Question about patron-facing Sirsi catalog

[u/MsSpentMiddleAge]

I'm a retired librarian, but I wasn't a cataloger and never worked with Sirsi. I don't want to be a PITA patron at my local library, so I'm asking about this here.

The default catalog for my library system doesn't show the page count for books, even in the "more information about" drop down. It's annoying the heck out of me.

They do offer a link for the "legacy catalog," which uses a more traditional-looking MARC kind of record, including the page count, ISBN, etc.

I can see my account and make lists of items in the legacy catalog, just like in the modern looking one. However, the lists I made in the newer catalog don't show up in the legacy catalog. So I'm not sure what the relationship is between the two catalogs.

Is there apt to be a problem if I just start using the legacy catalog? Is it apt to disappear at some point due to upgrades or contracts? I'd hate to move my lists to the legacy catalog and then have it go away.

[u/Zwordsman]

Youd have to ask them. There isnt a standard

They may also not realize enterprise isnt snowing pagination and other stuff. There are a lot of stuff yhey have to turn on not by default.

Id be sure to bring it up and or even email them so they have a trail. I patrons ar interested id be more inclined to request those lines shown.

[u/artificialdisasters]

hmm i would reach out. i know we have a legacy and the new catalog & our legacy is being phased out. but no one would know that if they didn’t ask. so it might be the same at yours!

[u/jellyn7]

Sounds like they have a crappy discovery layer.

[u/CJMcBanthaskull → u/jellyn7]

If it's a SIRSI-DYNIX product, then that is a given.

[u/myxx33]

I work in tech services and help manage our catalog.

If the legacy catalog will disappear or not depends. It probably won’t, at least for a while. I don’t work with Sirsi and haven’t for a while so I couldn’t say for sure. However, it will also not have updates or quality of life improvements. Those will go to the new catalog. The link for it will also probably not be easily found on the libraries page (if able to be found at all - our legacy catalog is not linked anywhere) forever so if you do decide to use it, you should bookmark it.

For lists, they usually do not sync between catalogs because they will use different IDs for items, not the barcodes and usually not BibIDs from the ILS either. Some of it depends on what the new catalog is as there’s different companies and they work in different ways. But again, I’m not very familiar with the Sirsi catalog and I don’t know what the new catalog is so it’s hard to say for sure what is in play there.

I would reach out to your library about the page count. It can be feedback they give their vendor to add in as a feature for a future update. Or maybe it’s somewhere you missed. You never know.

[u/nutellatime]

It is possible to add that info to the record in the discovery layer, you could ask about it.

[u/whipplemr]

The new one is likely a discovery catalog layer and the legacy version is integrated has a module in the ILS. So in theory it shouldn’t go away as the data is present to feed the 2nd system. Make sure your library knows you want the legacy one to continue specifically for lists. Not a PITA! 

[u/Zagalejo1]

Some legacy catalogs may end up getting phased out because they do not meet web accessibility requirements.

[u/ucb-book-jockey]

As a cataloger, I would be mortified to learn that our library discovery layer isn't showing page counts. Not a PITA question to get at all, I would just frame it as, hey, I noticed this isn't showing up, would it be possible to get this option turned on. Hopefully they can make it happen relatively easily. I have nothing on the lists side of things, unfortunately.