1. David Noe
Orange County Library System
dnoe@ocls.info
Automating Custom Patron Notices
and Messages Using SQL

2. • Metropolitan public library
• Main downtown library and 14 branches
• Serving > 1,000,000 Orange County Residents
• > 1.7 million items
• ~ 0.5 million checkouts a month
• ~10% of that are requests delivered
• ~350 employees
• Annual budget totals approximately $35.3 million
• Migrated to Sierra in late 2012

3. PROBLEMS:
• Delivered notices are clunky
Browser email Mobile

4. PROBLEMS:
• Delivered notices are clunky
• Customizing delivered notices?
– iReport (which is being replaced by something else?)
– Java
– Notice Data Libraries

5. PROBLEMS:
• Delivered notices are clunky
• Customizing delivered notices?
– iReport (which is being replaced by something else?)
– Java
– Notice Data Libraries
• Limited notices delivered
– Holds expiration alert
– Welcome messages
– Due date alerts
– Fine alerts

6. EXAMPLE CUSTOM NOTICE WE SENT BEFORE SQL ACCESS:

7. SOLUTION:
Create our own email notices leveraging in-house expertise.

8. LANGUAGE
•Perl
•Python
•VB
•PHP

9. PHP

10. LANGUAGE
•Perl
•Python
•VB
•PHP
•Whatever you got

11. BASIC DATA FLOW

12. RESOURCES
PHP
MySQL

13. WELCOME MESSAGE

14. <PHP?
$dbp = pg_connect("host=192.168.xxx.xxx port=1032 dbname=iii user=xxx password=xxx");
$dbm = mysql_pconnect('192.168.xxx.xxx','xxxx','xxxx');
$items = array();
$html = file_get_contents('/home/xxx/scripts/Templates/welcome_email.html');
$htmls = '';
$nl = "rn";
$q = "
SELECT
svn.patron_record_id as prid, svv.field_content as em, svn.last_name as ln, svn.first_name as fn
FROM sierra_view.patron_record svp
LEFT JOIN sierra_view.record_metadata svm
ON svp.id=svm.id
LEFT JOIN sierra_view.varfield svv
ON svp.record_id = svv.record_id
LEFT JOIN sierra_view.patron_record_fullname svn
ON svp.record_id = svn.patron_record_id
WHERE date(svm.creation_date_gmt) = current_date -15
AND svm.record_type_code='p'
AND svp.mblock_code = '-'
AND svp.ptype_code < '2'
AND svv.varfield_type_code = 'z';
";
$r = pg_query($dbp,$q); ...
WELCOME MESSAGE (only touching on core concepts)

15. if ($r) {
while ($row = pg_fetch_assoc($r)) {
$pid = $row['prid'];
$ln = ucwords(strtolower($row['ln']));
$fn = ucwords(strtolower($row['fn']));
$em = trim($row['em']);
if (@!$items[$em]) {
$items[$em][0][0] = $ln;
$items[$em][0][1] = $fn;
$items[$em][0][2] = $pid;
} else {
array_push($items[$em],array($ln,$fn,$pid));
}
}
} ...
WELCOME MESSAGE (seriously, do not attempt to read all of this)

16. foreach ($items as $h => $a) {
echo "rn<$h> "".$items[$h][0][0]." ".$items[$h][0][1]." ".$items[$h][0][2]."" rn";
$pname = $items[$h][0][1]." ".$items[$h][0][0];
$prid = $items[$h][0][2];
$em = trim($h);
$to = $h;
$subject = 'The Coolest Card In Town';
$headers = "From: <donotreply@ocls.info> "Orange County Library System"rn";
$headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0rn";
$headers .= "Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1rn"; ...
WELCOME MESSAGE (not my code, so it takes me half an hour)

17. if ($dbm) {
$s = "insert into statistics.welcomenotices(pid,em,ts) values ('".$prid."','".$em."',now());";
$r = mysql_query($s,$dbm);
echo "logging data rn";
} else {
echo "no connection to mysql rn";
}
if (preg_match('/^[a-zA-Z0-9_.+-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9-]+.[a-zA-Z0-9-.]+$/',$em) == 1) {
$htmls = str_replace('<!-- PATRON -->',$pname,$html);
mail($to,$subject,$htmls,$headers);
usleep(1500000);
}
}
?>
WELCOME MESSAGE (I may try to post some of our code later)

18. DUE DATE ALERT
SELECT
svc.patron_record_id as pid,
svp.first_name as fn,
svp.last_name as ln,
svv.field_content as email,
svb.best_title as title
FROM sierra_view.checkout svc
LEFT JOIN sierra_view.patron_record_fullname svp
ON svc.patron_record_id = svp.patron_record_id
LEFT JOIN sierra_view.varfield svv
ON svp.patron_record_id = svv.record_id
LEFT JOIN sierra_view.item_record_property svi
ON svi.item_record_id = svc.item_record_id
LEFT JOIN sierra_view.bib_record_item_record_link svl
ON svl.item_record_id = svi.item_record_id
LEFT JOIN sierra_view.bib_record_property svb
ON svl.bib_record_id=svb.bib_record_id
WHERE
date(svc.due_gmt) = current_date
AND svv.varfield_type_code = 'z'
ORDER BY svp.patron_record_id;

19. HOLDS EXPIRATION ALERT
SELECT
svh.patron_record_id as pid,
date_trunc('day',svh.expires_gmt) as exp,
svp.last_name as ln,
svp.first_name as fn,
sv1.field_content as email,
sv2.field_content as title
FROM
sierra_view.hold svh
LEFT JOIN sierra_view.patron_record_fullname svp
ON (svh.patron_record_id = svp.patron_record_id)
JOIN sierra_view.varfield sv1
ON (svh.patron_record_id = sv1.record_id
AND sv1.varfield_type_code = 'z')
LEFT JOIN sierra_view.bib_record_item_record_link bil
ON (svh.record_id = bil.item_record_id)
LEFT JOIN sierra_view.varfield sv2
ON ((svh.record_id = sv2.record_id
OR bil.bib_record_id = sv2.record_id)
AND sv2.varfield_type_code = 't')
WHERE
DATE(svh.expires_gmt) > DATE (now() + interval '7days')
AND DATE(svh.expires_gmt) < DATE (now() + interval '14days')
ORDER BY svh.patron_record_id asc, exp asc;

20. FINE ALERT

21. FURTURE PLANS
• Courtesy notices
• More personalized welcome notices
• Requests filled (held items delivery)
• Internal statistics

22. Fin.