Vega Discover had 29 development releases and added over 30 new features in 2022. Every two weeks, automatic software updates including enhancements and bug fixes are sent to our modern, award winning, user-friendly online catalog for libraries. This cadence has enabled us to release many new features, enhancements, and bug fixes throughout the year, both as part of our planned roadmap and in response to your feedback.
With such frequent releases and so many developments, we have decided to put together a summary of what was released in Vega Discover in 2022, for your convenience.
So, without further ado, let’s take a look at the nearly three dozen new features and enhancements made to Vega Discover last year.
2022: A Year in Numbers
Summarizing a year is always a nostalgic and enlightening task. We are proud of the work done by our teams and are highly appreciative of your feedback and active involvement in the advancement of Vega Discover.
Let’s start with some big-picture numbers of what we have accomplished together…
- 29 bi-weekly development releases
- Over 30 new features or enhancements
- Over 30 bug fixes
- 61 libraries joined our Vega LX community, and 25 went live on Vega Discover
- Over 10 Supportal articles published, giving insight into MARC to BIBFRAME conversion, work-level roll-ups, and other hot topics
- Platinum award winner in the 2023 Modern Library Awards (MLAs)
- 90 live demos for libraries
- Conducted over a hundred weekly meetings between the Product team and development and strategic partners
Consortium Support in Vega Discover
When considering the scale and reach of consortium libraries and multi-branch library systems with Discover Premium, we know how important it is to have the appropriate tools to manage multiple branches and locations both centrally and independently. In 2022, we focused on these tools for consortia to enable better management and increase ease of use.
- Sharing Electronic Content: Consortium central offices can set up multiple accounts with electronic vendors and cascade permissions to members or enable members to set up independent vendor accounts.
- Focused View on Member Collections: Member libraries with independent collection sites now have the ability to choose how to display and filter their unique resources within their site. They can emphasize their location as a preferred location, or they can hide all other locations and limit content to their site only.
- Kiosk Configuration for On-site Computers: Consortia can also set up multiple kiosk sites for each member library. Kiosk sites include special configurations for computers in the library, such as a short time-out session. Kiosks can also use the same preferred location or limited location settings to display only items available in the library where the kiosk is located.
- Custom header and footer: Consortia central offices and member libraries can now configure the header and footer on their Vega Discover collection sites to match their library website and branding more closely.
- Fine payments by collection site: Member libraries can now configure a site-level fine payment account for their individual collection sites if they use their own process separate from the central office. By default, collection sites will inherit the fine payment configuration from the main Vega Discover site for the consortium account.
Patron Experience
Your online catalog is one of your most frequently used patron engagement tools. Providing patrons with an intuitive and accessible experience that meets their expectations is a critical way to keep patrons regularly returning to the library. From more convenient searches to easier access to materials, this year we continued our focus on the end-to-end patron experience.
Improved Search & Discovery
- New Books List: With catalog-date-based sorting and filtering – one of our most popular new features – you can now create Showcases from saved searches that focus on new items in the catalog. This dynamic list updates in real time and can be published on your website, shared easily, and linked.
- Streamlined view of Enriched Content: Syndetics Unbound widgets, and New York Times and Discover showcases are now merged into one streamlined view on each resource page. Library staff can toggle which showcases display on their site.
- Series search: Series titles are now indexed into the title and default everything index, allowing users to search by the series name instead of needing to remember a full title.
- ISBN and UPC search: ISBN and UPC numbers are now searchable in the everything Search.
- Title search: Relevancy improvements to boost non-stemmed versions of search terms with title match.
- Items sort improvement: Added sort by Call Number within editions.
- Roll-ups and author pages: Primary author display changes to include any primary author, improved logic around author dates.
- Launched Vega Guide for Discover+: The Vega Discover+ package now offers an additional feature for libraries to place user guides on Discover and publish announcements and surveys directly to their catalog.
Patron Account Management
We empowered patrons with more independent account management options through the following features:
- Enabled patron reading history and added multiple improvements and fixes.
- Added the option for patrons to import their custom lists from any other previous discovery layer.
- Extended the patron account timeout to 90 days so patrons stay logged in on personal devices and have quick access to library resources.
- Added a “Forgot my password” workflow for Polaris libraries.
- Enabled INN-Reach renewal and cancellation of holds for Sierra libraries.
- Created universal direct links to My Account pages:
- Open Bookshelf to Checkouts Tab of Patron Account: https://VEGA_BASE_URL/?openAccount=checkouts
- Open Bookshelf to Holds Tab of Patron Account: https://VEGA_BASE_URL/?openAccount=holds
- Open Bookshelf to Fines Tab of Patron Account: https://VEGA_BASE_URL/?openAccount=fines-and-fees
- Open Bookshelf to Profile Tab of Patron Account: https://VEGA_BASE_URL/?openAccount=profile
- Improved patron notification preferences:
- Added patron notification preference settings for Sierra libraries.
- Added carrier selection for mobile phone number to Polaris notification preferences.
Staff Experience
You do great work, and we want to support you. In 2022 we have enhanced many features for library staff to help you help the community.
Front-end Enhancements
- Improved Roll-Ups: Changed subtitle logic to ignore specific characters in work-level roll-ups.
- Multiple Branch Hours Configuration Options: Enabled configuration of Library Info, including library address location, contact info and hours for all branch locations.
- Added OPAC message display: In-location drawer for Sierra customers.
- Built Kiosk settings for on-site computers: Launched kiosk configuration settings with branch specific URLs, shorter patron timeouts, and preferred location.
- Enabled fine payment settings for kiosks.
- Global Header: configuration update for a consistent and cleaner configuration experience and enabling creation of additional links in the Global Header.
- Privacy Policy links repositioned based on library preference.
Back-end Enhancements
- Enabled Borrow By Mail for Polaris libraries.
- Iframe code and tracking for embedded showcases.
- Added Closed Location settings.
- Expanded metadata indexing to include more fields and notes from MARC records.
- Release of new CAS web design templates for Sierra libraries.
Electronic & Digital Content Management
Electronic content attracts a lot of new users to the library, and in 2022 we expanded our Vega Discover development efforts to take a focused approach to electronic and digital content management (EDCM) from a holistic view. In the past year, we began adding integrations to support the automatic ingest of bibliographic records from electronic content vendors into your catalog.
These integrations and imports save both consortia and single libraries time and effort and get materials into the hands of patrons sooner by automatically loading vendor records and the appropriate subscription details into Vega Discover. Previous processes required additional time to update records, keeping highly sought-after items out of the hands of patrons for longer than necessary. Library staff now have the option to accept and import those vendor records quickly and efficiently.
For all existing electronic content vendors with circulation APIs (such as Hoopla, Overdrive, and others), we are working to add the ability to ingest their bibliographic records. We are currently adding two new vendors (Axis360, CloudLibrary) for both electric content circulation and vendor records.
Throughout 2022, the Vega Discover team has been highly focused on both your experience and your patrons’ experience. We continue to be attentive to your feedback and look forward to your active engagement to ensure that our plans for 2023 and onwards address your main areas of interest and concern.
If you would like to know more about the bi-weekly updates for 2023, you can either follow the Vega Discover Release Notes on the Training and Learning Center, or register for direct email notifications.
What’s next for Vega Discover?
Check out our Vega Discover Product Roadmap to learn more about our plans for 2023 and onwards.
Do you have innovative ideas you would like to share with us and the community? We will be transitioning to the Idea Exchange later this year and will have a dedicated space for hosting Vega Discover ideas! For more details, see our recent blog post on this topic.
Another way to stay engaged and involved with the Innovative team and other community members is to attend the IUG 2023 conference. Get more information on the conference and registration here.