We released changes to Prism 3 to the demo service yesterday evening. These changes cover a number of enhancements.

We have changed the cache settings for theme assets such as CSS. Browsers are now encouraged to cache these, improving the load times for Prism pages.

We have also fixed an annoying bug with the display of some UTF-8 characters in the item details pages where some UTF-8 characters were not displayed.

There have also been internal changes to the way we generate HTML. These changes improve the maintainability of our code without changing the functionality of Prism 3.

If you have any questions about the release or wish to raise issues before the release to live on 9 December then please raise a support call, contact your account manager or email Alison Kershaw.

To keep up to date with the latest Talis Prism 3 news and announcements please watch the Talis Prism 3 Microsite for details of the next Talis Prism 3 Development Update webinar which will be in January.

Following the Talis Prism Update Webinar held in October, here are some more details on the forthcoming Talis Admin Console that will allow you to configure your Talis Prism 3 tenancies. As we discussed, the Talis Admin Console will continue to develop in line with new Talis Prism 3 functionality. We’ll shortly be updating the roadmap to show that track more clearly.

The name ‘Talis Admin Console’ reflects our intention to allow management of more of your Talis products in future. We are starting with Talis Prism 3.

The Admin Console functionality for Prism 3 has been developed to allow you to carry out the tasks that have most frequently been requested by customers. This method of development will continue, so when you require a change to your Talis Prism 3 tenancy that you cannot currently make, you contact the Support Team and we will continue to monitor those calls and add to the Admin Console accordingly.

Currently the Admin Console allows you to:

• Manage Feedback email addresses. You can add or delete email addresses to which users’ feedback messages are sent when they select the Feedback option in Talis Prism 3.

• Upload and download theme files. By uploading files, which you create and edit externally, you can control the appearance of your Talis Prism 3 tenancy. You can introduce your own branding, manage links, and change homepage content. This is also the way to add extensions such as Juice. Files can include CSS, images, javascript, and HTML fragments for the header, footer and homepage. You can upload files either individually or as a zip file. Individual files replace files of the same name. A zip upload replaces all files and allows you to move a theme from one tenancy to another, providing an easy way to develop your theme in your sandbox and then move it to your live tenancy.

• Manage Collections. You can add and remove collections and specify for each collection if it should be used in searches. This allows you to define the scope of a default search in your catalogue. You can specify whether a collection should appear in the Collection facet and the drop down list in the Advanced Search page. You can also sort the list into the order you want it to be displayed in the drop down list in the Advanced Search page.

• Manage Locations. You can add and remove locations, and specify for each location if it should appear in the Library Locations facet and the Location drop down list on the Advanced Search page. You can also sort the list into the order you want it to be displayed in the drop down list in the Advanced Search page.

The Talis Admin service is live. As a first step, we are using it to configure catalogues on your behalf. If you require any changes to your Talis Prism 3 catalogue, please raise a service request with the Support Team. We look to start the rollout of this service over the coming weeks, starting with those customers who have gone live with Talis Prism 3 already. As we start the rollout of the Talis Admin Console, we will also provide you with support on using it. As a first step we will be posting a short video on the Talis Admin Console and will link to it from this blog.

For more information on this and other aspects of Talis Prism 3, please register for the next Development Update webinar, which will be on 18th November.

Firstly, many thanks to everyone who attended the recent webinar to discuss single sign-on with Talis Keystone and Talis Prism 3; the information and feedback you provided us was very useful in directing our plans in this area.

To summarise the information you gave us – many of you have integrated your portals and VLE’s with Talis Keystone to deliver a joined-up experience for students in their working dashboards, with the Library Management System. The Portal integration module of Talis Keystone allows you to embed a link into the portal or VLE enabling the authenticated user to click through from the portal system directly into the Talis Prism 2 catalogue, already signed into their borrower account and therefore negating the need for them to be challenged for library credentials. This is a huge benefit of Talis Keystone and something that you would like to continue with in Talis Prism 3.

Since the webinar we have taken the time to analyse a design which will enable this functionality in Talis Prism 3 without any impact on the integrated solution that you have already invested in developing in your portals and VLE’s and so the transition of this functionality will be seamless and fully managed by Talis Consulting and will have no impact on any of your live services. We have designed the approach to minimise any demand on you and at this point we do not expect any changes to be required for a standard portal or VLE integration.

During January 2010 we plan to rollout the required functionality in Talis Prism 3 and the Local Data Services component deployed on your library system which is needed to enable this transition. Following these software releases we will be able to make a configuration change in your Talis Keystone environment so that the Single Sign-On link which is delivered from the web services, to the portal, is enabled for Talis Prism 3. The timing of this switch over from single sign-on to Talis Prism 2, to Talis Prism 3 will be configurable, and will be done at a time of your choosing.

We are enabling this functionality in response to your feedback, as a solution to your immediate requirements. It is not however a replacement for the longer term single sign-on theme we plan to address in June-August of 2010 as published on our Talis Prism 3 roadmap. This theme of work is to take a fresh look at the area of authentication and single sign-on with other institutional-wide systems you will already have in place, such as Athens and Shibboleth.

As an update to the above posting we would like to make it explicit that in order to make the transition of moving from single sign-on to Talis Prism 2 over to single sign-on to Talis Prism 3, so that you do not need to make any portal changes and all work can be done by Talis in configuration:  you will not have single sign-on into Talis Prism 2 following the change, all requests to the borrower account from the portal will now go to Talis Prism 3, even if you are running both in parallel for catalogue searching and browsing.

To register for the next Talis Prism 3 Development Update Webinar on Wednesday 18th November, please email Alison Kershaw stating that you would like to attend, we will then send you details on how to register.

This webinar will focus again on discussing updates to the Talis Prism 3 Roadmap, while providing an opportunity for you to raise any specific questions that you may have.

Last week we heard that the University of Derby have chosen to ‘soft launch’ their Prism 3 OPAC,  in a similar way to the University of Sunderland have (see Terry’s post).  University of Derby have used the Talis Design service to create a look and feel that ties in strongly with the rest of the University’s corporate image. The seamless transition that the person searching receives when moving from the catalogue home page to the contact page, or the University of Derby electronic library page will ensure that the experience of the student is one of a joined up institution. We are waiting to hear what the students from both Sunderland and Derby make of the new version of the catalogue with interest as the development of the service continues with regular releases and enhancements to features.

Over the past few months, we have seen ten customers now promote their versions of Prism 3 to live, either as the sole catalogue for their users or in parallel  with their existing Prism 2 interfaces.  As we hoped, we have a number of flavours of Prism 3, from interfaces like Derby’s to Southwark Councils and also dual language options like Conwy County Borough Council’s.  We have also seen some press attention for these interfaces, with the Library and Information Gazette using the Royal Scottish Academy of Drama‘s Prism 3 on their front cover of a recent issue.

This means that Talis Prism is now being used ‘live’ at a total of 10 institutions, enhancing the experience that those searching the library catalogue by combining innovative design with features such as book jacket images and faceted searching. These 10 libraries will shortly be followed by the other 25 that are currently implementing and we look forward to seeing what flavours of catalogue they will bring, and the others that follow on after them.

The University of Sunderland Library has made its Talis Prism 3 catalogue available as a pre-launch beta option via a link from the current Prism 2 catalogue.

Running the two versions of the catalogue in parallel is the ideal way to introduce Talis Prism 3. It allows users to experience the new catalogue without disrupting familiar options, and it has no extra overhead for your system or library staff. Introducing Talis Prism 3 at this point in the academic calendar is testament to this.

In addition to the benefits of the discovery and navigation features of Talis Prism 3 it has the flexibility for extensive design and styling, which in this case has been done by the library. They have been able to style the new catalogue to match the rest of the web site, making it feel integrated. This is further enhanced by the ability to easily include quick links to other library services and to display other information such as opening hours.

For the time being the library has opted to not display cover images. The layout of entries on the page has been adjusted accordingly.

The ability for the user to send a feedback message is an important and well used feature of Talis Prism 3, giving invaluable insights into the user’s experience. The University has supplemented this with a link to their library feedback form, and we look forward to the reception from users.

A milestone for Talis Prism 3 has been passed today with this release;  the live service is now being managed through the new administration interface.

Before we release the new administration interface to you, we are using it to make changes on your behalf enabling us to ensure usability.

If you would like any changes made to your Talis Prism 3 catalogue in the meantime, then please raise these to either your Talis Prism 3 Implementation Consultant or Alison Kershaw.

To keep up to date with the latest Talis Prism 3 news and announcements please visit the Talis Prism 3 Microsite and register for the next Talis Prism 3 Development Update webinar.

Last Friday, the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD) went live with their Talis Prism 3 catalogue, as well as with Talis Alto.

Styled by the Talis Design Team, the new catalogue has received positive comments from early visitors such as ‘really striking’ and ‘lovely look’. To learn more about the Talis Design service for Talis Prism 3, please contact your Account Manager.

The engaging styling, coupled with the effective discovery features of Talis Prism 3 – a single search box, relevance ranked results, faceted navigation – will help improve user success and usage of the catalogue and the library.

For more about RSAMD and Talis please see the press release.

Following feedback from the Talis Prism 3 webinars held last month, we identified a difference between the Single Sign On shown on the Talis Prism 3 Roadmap, and the immediate requirement to replicate the Talis Prism 2 Single Sign On with Talis Keystone View My Account (VMA). We have investigated this, and look to run this as a Consultancy project, but would like to organise a webinar to validate requirements and identify customers who would be willing to test this with us.

To register for this session on Tuesday 1st September at 1:30pm, please email Alison Kershaw stating that you would like to attend, we will then send you details on how to register.