The Alexandria Makeover is here! See what has changed. 
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March 27, 2023
The next stop on our favorite features tour is the Items Out Tab in Circulation.
The Items Out Tab (command QE) displays a list of all items checked out by the current patron, and allows you to renew items, override due dates, or declare items lost.
The checked out date is especially useful, because you can use it to sort checked out items by date, and see if it has already been renewed and how long the patron has actually had the item checked out.
Have any questions about the Items out tab, or how to best utilize any of our features in Alexandria? We've got you covered. Contact our support team at 1-800-347-4942.
Pasha has renewed this book several times, because it's his favorite napping spot.
| Register for our Training Webinar to learn more about using Alexandria in the new Makeover interface! |
March 20, 2023
The tour of some of our favorite features continues with another great highlight: the Homeroom Subtab.
Circulation > Homeroom subtab can be used to make patrons current in Circulation, and is generally used for easy checkout when specific classes/homerooms come to the library.
The checkbox at the bottom lets you show patron pictures in the subtab, which is great for easily identifying patrons (especially young patrons who may not easily remember their full names) during checkout. You can even double click a patron from this list to make them current in the patron pane!
This subtab also shows how many items a patron has checked out (thanks, makeover!) and how many items they checked out today.
You can change the terminology for the "homeroom" field by going to Preferences > Set Up > Terminology.
Pasha can't read but he's good at putting faces to names.
| Register for our Training Webinar to learn more about using Alexandria in the new Makeover interface! |
March 13, 2023
The makeover is here, and we decided to take this opportunity to go through some of our favorite features in Alexandria. Today, we're starting with the Command Line in Circulation.
We have all kinds of helpful command line shortcuts.
For example, have you ever used statistics mode? Type "Y" into the command line, and then scan or enter the barcode of any items you want to add statistics to without actually checking them out to patrons. This is handy for tracking the use of items that aren't checked out, but still used, like electronics. Use "Y@number" to add more than one checkout stat to an item–for example, Y@3 would add three usage stats to anything scanned. To exit statistics mode, just enter the . command, or x.
Read more about the command line shortcuts to learn (or refresh your memory) on utilizing this tool.
Pasha is learning all about command line shortcuts... although it's hard to use the keyboard with paws.
Reach out to our Support team at 1-800-347-4942 with any questions about command line shortcuts, or anything else in Alexandria.
Happy shortcutting!
Have questions about the makeover? Sign up for our webinar.
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March 6, 2023
Dashboard is one of the great new features in the Alexandria makeover. Did you know that the Dashboard is customizable, so you can curate it to easily access your most frequented areas of the program?
To customize your Dashboard, go to Builder > Explore Builder, and then navigate to Dashboard on the pane list.
Then, you can simply customize it like you would any other pane in Explore Builder. It's that easy!
The dashboard is shared with the whole account, so all sites on your Alexandria will be affected by any changes.
Have questions about the makeover? Check out our Playlist on Youtube to get familiar with the makeover.
You can also sign up below for our makeover webinar, to get any questions answered.
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February 27, 2023
The much-anticipated Dream Makeover has finally arrived. If you haven't looked at the demo in the last few months, you might be feeling overwhelmed by the changes. Don't worry! We're here to help.
Tutorials
We've got tutorials built into the program for you! Need help with a specific page that's looking unfamiliar? There is also a "What's New" option in the help menu for pages with major changes.
Still have questions? Sign up for our Webinars to get your questions answered live with our trainer.
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February 21, 2023
Do you know how to set up an effective Researcher for patrons to explore your catalog? Have you put together Slideshows to encourage reading? What about Bulletin Boards? Browse? Alexandria has so many great tools to help you engage your patrons, and we know it can be overwhelming at first.
You can learn how to better customize your Researcher for increased patron engagement by meeting with our Virtual Librarian (who is actually a REAL librarian!) to enhance your skills, knowledge, and abilities in Alexandria.
In these personalized professional development sessions you'll learn how to create patron experiences by engaging readers, supporting teachers, improving searchability, expanding access to you collection, and more.
| The Alexandria Makeover is scheduled to release THIS MONTH! Check out our support page all about the makeover, watch our Makeover Webinar, and explore the new training videos on youtube to learn the new interface. |
February 13, 2023
And that's it!
You can change the terminology for the "homeroom" field by going to Preferences > Set Up > Terminology.
Read more about Authority Control:
Set the terms—Autofill and Authority Control
Labor of Love—Cleaning up Your Subject Tags
Need help? Feel free to call our Support team at 1-800-347-4942.
Have you had teachers get married (or divorced) and you need to change their name in Alexandria? Changing their patron name is easy–but how can you change their class name, or any other info in Alexandria pertaining to their last name? Don't worry, we've got you covered. It's easy to do using Authority Control.
- Navigate to Tools > Authority Control > Patrons > Homeroom.
- Select the Homeroom you are editing, make your change, and click Yes.
- Alexandria will then queue a Utility to go through all records with the old Homeroom and update them.
February 6, 2023
What is the average publication date of your collection? How many non-fiction books do you have compared to fiction books? You can find the answers without too much trouble, and use them to plan for the future of your library's collection.
These numbers may not mean a lot by themselves, but together they can help you gain an overall analysis of your collection, and are especially helpful in planning future weeding and purchasing.
The way to get cool numbers out of Alexandria is by running the Super Summary report.
In Reports, go to the Collection Analysis category.
Choose the Super Summary report, and use the Options tab to enter your fiscal year to get accurate information on new items, what was lost, discarded, and checked out during that time. Then click Run. It may take some time to complete.
In Operations Management, download the report PDF and take a look!
Let's practice using a Super Summary to analyze a collection's age and fiction to nonfiction distribution using the report pdf to the right. You'll want to look at two sections for this example—Collection Statistics, which gives you numbers of titles/copies, and Age Statistics, which shows average year.
Let's try to answer these questions now based on this example from our demo. Some might require a little math.
How many non-fiction books? = 2636 (by adding the non-fiction call number results and Biography)
How many fiction books? = 4112
What's the average copyright date of non-fiction books? 1975 (by averaging the non-fiction category years with Biography)
What's the average copyright date of fiction books? = 1978
In this example, we didn't count Easy readers, "Other," or anything without a copy or call number. Because of variables, you might not be able to get exact numbers, but it's enough to get a pretty good idea!
Have any questions about Super Summary stats? Reach out to our amazing Support team at 1-800-347-4942.
What is a good average age? What is a good distribution? What can you actually do with these results? Leave a comment and tell us how you find them useful!
January 30, 2023
"Are you SURE my kid is getting overdue notices? When? How often?" If a parent comes to you with that question, and for some reason it becomes your responsibility to prove to them that yeah, their kids are getting notified, Alexandria has some tools to do that!
If you are sending overdue notices via a report you've set up, like the Overdue Items Notice, you can set up a spreadsheet–e.g. every time it runs, paste the list of patrons it sent to with the date.
Download the report PDF from Operations for the names and dates to put in your spreadsheet.
Once you've compiled this data over time, then when it comes up, you can sort the spreadsheet by patron to see how often a particular patron has been notified of overdue items (and on what dates).
Another option? Have the parent's email in the Other email field in the patron record. Then, you can set the notice to send the emails to Primary and Other emails, so the parents also get the overdue items notices.
As always, you can reach out to our 24/7 support team at 1-800-347-4942 for assistance.
January 23, 2023
Does your district require certain report standards or label formats? You can use Alexandria's feature to save and share reports with your district to keep all the librarians on the same page.
How to – The District Level
As a district librarian, go to Reports, and log in to your Union Site.
- Find the report you need, e.g. Copy Labels 3x10.
- Set the report up how the majority of your librarians will use it, with the data laid out in specific rows based on the standards of your district.
- Click the button to Create Saved Report, and give it a descriptive name. You may want to include the word 'District' in the name to help your librarians identify it and include a date so they know they're using the latest version–like "Labels for New Copies - DISTRICT STANDARD 20230127."
- In the saved report, go to the Overview tab. Check the box to SHARE this report, and then save it.
That's it! Now the standard is set.
How to – The Librarian Level
Depending on how everything is set up you might be able to find that report and run it directly as is. However, in the example above, that's unlikely, because the librarians in the middle school don't need to be printing labels for the books added at the elementary school. You will need to alter the selections to grab the copies added on a particular date and/or to a particular site. So here's what to do:
- Log in to your site and go to Reports.
- Click on the Saved tab. Then, click the little
'golden snitch' icon (or is it a pokeball?) to show all saved reports. - Find and select the one with the correct name (DISTRICT STANDARD 20230127).
- Use the Actions Menu
and Duplicate that report, modifying the name to include that it's for your site, e.g. "Labels for New Copies - AMS." - In the Overview tab, you can choose whether to keep sharing this report or not. Depending on your District standards:
- Sharing is great for the district-level librarian to double check that the report is following the District standards.
- Or if the saved list is getting cluttered, it can be unshared and librarians can check periodically that they are using the latest version by comparing the dates in the report titles.
- In the Selections tab, you can change any selections to pick the records needed (note: don't forget to unlock the saved report first). The most obvious selections will be the Copies from Site, (or Patrons, Titles, etc) dropdown, which you will need to change to your site.
- Then, Save the report.
In this example, whenever a site gets new copies, you can go to this saved report, fill out the "Copies Added" selection to cover the new copies added, and print labels for those items that follow your district standards.
As always, feel free to contact our amazing support team at 1-800-347-4942 for any help!
| Did you know we are making all new training videos for our Alexandria Makeover? See our new Youtube playlist, and subscribe to our channel so you never miss a video. |
January 17, 2023
Are your students not sure what to read next? You can share the top borrowed titles in your library–we've got a report for that!
To run the Top Circulated Titles report:
Makeover interface: Operations > Reports > Titles > Top Circulated Titles
Current interface: Tools > Reports > Titles > Top Circulated Titles
Use the Selections to specify which items you want on the list, like a specific medium or call number range. In the Options tab, enter the date range and how many results you want.
Find your top titles, then you can print out the list for your patrons to view. You can even print out the lists from nearby sites for them to compare!
Want to share your list online? Create a saved list and try one or more of these methods:
- Create a Slideshow and share the link.
- Add a link to the list from the Bulletin Board you just built.
- Or create bulletin for each book so they can see them all at once. You can even add a poll using Google forms!
- Share the list through an Explore button on your main pages or in Explore itself.
| Did you know we are making all new training videos for our Alexandria Makeover? See our new Youtube playlist, and subscribe to our channel so you never miss a video. |
January 9, 2023
Do you ever feel like your brain has too many tabs open? The New Year is a perfect time to get organized and make your life easier. While we can't help with your brain, we can give you some great tips for optimizing your web browser for using Alexandria.
- You can use tabs to keep all your projects in the same browser window. Depending on your browser settings, command/ctrl T opens a new tab, and command/ctrl N opens a new window.
- Chrome lets you group tabs together, and move multiple tabs at the same time! To group tabs in chrome, right click on the tab and select Add Tab to New Group.
- You can increase the size of your browser view for any website. Command/ctrl + might make some things in Alexandria easier to read!
- Use a keyboard shortcut (like command/ctrl click) or right-click to open parts of Alexandria in a new tab/window.
- Use browser extensions like Tab Modifier in Chrome to color-code your tabs.
- Check what extensions and customizations are available for your browser—it might change your life!
| Did you know we are making all new training videos for our Alexandria Makeover? See our new Youtube playlist, and subscribe to our channel so you never miss a video. |
December 12, 2022
Winter break is almost here, and we hope you get to put your feet up with a good book! But just in case you are doing any work in Alexandria over the break, you can still contact our Support team.
Our call center is available 24/7, 365, and emails are answered within two business days. Don't hesitate to reach out.
- 1-800-347-4942 (U.S. & Canada)
- 1-801-943-7277 (Worldwide)
- support@goalexandria.com
You can also fill out the form on the Contact Us page.
Still getting ready for the break? Check out Makin' a list (of winter break to dos) & checkin' it twice...
Have a happy holidays!
| Follow @COMPanionStatus on Twitter for hosting updates on Alexandria, Textbook Tracker, and KeepnTrack. |
December 5, 2022
Winter break is coming soon, and that means it's time to make sure books are returned before students leave for the holidays.
You can send email notices to your patrons for an easy way to remind them to bring those books back.
Learn more about Alexandria's Integrated Email Services, for hassle-free email service, all managed by us. Call 1.800.347.6439 to discuss if this is the best option for your library.
The Loaned Items Notice and Send Patron Details Email reports are both good options for notifying patrons to return their checked out items. In the Options tab, you can change the body of the email to let patrons know they need to bring the items back.
See Winter (break) is coming! Are your period due dates set? for another great tip on preparing for winter break.
Want to read more about using emails in Alexandria? Check out some of our past tips.
As always, reach out to our support team at 1-800-347-4942 for any questions. We're happy to help!
| Follow @COMPanionStatus on Twitter for hosting updates on Alexandria, Textbook Tracker, and KeepnTrack. |
November 28, 2022
Transaction Scripts are often used for inventory, but did you know you can also use a transaction script to perform circulation? In the event that you lose connection or access to Alexandria, a transaction script is a simple way to keep track of circulation which can then be imported when connection is restored.
How to:
First, review the step-by-step instructions for creating a Transaction Script. You can also download an Alexandria-generated transaction script during an Offline Mode session.
Then:
- Drop an import script onto the Circulation window.
- The file will be added to the Operations Management queue for automatic import.
- Once completed, your data is now imported into the Alexandria database.
- From here, you can go to Operations Management to access the original import file, review the operation summary, or email the summary to anyone you'd like.
Need help? No problem! Contact our amazing support team at 1-800-347-4942.
| Follow @COMPanionStatus on Twitter for hosting updates on Alexandria, Textbook Tracker, and KeepnTrack. |
