British Library Recovery
As the BL recovers from its cyber attack there is a temporary mechanism for sending in requests
The Problem
As has been well-covered in the news, the BL suffered a cyber attack that has left their systems broken. As they start to bring functionality back up, they can now receive emailed requests. You can use Clio's normal 'Email' tab in the Search/Order tabs to send requests to them. Many of you have probably already set this in motion but here are some step-by-step instructions for one way of using Clio's in-built functions.
Clio will likely create a more formalised 'BL-Email' tab to take the place of the BL Automatch tab for the future, until the BL is able to bring back the full range of their services. The new Clio tab will probably be available the week of 22 January.
Clio will likely create a more formalised 'BL-Email' tab to take the place of the BL Automatch tab for the future, until the BL is able to bring back the full range of their services. The new Clio tab will probably be available the week of 22 January.
Creating email templates
The BL has released the format they would prefer for emailed requests, which will then be processed manually. Your existing email templates may not have exactly the information required by the BL, so you may want to create new ones. You can create the templates for loans and copies in the usual Outgoing Emails preferences area.
Select Lender as the Recipient, Message as the Type and then Create New Message from the drop down.
Select Lender as the Recipient, Message as the Type and then Create New Message from the drop down.
Loan template
For the Loan template, give it a useful name, like BL-Loan and a subject line of LOAN.
Then add the following to the template - be sure to edit the account ID and response email address to reflect your details: (you can type your shipping address in directly if you prefer)
ILL Request
BL account ID: 73-0003
Request ID: [ReqID]
Ship to:
[ShipTo]
Item:
[BasicBibInfo]
[ExtendedBibInfo]
Response emails to:
myadd@mailinator.com
Then add the following to the template - be sure to edit the account ID and response email address to reflect your details: (you can type your shipping address in directly if you prefer)
ILL Request
BL account ID: 73-0003
Request ID: [ReqID]
Ship to:
[ShipTo]
Item:
[BasicBibInfo]
[ExtendedBibInfo]
Response emails to:
myadd@mailinator.com
Copy template
The template for Copies should be created in the same way, but put SCAN in the subject line. The sample template is below:
ILL Request
BL account ID: 73-0003
Request ID: [ReqID]
Item:
[BasicBibInfo]
[ExtendedBibInfo]
Response emails to:
myadd@mailinator.com
ILL Request
BL account ID: 73-0003
Request ID: [ReqID]
Item:
[BasicBibInfo]
[ExtendedBibInfo]
Response emails to:
myadd@mailinator.com
Library records
You need to have library record(s) with the BL's new email address. You could edit the existing BL library record in Clio (symbol BL:BL) and add the new email address - Customer@bl.uk to the record.
If it were me I would instead create two new library records. This allows you to separate out the 'weird' era requests and also lets you assign the Loan email template to one record as the default message, and the Copy template as the default for the other library record.
So I would create a new library record with a symbol of BL-Loan and a name of British Library Loans, with the new email address, and select the loan template as the default New Request message (BL-Loan or whatever nickname you gave the template).
Then I would create another new library record with a symbol of BL-Copy and a name of British Library Copies, with the new address and select the copy template as the default New Request message (BL-Copy or whatever nickname you gave the template).
If it were me I would instead create two new library records. This allows you to separate out the 'weird' era requests and also lets you assign the Loan email template to one record as the default message, and the Copy template as the default for the other library record.
So I would create a new library record with a symbol of BL-Loan and a name of British Library Loans, with the new email address, and select the loan template as the default New Request message (BL-Loan or whatever nickname you gave the template).
Then I would create another new library record with a symbol of BL-Copy and a name of British Library Copies, with the new address and select the copy template as the default New Request message (BL-Copy or whatever nickname you gave the template).
Sending the requests
Once the library records (with the new email address) and email templates are in place you can send requests from Clio. On a new request page you should select the Email Order tab in Clio's Search/Order tabs area. Then enter the lender name or symbol to select the appropriate library record.
If you selected a default New Request message it should be selected now - otherwise select the correct message from the list.
If necessary be sure your Ship To address is selected correctly.
Finally click 'Send' and the request should be sent to the British Library. Responses will come to your email address.
If you selected a default New Request message it should be selected now - otherwise select the correct message from the list.
If necessary be sure your Ship To address is selected correctly.
Finally click 'Send' and the request should be sent to the British Library. Responses will come to your email address.
Updating Clio
Clio won't know what happened to the requests after they were sent to the BL, so when articles have arrived (or not) you will need to update Clio. When an article has arrived you can updated to Received-Copy as described here.
BL Shelfmark
If you wish to add the BL Shelfmark, at the moment the best way to include that information is to edit the request and put the Shelfmark into the Verified field - this will then be included in the Extended Bib Info area of the email templates.
Next week, we'll have a simpler option - when the BL-Email tab has been created we'll include the ShelfMark field on the tab so it can easily be entered there.
Next week, we'll have a simpler option - when the BL-Email tab has been created we'll include the ShelfMark field on the tab so it can easily be entered there.