6 May 2021

Content is subject to change until the official release on May 15th, 2021.

Highlights






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.






Now you can include cover art in the Overdue Items Notice report’s email format! This will help patrons and parents more easily identify those items. (Librarian only)





You can now include series and series volume on spine labels, making it a breeze to find the next volume.



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. 

Tell us how the updated Copy List, Patron Details, Item Details, and more are working for you!

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
  • Updated the reporting security preferences to match the new categories (see the Reports section below).
  • 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).
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 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:
    • Inactive Patrons report
    • Expired Patrons 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
    • Patron Credit Details 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 the Patron Financials Brief report (previously Patron Balance report) to the Charges / Payments category.
  • 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
    • Patron Balance → Patron Financials Brief (combined with Patron Credit Details report)
Formatting Cleanup

If you have any of the merged reports saved, you may want to review and resave them if necessary.

  • Made some updates to the Patron Information report:
    • Renamed the 1 Line format to Brief and added patron nicknames.
    • Renamed the Detailed format to Show patron pictures and added patron nicknames and reading levels.
  • Made some updates to the Suspended Patrons report:
    • Merged all letter formats into one.
    • Renamed the 1 Line format to Brief.
  • 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!
  • Improved formatting for the Patron Lexile report, 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!


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.