WorldShare Circulation release notes, May 2020

Administrative actions

These items require immediate action or decisions.

UTF-8 encoding for SIP2

The WMS SIP2 Service can now support UTF-8 character encoding. UTF-8 supports all Unicode characters which will allow your library's self-service kiosks, sorting machines, and other SIP2-enabled devices can submit and display non-Latin characters.

Prior to this release, WMS supported SIP2's default encoding, IBM850. This will remain the default for any existing SIP2 connections that you library has already enabled. If your SIP2 client does not support UTF-8 encoding, you should continue to use the IBM850 option.

 Note: Some SIP2 clients may need non-English character sets to be enabled. Please contact your vendor(s) to determine if UTF-8 is supported and for help configuring your machine(s).

You can enable UTF-8 in OCLC Service Configuration per SIP2 IP Address:

 Note: You must reset your machine's connection to WMS for any configuration changes to take effect. In technical terms, this means that your SIP2 client must send a valid Login message (93) to WMS. You may need to reboot your machine to start a new session.

Notification translations for multilingual groups

Libraries that participate in group circulation can now configure Notification Policies with custom translations for all primary languages used by the group. When an email notification is generated, the system will use the translation that matches the language preference of the patron's home library. For example, an English Canadian institution can provide a French translation of its Loan Overdue Notification so that a French notice is sent to patrons of French Canadian libraries.

Translations are optional. If no translation exists, the notification will be delivered using the default language.

Translations will not apply to printed receipts, emails sent manually from the staff interface, or print notices created for patrons without an email address. The default translation of the printing/sending institution will be used.

 Note: This feature is only available to libraries using group circulation where at least one member library has selected a different language and/or country in the WorldCat Registry's Currency and Locale settings.

 Note: The following notification types are always sent by the patron's home library. At this time, translated text can be provided in Service Configuration but will not be used by the system:

• Bill Notification
• Hold Request Expiry Notification
• Suspension Notification

Delete Hold check-in mode disappears

If a WMS session was inactive for several hours, the Delete Hold mode was disappearing from the Check In screen. As of this release, the Delete Hold option will continue to be available during long sessions.

Special hours not always honored when calculating overdue fines

Special closures were not always taken into consideration when calculating periodic overdue fines, especially when an item's due date and its renewal or return both fell during the special closure. This issue is now resolved.

WorldCat Validation release notes

On 16 April 2020, the validation rules for OCLC Local Holdings Records (LHRs) were updated to:

• Allow the use of either subfields $a-$h (enumeration) or subfields $i-$m (chronology) in structured holdings fields (853-855 / 863-865) to record chronology data for chronology-only publications. 
• Allow an LHR to include a caption and pattern field (853-855) without entering and linking a corresponding enumeration and chronology field (863-865)..

See the WorldCat Validation release notes for more details.

Support website(s)

Support information for this product and related products can be found at:

• WorldShare Circulation
• Contact OCLC Support
• OCLC Community Center
• Browser compatibility chart