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LibAgent Introduction
Home > About LibAgent
What is LibAgent, and what is it good for?
Many of us often forget to login to the library computer and carry out the simple procedure that enables us to keep our books a little longer without undergoing punishment. This procedure is exactly what LibAgent does for you. On top of that, it does this DAILY while you are sound asleep (genuine hackers notwithstanding). A message with the results of the procedure is mailed to you. What you see, when you check your mail, is an e-mail message with the books you will have to return within the next few days. How long is "a few days" is a whole different matter, and has to do with something called the Panic Horizon .
So I never have to use ALEPH again?
Yes and no. Yes, because LibAgent relieves you of the need to telnet to ALEPH and do the extension procedure yourself. No, because LibAgent membership doesn't last forever; You will be asked you how long you want your membership to last, and you will be erased from the database when that period is over. You can ask for a membership period of up to 12 months. You can also re-register after you've been dumped, or even "refresh" your registry at any time to last for 12 more months. All using the same Web interface again and again, whenever the membership period is over (or about to be). We will send you a daily email message during the week before your registration expires to remind you to renew your membership. We limit the period for which you may register because some people don't bother to un-register when they finish their studies. This creates trouble for us.
Just about anybody who is a registered user at one of the ALEPH libraries.
I have more than one library card. What do I do?
If you're registered in more than one library, you can register as several users, each one with the appropriate details. They all can have the same e-mail address, no problem with that. Note that as far as LibAgent is concerned, these are different users, so they will have different passwords, etc.
It all started as a service for Technion students, and other academic institutions were added later on. You can see the entire list of supported libraries when you fill your details in the registration form and in the statistics page. If your library is not supported, tell us and we'll make an effort to support it as well.
Do I get a mail message every day?
Not necessarily. The system tries to send you mail only when there's something you should know about. That is, you'll get a message if you are requested to return a book, but not if you're allowed to keep it. You should also get a message if you've ordered a book and it has arrived. The behavior is parameterized by your panic horizon . It measures your anxiety, with regard to the library loan system, in units of days. Let's take an example; Suppose you set it to one week days (yes, YOU set it!). This means you'll get no mail unless there's a book you have to return in the next 6 days. For normal books in the Technion library, this means you'll get a mail message only when someone else has ordered your copy of the book, but never before that. And your loan will be extended every day without you ever knowing it. By default, you will also get a single email message every time someone orders a book you hold (no matter how long you can still keep it). This is called the Early Warning feature, and it is designed to remind you to return wanted books if you no longer need them.
If I don't get a daily message, how do I know the thing is working at all?
You don't, really. You'll have to take our word for it. We use the same system for our own books. We're concerned about it's operation as much as you are. LibAgent is running since October '96, with hundreds of registered users in different libraries around Israel (for an exact count, see the statistics page). They trust us. If you want, you can log-in to ALEPH yourself and do the book extension procedure manually, or just check that LibAgent did its job, but that takes the whole point of using LibAgent, doesn't it? If you really feel mistrusting, set the panic horizon to something very large (like a month). This way, there will always be something you should know about, so you will get a daily mail after all, you disbelieving geek!
This is great! How come I never knew of this service before?
As you already understand, this is a voluntary effort. We have no PR budget, and our publicity is limited by the good will of people who control media channels. We ask all libraries we support to advertise us on their web pages and bulletin boards. Some do, others don't. However you can help! If you think this service is valuable, please advertise us on your personal home page, tell about us to your friends, ask your librarian to advertise our existence on the library's bulletin board, etc. We will be grateful.
What will you do with my email address and personal details?
We will not transfer your personal details, including your email address, to no other party. We will use it exclusively to send you messages about your books, and to notify you about system-related issues that may affect you. The only exception to this rule is the use of info we have to help find security breaches and investigate abuse. In this case, the logs of your activities may be passed to law enforcing officials or to other parties that take part in such investigations. For the full statement, read the license agreement.
Nothing. That's zilch Shekels, nicht Agorot. This system is run on a voluntary basis. A thank-you letter would be nice, yes. It's just one of those things that make the Internet worth the bother, isn't it? The authors use it for their own books, and learned a lot about Perl and CGI programming during the implementation of the system, and that's good enough for them.
This is an easy process:
I tried to join, but got an error message!
Most probably, you mistyped your email address, so the password couldn't be delivered to you. Go through the registration process again, making sure that your email address is correct.
Remember that mail delivery can be slow at times. It may take several hours for it to get there (although rarely). Patience! When you get your mail, you can simply open your browser again and go through registration.
Also, make sure you type all the details exactly as you did the first time. Make sure you have the same letter casing (upper/lower). If your name can be written in English in more than one reasonable way, make sure you didn't mix similar-sounding letters (like "y" and "i"). You will be able to use your password only if everything matches exactly. Remember, this a computer you're dealing with, and it's no Einstein!
If anything went wrong, remember you can always go through the whole registration process from the beginning.
If you feel these explanations do not cover your problems, send us email and we'll try and help.
Should I keep this password? What is it for anyway?
No. There's no need for you to remember the password you were e-mailed when you registered yourself after the registration itself is complete.
This password is sent to you to verify that the email address you gave indeed works and belongs to you. If you know the password we sent you, we assume that you gave a valid email address. Whenever you perform any operation on your user entry in our database (update or delete), we generate a new password and send it to you, again, to check that your email is still valid.
We do all this for two reasons: Bouncing email is very inconvenient for us, and for you too (if you mistype your email address and we don't catch that, you'll never get warnings about books you have to return). Second, this will prevent someone else from mangling with your user entry in our database, unless he/she has access to your email.
Will you send me an email before removing my name from the DB?
Yes. And the details how to renew your membership will in there, too.
Nothing. LibAgent does not know what type of loan (standard/permanent/fixed duration) a book is on. Therefore, when it fails to extend your loan on the book, it will assume this is because someone ordered it. If you know the book was given to you permanently, or until the end of the semester, simply ignore this message. LibAgent will not send it more than once (see also the explanation on Early Warning).
Can I register with more than one email address to a given library?
Short answer: No. Long answer: there are many ways to achieve this kind of
behavior, none of them has really anything to do with LibAgent. Unix users
have plenty of options, procmail to name just one. For other
OS, many mail clients have "filtering" options to do these kinds of things,
as well as some web-based mailboxes and aliasing services. Ask around. It's
just not our department.
No it doesn't!
Why didn't you answer my Hebrew email?
Most probably, we weren't able to read it. Hebrew support on our system is lacking. Installing it would use resources we'd otherwise put into improving the service. No, we have no plans to switch; reliability is crucial for us (as we're certain it is to you), and it seems we're getting it for a pretty good price.
Can I get the source of your software? Can you install it on my site?
Short answer: No and No. This is a free service, but we're not releasing any software. If you just want your library to be supported, look here.
Can I cancel an order of a book?
Short answer: No. Long answer: log in to ALEPH and do this yourself (or call your librarian). This is a one-time operation; LibAgent is concerned with automation.
LibAgent's network connection is kindly provided by the Technion's Computer Science Department. They were also so kind as to donate a dedicated machine to run this service on.
Amir Ben-Dor and Dan Pelleg , both graduate students at the Technion, started this whole thing one day back in October 1996. The old method of automatic book extension stopped working one day due to an ALEPH version upgrade. Dan thought that writing a new program in Perl was a good way to learn the language. Amir, the local Perl Guru, guided him through. Not long afterwards more people in their vicinity wanted the same program to work for them as well. At first, they were given copies of the program, which was designed to work for just one student. As the number of users grew, it became harder and harder to transport the program (and it's bug-fixes!) to them all. This brought up the idea of a centralized service, and one was established. It used resources of the faculty of Computer Science in the Technion, and we thank them for that. On July '97 a major re-implementation took place, including better support for multiple libraries, improved Web interface and tightened security.
During the first half of 1998, both Amir and Dan have graduated from the Technion and left. LibAgent needed a new maintainer. In response to Dan's plea for help, Nadav Eiron, also a graduate student at the Technion, volunteered. Since then, LibAgent saw an exponential growth in its users' community. This prompted the dedication by the CS department of a server machine specifically to LibAgent's needs in June 1999. Dan Pelleg then briefly rejoined Nadav and together they ported LibAgent to its new machine.
Soon afterwards, with the growth of LibAgent, Nadav felt that LibAgent should have more than one maintainer. Michael Tsirkin, also a graduate student at the department, volunteered to help.
