Getting Started

Most people trying to get to know OLE will have familiarity with traditional software systems for library management, including vended offerings such as ExLibris' products Voyager and Aleph, III's Millennium and Sierra, SirsiDynix's Symphony and Horizon. Pthers may be familiar with the open-source products Koha and Evergreen.

OLE has two parents.  Its mother is a librarian: specifications for OLE were written by librarians with years of experience using these types of products, so the functionality needed to manage backroom library systems is available in the product.  Its father is Kuali, from which OLE gets its underlying RICE operating system. Features of Kuali/Rice are the use of e-documents, workflow and routing of those documents through the various processes, management of "persons" with various roles and permissions, and use of the Kuali Rules Management System for the circulation policies. 

A good way to start getting to know the product is to step through the documentation. 

Start with OLE Basic Functionality and Key Concepts. A helpful glossary is one of the links there.

Each currently existing module has an overview section that is very helpful: Select and Acquire: http://site.kuali.org/ole/1.5.2-SNAPSHOT/reference/html/OLESelectAcquireMEROverviewForUsersRevised.html

                                                                                                                         Deliver: http://site.kuali.org/ole/1.5.2-SNAPSHOT/reference/html/DeliverOverviewForUsersRevised.html

                                                                                                                         Describe: http://site.kuali.org/ole/1.5.2-SNAPSHOT/reference/html/DescribeOverviewForUsers.html

U of Chicago Approach

Stuart Miller of U of Chicago developed this intro session as the first course in a series of training sessions tailored to each staff person. All staff were required to take this basics course:

OLE Basics part 1 and OLE Basics part 2 Presented by Stuart Miller on June 20th, 2014. (mp4)

• Covers very basic features of OLE: What does OLE look like? How do you navigate around the interface? How to search for bibliographic, holdings, e-holdings and item records from the database?
• Outline: Introduction to OLE Basics