh to take effect on the web.

Currently, Alexandria doesn't catalog or display languages with alphabets containing non-Roman characters (e.g. Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, etc.). However, non-Roman languages that have been “translated” to Roman (Latin) can be saved; for example, the Arabic language book “كتاب ألف ليلة وليلة‎” could be translated to “One Thousand and One Nights” and then successfully cataloged in Alexandria.

The default language preference is initially set by your Alexandria registration information.

Language Settings

• English. This selection will make English the default language for Alexandria.
• Español. Esta selección hará Español el idioma predeterminado de Alexandria.

Back to Top

Terminology

These preferences are used to customize terminology for some of the patron- and item-related fields within Alexandria, including those commonly found in the Patrons and Items management windows. Long terms may be cut off in various areas of the program; therefore, it is always best to keep terminology short and succinct. Changes made to these preferences will take effect immediately.

If numeric ranges are going to be used with any of these fields, they need to be padded with zeros in order to be sorted and selected correctly. For example, instead of a “1”, “2”, “402”, you’d insert “001”, “027”, “402”. Basically, in order to sort properly, all entries with a numeric range need to have the same number of characters.

Keep in mind that customizing a field name does not change its core functionality; fields such as Community ID, Government ID, and Login Name are still expected to contain correlating data.

Patrons Settings

• Location. This preference allows you customize the term used for the Location field. For school libraries, this defaults to Homeroom; for other sites, this term defaults to Location. Although you may change this terminology, our documentation generally refers to it as Location.

• Sublocation. This preference allows you customize the term used for the Sublocation field. Use this field for whatever extra information you may need to enter. For example, you may want to use the term “Last Period” to identify an alternate location below the primary Location field. Although you may change the term, our documentation generally refers to it as 2nd Location.

• Level. This preference allows you customize the term used for the Level field. For school libraries, this defaults to Grade; for other sites, this term defaults to Level. Although you may change the term, our documentation generally refers to it as Grade.

• Government ID. This preference allows you customize the term used for national identification numbers; in the United States, this is typically the Social Security Number. Although you may change the term, our documentation generally refers to it as SSN.

• Community ID. This preference allows you customize the term used for community or local identifiers. For school libraries, this defaults to Student #; for other sites, this term defaults to ID #. Although you may change the term, our documentation generally refers to it as Student #.

• Reading Level. This preference allows you customize the term used for the leveled reading system(s) utilized at your school (e.g. Fountas and Pinnell or Accelerated Reader). Although you may change the term, our documentation generally refers to it as Reading Level. If your school, site, or institution doesn’t use the reading level terminology, this field can be used for other info such as AUP (acceptable usage policy) status.

• Additional Contact. This preference allows you customize the term used for emergency or secondary contacts. Although you may change the term, our documentation generally refers to it as Parent/Guardian.

• Optional Date. This preference allows you customize the term used for a patron record's optional date field. Although you may change the term, our documentation generally refers to it as Graduation Date.

• 2nd Phone Number. This preference allows you customize the term used for the secondary phone number field. Although you may change the term, our documentation generally refers to it as Mobile.

Items Settings

• Copy Location. This preference allows you customize the term used for the Copy Location field stored in the 852_a tag. For example, you may want to use the term “Collection” or “Library Floor” (for a multi-leveled library) rather than “Copy Location”. Although you may change this terminology, our documentation will generally refer to it as Copy Location.

• Shelving Location. This preference allows you customize the term used for shelving location, an alternative location field stored in the 852_c tag. Although you may change this terminology, our documentation will generally refer to it as Copy Shelving.

• Special Funds. This preference allows you customize the term used for government grants or special funding stored in the 852_1 repeating tag. Although you may change this terminology, our documentation will generally refer to it as Funding Source.
  
  

Back to Top