Risa Sargent - Learning Retrospective

I recently attended the annual TLCU Conference in Charleston, SC. This is a user conference for libraries that are currently using TLC software, both the CARLX software (which is for larger libraries/systems) and the LibrarySolutions software (which is for smaller libraries/school libraries). Throughout the conference, we had the opportunity to meet and talk with the people behind the software which really helped make a personal connection to TLC.

Since this was a three day conference, I learned far too much to include in a short narrative, so I am attaching a summary (bullet points!) of my notes from the conference for those that are interested. I heard a lot of great information about upcoming developments in the desktop client CarlX as well as the upcoming CarlConnect, which will make many of the staff actions available through a website. By using CarlConnect, staff will no longer be bound to the circulation or reference desk to handle transactions, which is quite exciting! One announcement that is sure to be music to your ears is that RFID functionality should be returning sometime during the first quarter of 2016 (fingers crossed)!

I also heard about some exciting materials being circulated at other libraries including ukuleles, hotspots, and passes to local venues like zoos and museums. These ideas are certainly inspiring regarding nontraditional circulating collections!

Of course, my favorite session was on learning how to use Excel templates to customize the appearance of reports from CarlX! When you create an Excel template for a CarlX report, any time you open the report, it will use your preset formatting so you don't have to reformat it each time you want to use that report. If you have ideas on how you would like to see a standard CarlX report formatted in Excel, send me an email with your ideas!