The ELUNA Rapido Working Group has a few projects to update everyone on.
Specialty Library Pods
We are currently trying to assess interest in creating Rapido pods that are restricted to a specific type of library – for instance, law or medical libraries. It’s our hope that this would encourage those libraries to more frequently utilize Rapido. On the borrowing side, they would have partners that have the materials their patrons are most interested in; on the lending side, they could potentially restrict the items they lend just to the fellow members of their specialty pod if they chose to. If you know of a library that would have interest in joining this sort of pod or you have feedback on this idea, please reach out to amparker@brandeis.edu.
Letter Customization Project
The interest in letter customization content is evergreen in the Alma and Rapido world. In the past, the Rapido Working Group put on an excellent presentation on learning how to customize letters. However, since there’s always going to be a learning curve in that regard, we’re looking to go even further and provide a tool that can actually generate letter XSL for libraries to use.
Early efforts developed by Chris Lee (incoming chair of the Rapido Working Group) for the Ful Incoming Slip letter have shown a lot of promise! You can specify the logo you want printed on the slip and whether you would like a return or shipping label included, and the tool will generate the letter XSL for you. We’re hoping to eventually include the most commonly used resource sharing letters in what the tool can generate. Stay tuned on the Rapido listserv and here on the blog for more about this project!
SHAREit integration
Katie Sanders of the Rapido Working Group has put together a helpful guide to connecting Alma to the AutoGraphics system SHAREit on the Ex Libris Developer Network blog. SHAREit is commonly used for statewide resource sharing among public libraries (among other types of institutions) – according to the SHAREit website, 17 U.S states currently utilize it along with the province of British Columbia.
Hope to see everyone at ELUNA!
