September 2023 New from PIAC (Polaris ILS Advisory Committee)
PIAC met with Innovative on Monday, September 25 to discuss several items.
LEAP issues with Chromium build 117.0.5938.63
A new version of Chromium has introduced printing scaling issues and issues with selecting records in the Find Tool in Leap. Innovative is working on a fix for these issues that are now appearing in the Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge web browsers.
As a short term fixes:
Small print font: Increase print scale to 140%
Find Tool record selection issues: Verify your Windows scale and text is set to 100%, and that your browser zoom is also set to 100%.
Use a different supported browser, such as Safari or Firefox
Innovative/Clarivate privacy policies
PIAC asked for more information about how Innovative’s privacy policy and services privacy policy apply to customers. These privacy policies are linked to by default in Vega Discover.
Kat Cuff, Director of Product Management, shared that libraries using Vega Discover can and should override the Innovative privacy policies with your own library’s privacy policies. She clarified that the linked policies broadly apply to Innovative products and solutions. Innovative does not sell patron data to third parties. The only data they collect is to help understand usage and usability of the product based on the interaction with the interface. This data is anonymized and aggregated.
If your library has questions about data clauses in your organization’s contract, please contact your account manager to review.
LX Starter/Vega data storage and PII
PIAC asked what patron data is stored in LX Starter outside of the ILS. Whitney Murphy, Director of Product Management, shared that LX Starter pulls in and stores several patron data points from the ILS, including birthdate and address information. All stored data is encrypted and all PII is masked in the interface. Clarivate runs continuous security scans on their database and has a service-level agreement to fixing any identified vulnerabilities within 7 days.
LX Starter doesn’t yet sync deleted patron accounts with the ILS. That is currently on the roadmap for Q1 2024.
PIAC raised concerns that some of the patron data being stored isn’t necessary for Vega tools and this storage may not align with an organization’s local data retention policies. Whitney has taken note of our concerns and will follow up.
Leap item language field
The new (as of 7.4) Leap item language field utilizes the same languages table being used in patron accounts for notification language. PIAC members shared that this is problematic, because many libraries have more languages in their collections than they offer notices in. The feature was built this way due to a contractual development. If you’re interested in seeing changes to this functionality, vote on this idea in the Idea Exchange!
Upcoming Polaris releases
Polaris 7.5 is on schedule to be released in October.
Polaris 7.6 will feature MARC Editor improvements and other Technical Services functionality.
View the Polaris product board for more information on what’s coming in both releases.
Check-in method for the Polaris API
A checkout method was added to the API as part of Polaris 7.4. Innovative would like to add a check-in method, but they do not have a timeline for when this will be added.
If you have questions, concerns, frustrations, praise, suggestions, the PIAC is here to represent you to Clarivate. Please feel free to reach out to Debra (dwischmeyer@ccslib.org) or any PIAC member.