What is a Centralized Catalog 

A Centralized Catalog houses many library collections in a singular Data folder stored on a central Data Station. This gives management control to a sole administrator; all updates, upgrades, data backups, and other management procedures are performed for the entire district at a centralized location. Even though all your data is centralized on a main server, patrons have the ability to search an individual library, a group of libraries, or the entire district at once—in real-time! Since there is only one central patron database, Centralized Catalog allows the most convenient access to inter-library loans (ILL). Those considering Centralized Catalog should plan to address overlapping barcode ranges, policies, preferences and cataloging. When considering add-on features, all libraries must subscribe to the same services.

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Things to Consider when using a Centralized Catalog (or moving to a Centralized Catalog) 

1. District Administration. In a Centralized Catalog, one person sets the rules and maintains access levels, etc. You should know who that person is or will be designated.
2. Item Management. In a Centralized Catalog, its a shared catalog; therefore, someone needs to be in charge of the cataloging / title records otherwise the librarians will step on each others toes and create a mess. Who creates the content? Who does the actual work of uploading and importing information? Depending on the institution, it might be a single teacher, an admin, a learning technologist, or an IT assistant. Understanding where the burden of work will fall and having buy-in for this to happen, is of primary importance.
3. System vs Site Preferences. Some things affect everyone - potential Centralized Catalog customers should be aware of this.

How the Centralized Catalog Affects Site Management 

For single site licenses, you will only ever maintain information for one site in the Sites Management window; we call this the union site record. However, in a Centralized Catalog, you manage multiple collections and must be able to quickly differentiate one catalog from another. Therefore, Alexandria appends the Sites management window with an additional Site Records List which allows you to move between and configure individual site information, including unique Site Codes[1] for patron and item records.

Alexandria retains the catalog site record in a Centralized Catalog environment to assist you in setting up and configuring additional sites after initial installation. However, you shouldn't think of the catalog site record as an actual, physical location—instead, think of it as the “parent” to which all your local site collections (i.e. “children”) belong. Although most of your catalog site record information is established during registration, you may want to later amend this information to better represent your district entity.

As you create new sites in the Sites Management window, be sure to provide each one with a unique Site Code; these can then be assigned to patron and item records. However, you should never willingly assign patrons or items the union Site Code. Additionally, as new sites are created in the Sites Management window, Site Names are automatically added to the Select a Site access window and the Site Selection drop-down menu contained in the Researcher's Search interface. However, the union site record will not be included among these. In other words, you will be unable to search for items using the catalog site record.[2]

Another reason that the catalog site record exists in a Centralized Catalog is for when patron and item records are being imported or added to your database with missing or incorrect Site Codes. Since these new patron and item records have to go somewhere, they are temporarily assigned to the union site until they can be later moved to an appropriate site location.

You are not allowed to add additional sites with a single site license. You must be licensed for multiple sites in order to use Centralized Catalog. Please contact COMPanion’s sales department at (800) 347-6439 if you would like to upgrade to a Centralized Catalog license and increase your site limit.

For more information about other areas affected by Centralized Catalog and Sites Management, please review the following section.

System Preferences Affecting Centralized Catalog 

• Don't Show Title Availability—This option is housed in the Alexandria Researcher preference window. When the Don't Show Title Availability checkbox is enabled, a title's availability will not be shown in the search results of a Researcher client; at a Data Station or a Librarian Workstation, you will still be able to see the availability. When a search is performed in Alexandria, however, the results will show a title's availability across all collections, regardless of which library's holdings were used as a filter. If a patron is not properly made aware of this, they can incorrectly assume that a title is available at their local library. This preference allows Centralized Catalog users to turn off the availability so that patrons are required to look at the item details to see if it is available in their library.
• Address Books tab—This tab, found in the System Administration section of the preferences, is available for Centralized Catalog users regardless of the presence or absence of other Address Book codes (e.g. WAN, Z39.50 Search). Address Books are used in Centralized Catalog systems to add search filters for each library or groups of libraries; patrons can then use these filters when searching.
• Alert for Copies from Different Libraries—This option can be found in the Rules preferences, under the Rules tab. If you are a Centralized Catalog user, the Alert for Copies from Different Libraries box will be checked by default. When an item copy is checked in at a different library (i.e. when the copy's library setting does not match the workstation's Library ID preference), an alert window will appear to inform you that it must be returned to the proper library or, if a hold exists for that title or copy, it will inform the user where the copy must be sent.
• Show Site Selection—This option is kept in the Researcher preferences. When this box is checked, patron and item selections in Reports and Utilities are limited by the workstation's local Site ID Code. This setting is also used as a filter for Current Patron status information. For example, when this preference is set, the number of checkouts and overdues applied to a System Patron (e.g. the Lost or Discarded Patron ; (see System Patrons for more information) will be limited to the local library collection; specified by the local Site ID Code. The details for a System Patron will also be limited by the Local ID Code.
• Average In Transit Period—This option can be found under the In Transit tab of the Rules system preferences. Once you specify an average ‘in transit’ period, it will be used to determine if copies are late in arriving. If an item is late, it will appear in the Late in Arriving In Transit report.
• In-Stock Hold Period—This option can be found under the In Transit tab of the Rules system preferences. This preference indicates how long an item that is sent via the “IT” command should remain on the shelf before it expires and should be pulled and returned to its parent library.