EHI, Ut. — August 17, 2012 — We are pleased to announce the release of Symphony NCIP 1.7.7 Server, which provides new and enhanced features designed to improve ILL integration and support for Unicode.

Changes to this update include:

• AcceptItem message – Previously, if the Item ID already existed on the Symphony server, the hold created for the patron was not made AVAILABLE. This resulted in no notifications being sent to the patron about the arrival of the item. This has been fixed so that the item is checked in if it already exists.
• ItemRenewed message – Now supported by SirsiDynix Symphony NCIP. This allows a local Symphony NCIP patron to renew an item borrowed from another library.
• User profile translation table – The system now loads and uses the sirsi-ncip-user-profile-translation.txt file properly for handling the translation of patron profiles to a selected NCIP user profile.
• Renew item – Previously, when a site’s item was on loan to another library, and the patron was not on the site’s local system, the system sent an ItemRenew message. The ItemRenew message now has an option to skip user validation.
• Authenticating patrons with a COLLECTION status – Previously, patrons with a status of COLLECTION were allowed to place requests. However, patrons with a status of BLOCKED or BARRED were prevented from placing requests. This feature has been updated so that patrons with a status of COLLECTION are also prevented from placing requests.
• Unicode characters in the Library policy – Previously, NCIP messages would fail if the library policy contained Unicode characters. This has been fixed so that NCIP works properly with Unicode.

The Symphony NCIP 1.7.7 Server can be installed at any library running Symphony 3.3.1 or later and can be installed for HTTP or TCP/IP. Customers running earlier versions of the NCIP Server are welcome to contact Customer Support and schedule an upgrade. For customers wishing to purchase the NCIP Server, please contact your SirsiDynix sales representative.

Release notes containing detailed information about updates and corrections included in this version are available on the Customer Support website.