Sunday, December 22, 2013

BQB
We have 48 new titles from Boutique of Quality Books Publishing Company (BQB Publishing). The books published by BQB Publishing have all been written by writers who are new to the publishing world. BQB Publishing publishes books of all genres, including novels, self-help, children’s books, and more. Check the new titles out by doing a keyword search on 'BQB', or follow this link.

UC Press
We are proud to announce the addition to the enki eBook platform of over six-hundred titles published by the University of California Press.  We believe this partnership between the University and public libraries in California represents a key opportunity to collaboratively provide quality information and reading to Californians.

UC press is an autonomous unit within the University President's office. The publisher describes itself, on its website, in the following way: "As the nonprofit publisher of the University of California system, our mission is to disseminate scholarship of enduring value to multiple audiences. In publishing for diverse groups, University of California Press supports the University's mandates for research, teaching, and public service."

UC Press publishes a very diverse range of materials, from California Field Guides to books on culinary topics, to social history, to classics and literature and more. Here are some choice examples of new offerings in enki from the University of California Press:

Geared to everyday wine lovers who want to drink well, save money, and impress their friends, this book reveals everything needed to make delicious wines-both reds and whites-from start to finish.

"In this photograph-driven field guide to California's spectacular wildflowers, Laird R. Blackwell expertly provides several ways to find them in bloom: by month, by place, and by flower. The month-by-month descriptions-found in no other statewide guide-suggest what to see and where to go throughout the state during the blooming season. The author also supplies more than 300 locations arranged in 10 geographical regions, highlighting 67 of his favorite places with detailed driving and walking directions and difficulty, blooming times, and lists of predominant wildflowers as well as a featured flower.

Today he is known as Dr. Q, an internationally renowned neurosurgeon and neuroscientist who leads cutting-edge research to cure brain cancer. But not too long ago, he was Freddy, a nineteen-year-old undocumented migrant worker toiling in the tomato fields of central California. In this gripping memoir, Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa tells his amazing life story-from his impoverished childhood in the tiny village of Palaco, Mexico, to his harrowing border crossing and his transformation from illegal immigrant to American citizen and gifted student at the University of California at Berkeley and at Harvard Medical School. Packed with adventure and adversity-including a few terrifying brushes with death-Becoming Dr. Q is a testament to persistence, hard work, the power of hope and imagination, and the pursuit of excellence. It's also a story about the importance of family, of mentors, and of giving people a chance

In this authoritative and immensely readable insider's account, celebrated cookbook author and former chef Joyce Goldstein traces the development of California cuisine from its formative years in the 1970s to 2000, when farm-to-table, foraging, and fusion cooking had become part of the national vocabulary. Interviews with almost two hundred chefs, purveyors, artisans, winemakers, and food writers bring to life an approach to cooking grounded in passion, bold innovation, and a dedication to "flavor first." Goldstein explains how the counterculture movement in the West gave rise to a restaurant culture characterized by open kitchens, women in leadership positions, and a surprising number of chefs and artisanal food producers who lacked formal training. The new cuisine challenged the conventional kitchen hierarchy and French dominance in fine dining, leading to a more egalitarian and informal food scene.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Update 11/20/13

enki News
We have created a blog to post updates to the enki Library system. Take a look at the page. You can also subscribe to receive emails when new posts are created.

Reports
We have added 3 new reports to the Reports Page. The reports give circulation and title/item counts by vendor. The circulation reports also give a percentage of checkouts to the count of titles from the vendor.

Book River
We have created the ability to set up several different searches to feed the book river that is on the enki Library home page. Currently, there are 6 tabs with custom searches for:

  • Available Now
  • Cooking 
  • Kids
  • Romance
  • Study Guides
  • Tech

Soon, each library will be able to set up their own searches for the home page.

URLs
We are still testing the individual library URLs but expect to be able to convert to them in the next few weeks.

Marc Records
We recently added one new title to the catalog. There is a marc record available for that title on the Marc Record page.

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Update 11/13/13

Reports 
We now have 5 new reports available. In addition to Circulations by Month, we have added:

  • Circulations by Library 
  • Title and Item Counts 
  • Titles Usage Summary 
  • Unique Users 
  • Top 100 Searches 

You can access the reports from http://enkitools.enkilibrary.org/reports

If there is a report that you would like to see added, please let us know and we will see if we can add it.

Mobile Site
The mobile site is now working for everything that the standard site can do. This includes reading content using the online viewer. I also put a link at the bottom of the standard site that will take you to the mobile site. This will be handy for someone who has clicked on 'Go to Standard View' from the mobile site and they now want to view using the mobile site. It is also useful for testing purposes.

Friday, November 8, 2013

Updates for 11/7/13

Individual Library Logins
We are currently working on making individual library logins for enki. This will mean an end to needing to choose your library in the pulldown list. Instead, each library will have their own URL. Once this is complete, we will begin to work on the code that is needed to allow libraries to purchase and own their own conent and the ability to customize certain parts of their enki website.

I expect that the new URLs will go into effect in the next week or two. The current URL will continue to work but will require people to use the pulldown when logging in. I wanted to give everyone a heads up, because the new URL will need to be added to the marc records as well as your website.

The new URL will be in the form of http://xxxx.enkilibrary.org where xxxx is the code that your library has been assigned in enki. So, for example, the URL for Alameda County Library will be http://acl.enkilibrary.org

Let me know if you have any questions.

 
Mobile Website
The mobile website is now working. If you open enkilibrary.org from a mobile device, the mobile website will come up. At the bottom of the screen is a link 'Go to Standard View'. If you choose this link, the standard (non-mobile) website will show and you will need to clear your cookies in order to go back to using the mobile website. The online viewer is not currently working from the mobile website but we expect to have this fixed within the next week.

New Libraries 
The enki Library system is up to 26 member libraries. The most recent additions are:
  • Monterey Public Library
  • Pacific Grove Public Library
  • San Benito County Free Library
  • Palo Alto City Library
Welcome to all!

McGraw Hill Titles
We recently loaded 431 titles from McGraw Hill. Some of the titles include:
  • JavaScript Demystified
  • McGraw-Hill's SAT Subject Test: Chemistry
  • How to Do Everything iPhone 5
  • Pinterest Kickstart
  • McGraw-Hill's Police Officer Exams
  • McGraw-Hill's 500 French Questions: Ace Your College Exams
  • Big Business Marketing For Small Business Budgets
Take a look at the titles for yourself.

Monday, October 7, 2013

Updates for 10/7/13

Online Reader
I want to welcome Mark Cooper to the enki System staff. Mark is currently working on the online reader and has been able to restore some of it's functionality. Most books can now be viewed online but there are some that still don't work. In addition, images do not show in the online reader. This should also be fixed soon.

Please note: some of our ebooks are in PDF format and cannot be read through the online reader. We will be researching methods to make it possible to read the PDF files online also, but for now, there is not a button on that type of file.

PINS and such
A few weeks ago, I created a script to indicate what type of password (Last Name, Birth Date, PIN) that a particular Library uses when logging in. Once the Library is selected, the login box changes to show the type of password that is needed.

New Libraries
In the past couple of weeks, the enki Library system has grown tremendously. There are now 22 Libraries in the system. Of the 22 Libraries, 11 are live and 11 are still doing in-house testing. Since the dropdown list is getting quite long, we will be creating a solution that will prevent the need to use the dropdown lists. Most likely, this will involve changing the URL that each Library uses to access enki.

New Titles
We are getting ready to load over 400 new titles from McGraw Hill. We'll let you know when these are loaded.