Evergreen includes a self check interface designed for libraries that simply want to record item circulation without supporting security mechanisms like magnetic strips or RFID tags.
The following features are supported by the Evergreen Self Checkout interface.
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Checking out materials.
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Renewing materials.
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View checked out materials.
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Print list of checked out materials.
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View list of holds.
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Print list of holds. (Not currently working)
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View list of fines and bills.
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Print list of fines and bills.
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Pay for fines and bills if credit card payments are enabled.
By default, the self check does not require that you have a workstation set. This is not the recommended method of utilizing the self check because the circulations that are done throught the self check would show up using the staff users home library for checkout lib, and the Workstation would be NULL. So your statistics would not clearly show which circulations happen at a specific self check station. For that reason you should always make sure you set the Workstation Required library setting described later. This document will assume you have enabled that feature.
The self check interface runs in a web browser. Before patrons can use the self check station, a staff member must initialize the interface by logging in.
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Open your self check interface page in a web browser. By default, the URL is
https://[hostname]/eg/circ/selfcheck/main, where [hostname] represents the host name of your Evergreen web server. -
Log in with a staff account with circulation permissions.
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The first time you log in you will get a prompt to set a workstation. Once you create a new workstation entry, you will want to add the workstation information to the default URL for this stations browser, so it always gets used. Add
?WS=[workstation], where [workstation] represetns your workstation name, to your URL. It will look like;https://[hostname]/eg/circ/selfcheck/main?WS=[workstation]. You can also enter an existing workstaion to start with and skip the adding a workstation step.
If you would like to skip the manual login step, you can also specify the staff account username and password in the URL. If you are setting up a kiosk type station that you want to log in without any staff intervention, you will want to use this method.
Add the following to the URL &username=[username]&password=[password], where [username] represents
the staff account username and where [password] represents the staff acount password. The whole URL should
look like https://[hostname]/eg/circ/selfcheck/main?WS=[workstation]&username=[username]&password=[password].
After a staff user has logged into the self check interface, the interface is ready for patrons to log in and check out or renew items.
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The patron logs in by entering either their patron barcode or their user name.
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The patron enters the barcode for each item. If the patron types the barcode, they need to press the
<Enter>key to check out the item. The item details, including due date, appear below the barcode field. -
When the patron is finished, they can click Logout if they want a receipt for their items, or Logout (no receipt) if they prefer no receipt.
The receipts for the Self Check are configured in the staff client under Admin → Local Administration → Notifications/Action Triggers. Filter by Name is like "Self%" to just show the self check related event definitions.
By default there are four Event Definitions setup for Self Check Use.
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Self-Checkout Fines Receipt - List of current fines & report of fines paid.
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Self-Checkout Holds Receipt - List of current holds.
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Self-Checkout Items Out Receipt - List of items currently checked out.
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Self-Checkout Receipt - Checkout receipt.
By default the receipt templates are global, so changes made to them will effect all self check stations connected to the same Evergreen server. If you want to customize the receipts for only some locations, you can clone the Event Definitions and change the Owning Library for each one. Then make changes to the new group of Event Definitions. See the Notification / Action Trigger section for more information.
When the self check prints a receipt, the default template includes the library’s hours of operation in the receipt. If the library has no configured hours of operation, the attempt to print a receipt fails and the browser hangs. So you will need to edit the checkout receipt to remove the hours of operation if it isn’t defined for all locations that use the self check.
Several library settings control the behavior of the self check:
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Audio Alerts: Plays sounds when events occur in the self check. These events are defined in the
templates/circ/selfcheck/audio_config.tt2template. To use the default sounds, you could run the following command from your Evergreen server as the root user (assuming that/openils/is your install prefix):cp -r /openils/var/web/xul/server/skin/media/audio /openils/var/web/.
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Block copy checkout status: Prevent the staff user’s permission override from enabling patrons to check out items that they would not normally be able to check out, such as the "On reservation shelf" status. The status IDs are found in the
config.copy_statusdatabase table. -
Patron Login Timeout: Automatically logs the patron out of the self check after a certain period of inactivity. NOT CURRENTLY SUPPORTED
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Pop-up alert for errors: In addition to displaying an alert message on the screen, this setting raises patron awareness of possible problems by raising an alert box that the patron must dismiss before they can check out another item.
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Require Patron Password: By default, users can enter either their user name or barcode, without having to enter their password, to access their account. This setting requires patrons to enter their password for additional security.
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Workstation Required: If set, the URL must either include a
?ws=[workstation]parameter, where [workstation] is the name of a registered Evergreen workstation, or the staff member must register a new workstation when they login. The workstation parameter ensures that check outs are recorded as occurring at the correct library. -
Barcode format regex: This setting needs to be set for barcode’s to be recognized for authentication. The self check runs the authentication input (barcode or username) through this regular expression, if it matches then it is treated like a barcode, if it does not then it is treated like a username.
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Blah: This settings allows the self check to bypass some Events that normally will block a checkout. A few of the most commonly used events are "COPY_ALERT_MESSAGE" (checkout blocked because item has an alert message), "COPY_NEEDED_FOR_HOLD" (checkout blocked because item is targeted to fill a hold).
These browser have been used by various sites to use the Self Check feature in production.
The Open Kiosk is an easy to use kiosk browser that has many nice features included out of the box. It works well with the Evergreen Self Check except that the receipt printer setup needs some manual adjustments. http://openkiosk.mozdevgroup.com/
Here is the miniumum setup you need to use Open Kiosk.
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In Settings → Browser, set your Self Check URL as the Home Page
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In Sessions → Cache, Check Preserve Session Cookies
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In Admin, Check Allow web page printing
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In Customize → UI Widgets, check hide all.
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In Customize → Firefox preferences → Tabs Uncheck Opening new windows in a new tab instead.
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In Customize → Firefox preferences → Content Uncheck Block pop-up windows
An issue with Open Kiosk is that the printing settings cannot be customized in the program to the level that you will need to setup your receipts. To get around this you can also install firefox on your self check machine, and use it to get your printing settings right. Then copy the printer related settings from the firefox prefs.js to the Open Kiosk prefs.js. All the printer settings start with the printer name.
The basics like print margins and headers/footers can be edited directly, here are some examples.
Find the Open Kiosk profile directory. * WINXP "" * WIN7/8/10 "c:\users\AppData\MDG\OpenKiosk\profiles\xxx.default\pref.js" * Linux "/home/username/.openkiosk/profile/"
Open the prefs.js file and modify the printer settings to look like the following.
user_pref(“printer_Star_TSP650_Tear_Bar_(TSP651)_(Copy_1).print_edge_bottom”, 0); user_pref(“printer_Star_TSP650_Tear_Bar_(TSP651)_(Copy_1).print_edge_left”, 0); user_pref(“printer_Star_TSP650_Tear_Bar_(TSP651)_(Copy_1).print_edge_right”, 0); user_pref(“printer_Star_TSP650_Tear_Bar_(TSP651)_(Copy_1).print_edge_top”, 0); user_pref(“printer_Star_TSP650_Tear_Bar_(TSP651)_(Copy_1).print_footercenter”, “”); user_pref(“printer_Star_TSP650_Tear_Bar_(TSP651)_(Copy_1).print_footerleft”, “”); user_pref(“printer_Star_TSP650_Tear_Bar_(TSP651)_(Copy_1).print_footerright”, “”); user_pref(“printer_Star_TSP650_Tear_Bar_(TSP651)_(Copy_1).print_headercenter”, “”); user_pref(“printer_Star_TSP650_Tear_Bar_(TSP651)_(Copy_1).print_headerleft”, “”); user_pref(“printer_Star_TSP650_Tear_Bar_(TSP651)_(Copy_1).print_headerright”, “”);
Some systems have reported good luck using Mozilla Firefox along with several addons.
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Mozilla Firefox - http://mozilla.org
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Blocksite Addon - Lock down which sites can be loaded.
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Public Fox - Block downloads, lock down bookmarks/addons/downloads with a password.
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Reset Kiosk - Reset homepage view after period of inactivity, aka kiosk mode. Options for forcing fullscreen mode and clearing recent browsing history, cookies and cache.