Joe fixed patron scanning on the Ricoh this morning. It should work for folks and messages will be clearly identified by the "from" address of scanner@telluridelibrary.org
Scan on!
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Closing/Opening Reminders
When opening and closing, don't forget to do a quick straightening. Make sure to remove old room reservation slips, put chairs and equipment back where it belongs, and stick rogue books on the shelving cart. Take a peek at any empty displays and restock as needed.
Also, please make sure to delete Barracuda filter exemptions at the end/beginning of the day.
Thanks!
Also, please make sure to delete Barracuda filter exemptions at the end/beginning of the day.
Thanks!
Outlook Express Works on the Ref Desk Computer
Hey All,
Joe set up Outlook Express on the Ref Desk staff network computer, so we can check email on the AskUs account in this way. Web mail will still work and messages will show in both places, so it's individual discretion on how to check.
Also, ILL requests, status indications and inquiries will be coming into AskUs. Please be sure to forward them to the appropriate staff person. Faith is the ILL queen, Andy is learning the ropes quickly, and I can dive in as needed. If you wonder who to alert, feel free to ask!
Sarah (Lawton)
Joe set up Outlook Express on the Ref Desk staff network computer, so we can check email on the AskUs account in this way. Web mail will still work and messages will show in both places, so it's individual discretion on how to check.
Also, ILL requests, status indications and inquiries will be coming into AskUs. Please be sure to forward them to the appropriate staff person. Faith is the ILL queen, Andy is learning the ropes quickly, and I can dive in as needed. If you wonder who to alert, feel free to ask!
Sarah (Lawton)
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Amaze your Friends...
...by printing Guest ID passes like a professional. On the PC Reservations computer find a new desktop icon with the name "more slips.exe" Each time you double-click this script, it will fire up the PC Reservation program and print 20 guest id slips. This is an example of automation under the AutoIt scripting language. Andy
What happens when...
...PC Reservation crashes? I always wondered what would happen if the PC Reservation computer where to restart during the day with patrons logged onto the system, and now I know! All I was trying to do was surf the net on PC Res when I hit the homepage icon in the browser and whoomph, the screen went blank and the next thing you know we are rebooting. No one came screaming out of the tech lab, so folks who are logged on stay logged on. So far so good. Once the boot process finishes, PC Reservation automatically comes on, so that's also pretty easy. I walked around and the unused computers had a "Please Wait..." message where "Available" normally displays, but this fixed itself as soon as I cancelled the window and brought it back up (wiggle the mouse.)
The only real awkwardness I found is that I can't extend time on computers that were logged on at the time of the crash. I get the message (on PC Res) "Could not locate client records in the internal connections list." For new logins, this is not a problem, as I ascertained by experiment. But does anybody know how to refresh this "internal connections" list? I think after about 20 minutes it may have started to do this on its own, but I could find no tool or utility that would work. Thank, Andy
The only real awkwardness I found is that I can't extend time on computers that were logged on at the time of the crash. I get the message (on PC Res) "Could not locate client records in the internal connections list." For new logins, this is not a problem, as I ascertained by experiment. But does anybody know how to refresh this "internal connections" list? I think after about 20 minutes it may have started to do this on its own, but I could find no tool or utility that would work. Thank, Andy
Friday, August 1, 2008
Scanning and Editing Documents
I've heard this question a few times this week and did a little research. I've pasted some info from http://www.askageek.com/. Joe is going to look into the feasibility of putting the OCR software on the computers hooked up to the scanner.
Print this info for patrons if they want it but tell them to stay tuned for our library to possibly offer this service.
Q: How do I scan a document into my computer so that I can alter it?
A: Hello there! There are a couple of different ways that you can scan a paper document into your computer and edit it. Generally, when you scan a document into your computer the resulting document will be in portable document format (PDF) format, which is difficult to edit by design; this file type was created to provide a secure method of file transfer. Basically you can use an optical character recognition (OCR) program, which will allow you to convert your scanned document to Microsoft Word or a similar program or a program like Adobe Professional, which will allow you to edit the PDF itself.
OCR
So how does OCR work? The OCR program “reads” the scanned document, and matches the elements that it sees with an internal library of characters; letters, numbers, spaces, etc. OCR programs available include, OmniPage Pro, Microsoft Office Document Imaging, and ABBYY FineReader. Once the application has matched the contents of the scanned document to elements in the library, the application produces an editable document, usually in Microsoft Word, or some other editable format such as a text file. This process sounds great, but often it does not work as smoothly as described above. Programs vary in their matching ability, so documents will generally require clean up once they are converted. Graphics, stamps, and tables generally cause the most clean up work.
PDF Editing Software
There are several PDF editing software packages available such as Adobe Professional, Foxit PDF and Infix PDF. Depending on the software you choose, you will have different editing abilities in your PDFs. Some editors allow you to fully edit all text in the PDF while some allow you only limited editing capabilities such as limited insertion points and field limits.
Your overall process for creating an editable electronic version of a paper document will be something like this:1. Follow the directions included with your scanner to scan your paper document.2. Locate the newly created scanned document on your computer.
OCR
1. Open your scanned document with the OCR application.
2. Follow the programs instructions regarding converting your PDF to an editable file.
3. Save the OCRed file in an editable format.
4. Clean up the document.
5. Edit as desired.
PDF Editing Software
1. Open your scanned document in the PDF editing software of your choice.
2. Use the tools included in the software to make your edits.
3. Save your edited document as a new PDF.
Print this info for patrons if they want it but tell them to stay tuned for our library to possibly offer this service.
Q: How do I scan a document into my computer so that I can alter it?
A: Hello there! There are a couple of different ways that you can scan a paper document into your computer and edit it. Generally, when you scan a document into your computer the resulting document will be in portable document format (PDF) format, which is difficult to edit by design; this file type was created to provide a secure method of file transfer. Basically you can use an optical character recognition (OCR) program, which will allow you to convert your scanned document to Microsoft Word or a similar program or a program like Adobe Professional, which will allow you to edit the PDF itself.
OCR
So how does OCR work? The OCR program “reads” the scanned document, and matches the elements that it sees with an internal library of characters; letters, numbers, spaces, etc. OCR programs available include, OmniPage Pro, Microsoft Office Document Imaging, and ABBYY FineReader. Once the application has matched the contents of the scanned document to elements in the library, the application produces an editable document, usually in Microsoft Word, or some other editable format such as a text file. This process sounds great, but often it does not work as smoothly as described above. Programs vary in their matching ability, so documents will generally require clean up once they are converted. Graphics, stamps, and tables generally cause the most clean up work.
PDF Editing Software
There are several PDF editing software packages available such as Adobe Professional, Foxit PDF and Infix PDF. Depending on the software you choose, you will have different editing abilities in your PDFs. Some editors allow you to fully edit all text in the PDF while some allow you only limited editing capabilities such as limited insertion points and field limits.
Your overall process for creating an editable electronic version of a paper document will be something like this:1. Follow the directions included with your scanner to scan your paper document.2. Locate the newly created scanned document on your computer.
OCR
1. Open your scanned document with the OCR application.
2. Follow the programs instructions regarding converting your PDF to an editable file.
3. Save the OCRed file in an editable format.
4. Clean up the document.
5. Edit as desired.
PDF Editing Software
1. Open your scanned document in the PDF editing software of your choice.
2. Use the tools included in the software to make your edits.
3. Save your edited document as a new PDF.
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