Locations

For many ILSes, Locations will automatically load into Aspen. In the majority of cases, you would add the Location in your ILS and then the Location would be pulled ino Aspen. If for some reason you should need to create a new location, you can:

Manually Add a New Location

If there is a time you should need to manually add an additional Location within Aspen, you can do this by going to Aspen Administration > Primary Configuration > Locations > Add New. 

Copy an Existing Location

If you already have a Location created that you would like to copy, go to Aspen Administration > Primary Configuration > Locations > click into the Location you already have set up > click the Copy button at the top. 

Aspen will pop up a list of things you are able to copy over to the new Location. Select/deselect what you want. Your options may look different from the screenshot below depending on your current integrations/configurations.

Once you hit Continue, a new Location will pop up with the name Copying {the unique ID of the Location you are copying}

You will definitely want to scan the Location settings and look to update the name, branch code and location information.

Also, you will want to check the Records to Include at the bottom.

1. Go to Aspen Administration > Primary Configuration > Locations and click to edit the library location you wish to update.
2. Make sure the checkbox next to Show In Locations And Hours List is selected.
3. Add your address, phone number, and/or email address.
4. Upload a photo of your library under Location Image.
5. Save your changes.

If you have multiple library locations, you may wish to change the primary location displayed when users first open the Hours & Locations link. To set a default location, make sure that "is Main Branch" is checked in the relevant Locations settings. If you don't have a Main Branch selected, locations will be sorted in the dropdown in alphabetical order.

Library Hours & Location

Add or Edit Location Hours

In Aspen Administration > Primary Configuration > Locations > click into library location or edit > scroll toward the bottom to the Hours section.

Click Add New to add more hours.

Choose a day of the week from the dropdown.

If the location is closed that day, check the Closed box.

Set the Opening Hour and the Closing Hour. Times listed are in Military Time.

Type any notes that might apply to that day. (Example: curbside or pickup window hours, hours apply only to a specific time frame like Summer or Winter, etc.

Where Hours Are Reflected

• the Library Locations & Hours list
• on pages in the user account (Checked Out Titles and Titles On Hold)

If using the Koha ILS, make sure the hours you enter into Aspen settings have no conflicts with repeatable holidays in Koha. From the Koha staff client, you can find these settings under Tools → Additional Tools → Calendar. For example, if the Koha settings specify Sundays as a weekly repeatable holiday, but your location is now open on Sundays, you will need to remove that repeatable holiday from the Calendar tool. Otherwise, Aspen will not be able to reflect your changes.

Adding Additional Information to your Location Information

In Aspen Administration > Primary Configuration > Locations > choose the library location > scroll to the Description box.

Here you can include text and links you want to share about the library location. You can also embed images here, but if you want to add an image of your library, we recommend uploading a Location Image instead (see the following section).

Once saved, this information will be included in the Library Locations & Hours menu, in the Additional Information section.

Adding a Location Image to your Location Information

1. Go to Aspen Administration > Primary Configuration > Locations > choose the library location.
2. Under Location Image, select the image you wish to upload. This could be a photo of the outside or inside of your library, for example.

Example of a location photo on the library contact info screen of Library Hours & Locations:

Example of a location photo on the library contact info screen in the LiDA app:

For Libraries with Regular Hours Year Round

For libraries with regular hours year round (Example: We're open on these set dates and closed on these set dates all year.) we recommend:

• Show the Library Hours and Locations Menu Link - See Information Here.
• Display Hours in Patron Account - In Primary Configuration > Library Systems > ILS/Account Integration > check Show Library Hours Notice on Account Pages. Then, the hours of the patron's home library will show in their Account in Checkout Titles and Titles on Hold. 
  • If your regular hours are consistent throughout the year, then manually set up each day's hours in the Locations > Hours table.

For Libraries with Hours that Vary Seasonally

For libraries with hours that change seasonally (Example: We're open on these set dates from September - June and then our hours change from June - September. We open Sundays during the summer. We are an academic library with semester-based hours.) we recommend:

• Show the Library Hours and Locations Menu Link - See Information Here.
• Disable Hours in Patron Account - In Primary Configuration > Library Systems > ILS/Account Integration > uncheck Show Library Hours Notice on Account Pages. Then, the hours of the patron's home library will not show in their Account in Checkout Titles and Titles on Hold. 
  • If your regular hours vary throughout the year, you may want to delete any hours in the Locations Locations > Hours table unless you want to manage them manually seasonally. Another option of displaying hours is using the Location > Description box instead. You can either manually copy and paste your text hours and/or display an image of your seasonal hours. See examples below.

   

For the Koha ILS: The Hours table will load automatically with the 7 days of the week and start hours of 00:30 and end hours of 00:30. You are unable to delete these hours. They will repopulate. Therefore, hours must be set for each Location if you are displaying them in the patron account and/or displaying them in the Library Hours & Location link.

Displaying Holiday Closure Hours

In Aspen, we consider Holiday hours to be something like "We close for Thanksgiving" and not "We're closed every Sunday."

• Display Holiday Closures in Patron Account - See Information Here. These holiday closures will show up in the Account in Checkout Titles and Titles on Hold if you have Show Library Hours Notice on Account Pages checked.
• Use System Messages to Display Holiday Closures in the Header - See Information Here. System Messages can be set on a scheduled start and end date and display prominently in the header of your Aspen catalog.

For the Koha ILS: If you have specified holidays within the Calendar tool in Koha, Aspen will automatically pull your holiday closings into this section. Any changes will need to be made from Koha administration. Attempts to change this information from within Aspen will be overridden by whatever you have set in Koha. These changes from Koha will show in Aspen after the indexer so you can expect holidays to show between 5-15 minutes.

The Automatic Timeout settings allow you to specify the length of time before logged-in users are logged out and the catalog is refreshed back to the main page when no users are logged in. These lengths of time will start counting once the patron is inactive.

These timeout settings are only applied when location-based options are set up. These two options are:

• Location settings by IP Address
  • Checking "Treat as OPAC" will tell Aspen to use automatic timeout settings. If no location is selected for the IP address, the default settings will be used (90 seconds for logged-in users and 450 seconds otherwise). If a Location is selected, Aspen will use the timeout settings specified in the Location settings.
• Location settings by branch URL parameter
  • &opac=true is the parameter that enables the timeout settings. If using this parameter with the branch parameter (ex: /?branch=MAIN&opac=true), Aspen will use the timeout lengths specified in the associated Location settings.)

To change automatic timeout settings:

1. Head to Aspen Administration → Primary Configuration → Locations → edit the location → scroll to Automatic Timeout Length fields.

2. Update the fields to set your desired length (in seconds), then save.

Tip: If you want to update multiple Location settings with the same timeout lengths, head to the main Locations screen and use the Batch Update Selected or Batch Update All buttons.

When Aspen detects a user is browsing the catalog from a specific location - based on IP address or branch URL parameter - you can tell Aspen to display copies available on the shelf with the "It's Here" status label.

To toggle this option on or off, head to Library Systems > Holdings Summary > Show It's Here

This is what search results on a catalog might look like when a user is browsing outside of the building:

If copies are available, the status will say "On Shelf" and the first few available copies will be listed, if enabled.

When the user is browsing from inside a building with "It's Here" enabled:

The label changes to show "It's Here" to indicate that the user can go grab that available item off the shelf. That location's available copies will also show primarily, and the user can click "Where is it?" to see copy information for other locations.