Setting up a Public Card Catalog Station in Aspen
Aspen has configuration options for creating a public card catalog station. Configuring your IP settings allows you to customize the Aspen Discovery experience
for your patrons when they’re searching the catalog from their own device while connected to the library’s WiFi, or while browsing from a public catalog search
station.
IP Addresses
An IP address is a unique number assigned to computers and other devices on a network, or to a network of computers. IP addresses enable devices to send and
receive information on the internet or within a local network. Think of an IP address like your home address: part of your address includes a street name and house or apartment number specific to your own location, and a more broad location (city and state) which is shared by others.
IP Address settings are located under the Primary Configuration module in the administration settings. Click “Add New” to set up a new address. Input the IP address of the device or network along with the display name. Click the dropdown to select the corresponding library location. You’ll want to make sure to check “Treat as a Public OPAC.” The tooltip that appears when we hover over this setting tells us that enabling this will turn on auto logout features.
Auto Logout
To configure the auto logout feature, go to the settings for Locations (still within the Primary Configuration module). After selecting the location associated with the IP address, make sure “Create Search Interface” is checked.
Continue scrolling down until you see options for Automatic Timeout Length, just above the Basic Display settings. Here you’ll be able to configure the duration (in seconds) of inactivity before Aspen will automatically timeout.
- Logged in: If a user is logged in on a public machine, Aspen will log them out of their account after a period of inactivity.
- Logged out: When no users are logged in, Aspen will refresh the catalog and return to the main landing page after a period of inactivity.
Create Search Interface
When this option is enabled, users who access Aspen from the corresponding IP address will have catalog results tailored to that location. If a user is visiting the catalog from home, the items will be listed alphabetically by branch :
To see Branch copies, the user can click on "Where is it?" to see copies from all locations. When the user visits the Branch, where the IP address was configured and the search interface created, items from the branch will be listed first:
Pro Tip: you can test out what this would look like for any library location even without setting up an IP address! Do this by adding the following text to the end of your catalog URL and hitting the enter key:
&branch=BRANCHCODE
Where “BRANCHCODE” is the code for whichever location you’d like to test. Find the branch codes in the Location settings under Primary Configuration. To reset the search results to their default state, type this at the end of the URL and hit the enter key:
&branch=
On Shelf vs. It’s Here
For multi-branch systems and consortia with IP address settings configured, there is the option to change the display of the availability status when a patron is searching for items while on your network. By default, if an item is available, the status will display “On Shelf.”
With the “Show It’s Here” feature enabled, items available at each location would instead display “It’s Here”:
To enable this feature, go to Library System settings under the Primary Configuration module. Click into the library system you wish to configure, scroll down
to Holdings Summary, and check the “Show It’s Here” box.
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