Join BookNet Canada Project Manager Carol Gordon for this presentation all about what’s new with BNC CataList over the last year. Learn about collaborative catalogues, order notification emails, and more. Watch to the end to see what’s ahead for CataList in 2023. Link to presentation: https://youtu.be/gqbupyF6jdk Presented by BookNet Canada on April 6, 2023, with support from the Department of Canadian Heritage.

1. Carol Gordon: Hello, Tech Forum attendees. I'm Carol Gordon, project
manager for the CataList Project, here at BookNet, and I'm happy to be here to
talk to you today about the CataList project generally, and some of the great
new features that were implemented in CataList this fiscal year that's just
wrapping up. I'll also preview some of the things that we'll be working on over
the coming year.
Before we get started, I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the indigenous
peoples of all the lands that we are on today, an acknowledgement that will be
personal to each one of us, due to the virtual nature of this platform, and the
wide range of locations that people are joining from today. I'm broadcasting
today from the Treaty 18 lands on traditional territories of the Chippewa,
Anishnawbe, Haudenosaunee, and Wendat Indigenous Peoples. I would
encourage you to visit the native-land.ca website, to learn more about the
peoples whose lands you are listening from today.
So, first off, I wanted to recap some of the stats from this year. So, at the time
of this presentation, we're a few weeks shy of the end of the year, but the
numbers are nonetheless pretty positive, and I'd like to share some of those. So,
we now have over 675,000 ISBNs that are published on the system, and that's
an increase of about 80,000 ISBNs over last year. So, that's a pretty big
increase. It includes the addition of 10 new publisher accounts this year, and of
course the current subscribers' regular, seasonal new title additions.
But a large portion of that increase is also a result of some distribution changes
that have brought more publisher titles to CataList via their distributors. And
we're also seeing a significant uptick in newly added backlist listings from
existing subscriber. And that's great news because we're hearing from more and
more library and retailer accounts that having the active backlist available in
CataList is a real benefit to them in the way that they wanna use the system for
purchasing acquisitions and collection development.
So, in addition to the 10 publisher accounts that I did mention earlier, we're also
continuing to see strong growth in new account signups from libraries and
retailers. So, 104 new retailers so far this year. So, this is continuing to be the
largest account growth area for us in terms of, you know, new signups. So,
we're continuing to see new book sellers that are entering the market, and
signup from established book sellers.

2. But I think the largest sector for us here continues to be in the gift and specialty
markets. And there's a clear value for subscribing publishers to provide easy
access to their catalogues through CataList to these accounts, you know,
smaller accounts. And at the same time, CataList can help to fill the gaps that
many of these accounts have in terms of their access to ordering tools for book
product, so I think that's really where we're seeing that growth.
There were also 12 new library or school accounts this year. It doesn't seem like
a substantial number as what we were seeing in the overall retailer signups, but
there are a few things to maybe keep in mind here, that some of these accounts
can be larger, it's library regions or school boards with multiple users
representing schools or branches.
And I don't have specific numbers to share with you on this today, but I wanna
mention it because it's an important kind of site usage analytic that we'll be
really watching closely over the coming year. And that is some increased usage
of CataList for sourcing English book product by the schools and libraries in
Quebec. So, these accounts are becoming more familiar with the CataList
system functionality through their use of an adopted version of the site that the
BTLF in Quebec is using for their Memento project.
So, all of those accounts and users of Memento automatically have access to
CataList where they can use the CataList tools to search for English titles by
subject, publisher, keyword, date range, Canadian authorship, all the things you
can do in CataList search system. And then they can build orders that they can
place through their accredited retailers directly in the CataList system. So, it's a
really handy tool for them and they're already familiar with using it from their
usage of Memento.
So, again, here's one of the places where I'm gonna make an ask for our
subscribing publishers to continue to list their active backlist. So, we're really
seeing an uptick in request from clients that are asking for specific titles in the
backlist that they wanna order, that they'd really like to see those added to
CataList. So, buyers looking for the information, we'd love to see more of it.
So, moving on from those stats, we can talk a little bit about what's new, the fun
stuff. So, in terms of development for the fiscal year, the majority of our
CataList development really stayed centered this year around two major feature
releases, both of which were largely focused on improvements to the core
functionality of catalogues.

3. Our first major release, and this was fairly early in the year May, 2022, this was
the addition of support for collaboration on custom catalogues. So, previously
on a custom catalogue, you were restricted on the editing side only to the
specific individual who were originally created that catalogue. And viewing
privileges were only available to the creator and the recipients that the creator
specifies.
And there's still a strong use case for this in the system, the private custom
catalogues, for instance, where reps are selling to specific buyers and adding
customized content like suggested order quantities. But there is a definite need
to expand the range of functionality to allow colleagues to work together on the
creation and maintenance of custom catalogues.
So, the new features allow a catalogue creator to set the editorial permissions on
a new catalogue when they're creating it. And if those editorial permissions
need to change in future, this setting can be modified to either allow
collaboration on a private catalogue, or take a collaborative catalogue and
return it to a private state.
So, those changes also necessitated some additional work for users' My Page
views, to allow them to easily see which catalogues were available for
collaboration, which of their own catalogues they had made available for
collaboration as well. So, we added some new filters, new columns here to
allow people to, you know, hide those catalogues that they were not interested
in seeing.
The other part of this, of course with the additional views of catalogues, was the
performance improvements. We needed to make some performance
improvements to handle that larger number of catalogues that individuals could
now have access to. And I would say that it is a good thing that we completed
that performance work. Just looking at some numbers, I can verify that one
account alone, since May when we released this feature, we've seen the addition
of 750 collaborative type catalogues in addition to their private catalogues that
were still continuing to be created. So, we're definitely seeing some usage and
uptick on these collaborative catalogues, so it's pretty exciting for us.
So, there's one additional major change that we made in this feature set, and
that was a change to allow account managers to access all of their accounts'
catalogues. So, over time, many accounts had built up lists of custom
catalogues that were owned by users who had, you know, moved on to other job
roles in the company or on to other companies. And it was always difficult to

4. determine who had posted a custom catalogue, for example, to a publisher page,
or to remove those as they became out of date.
So, the new feature that we implemented at the same time here was to allow
only those users with the account manager top level permissions within an
account, to be able to view and modify any of the custom catalogues that were
associated with their accounts.
So, next step while we were working on our plans and specs, or the other major
feature I'll talk about in a minute, we also did continue introducing a number of
smaller features throughout the year. So, one of those, and that we haven't made
a lot of fanfare about it, I think it's a really useful usability improvement, and so
I wanted to mention it here, and this is colour coding for the product availability
status. This is actually something that we've adapted from a request from that
Quebec market, who had a similar feature in their previous tool set. And, you
know, we wanted to bring that into CataList as well because it really does make
it easy to see at a glance, the status of a title.
So, this is based on the product availability field from the ONIX data that we
receive from suppliers. And there is some mapping that's happening here to a
simplified list. There's, I think, 40 codes for availability in ONIX, so we've
simplified that to a list of four statuses, forthcoming, available, temporarily
unavailable, and unavailable. So, in that mapping, we do have that available in
our user documentation. I'm happy to send that to anyone who would like the
details.
So, for those who haven't noticed this feature on the site yet, you'll see it appear
in supply detail on the title detail page for every title in the system. You'll also
see it in grid views for catalogues and search results when that availability
column has been added as a custom column. And I will just throw in a little
mention here. It wasn't in the feature this year, but that custom column feature
for grids in the system is also still relatively new. So, if you haven't checked
that out yet, it's that customized columns button in the top right of the table
header for any of the grid views. And you can actually choose the custom
columns that you'd like to display in that grid. And when you're in the catalogue
grid view, you can also use those column settings to determine what is included
in your Excel exports. So, a useful tool if you have not yet seen it.
Next up, at the request of our sales reps, we finally added a new order
notification system, which includes the order notification emails. So, when
orders are submitted through the system from retailers or libraries, the system

5. will now generate an order notification to the rep that is tagged on the order. So,
the emails will include both a link to the order, where you can view it in the
system, and an Excel file with the contents of the order. So, if you don't wanna
have to go and log in, you don't have to, you can pull the content of the order
directly outta the email.
And I'm not showing it on a slide here, but there's also a notification dot that
appears in the main navigation bar in the CataList system when you're logged
in, to alert reps when orders have been submitted. So, nice to have those order
notification improvements in place. And there have been other small features
improvements through the years, through this year, particularly around
performance and search. But in the interest of time, because I have a very short
amount of time to show off all the new things, I wanna make sure I get to show
our final addition to CataList for this year.
So, this is the second major core feature improvement for CataList,
improvements to core catalogue features. And this will be releasing this month,
so that's March, 2023 if you're watching this in future. But this feature really
gives our publishers, reps, buyers, anyone who's managing catalogues or title
lists, a much easier way to manage the titles in those lists.
So, we're really excited about this release, and we think it is going to be a game
changer for making catalogues easier to manage. So, a bit of background.
Previously, the only way to delete titles from a catalogue was to go to the
organize page in the editing tools, navigate to the title in that grid, click the
delete button in the row for that title, and then re-save the whole catalogue.
So, the new functionality that we'll be rolling out is bringing this ability directly
into all of the catalogue views for the catalogues, where you have permission to
edit. So, inside the red box here on the slide, you will see there's the three action
buttons. So, three actions available for each of these titles. And obviously,
you're gonna see the buttons for all the actions that you have permission to
perform. So, the first one on the left, the sheet with the plus sign, most users
will be familiar with this as our add to catalogue function in the current system.
So, when you're working in a catalogue, this button is now called copy. If you
hover over it, it's going to say copy when you're in a catalogue. But it does
exactly what you'd expect. It maintains the title. In this catalogue that you are
viewing, it allows you to copy it or add it, add to catalogue, to another custom
catalogue. So, you're just taking a copy of this and adding a copy of it to
another catalogue.

6. So, the second button, centre one, this is a new feature. So, this is the sheet with
the outward pointing arrow. And the action here is move. This allows you to
remove the title from the current catalogue and send it to another. So, you
know, essentially this button is kind of a combination between copy and delete.
It's bundling those two functions together. It's allowing you to send a copy of
this to another catalogue and delete it out of this one. So, that's the move action.
Logically, delete is the red X button that we see at the far right, and I think
that'll be familiar to most of our system users. I don't think I need to go into too
much detail about what's going to happen there. You're gonna delete this title
from the catalogue.
And so, to clarify, I'm showing the thumbnail view here, but those three single
title action buttons will be available in all of the views of the catalogue. So,
thumbnail, scroll, grid view, you'll always have that option. Whatever your
preference is for viewing and working on your catalogues, you'll be able to take
advantage of these quick and convenient title management tools in all of those
views.
So, the next question, what do you do when you want to copy, move, or delete
multiple titles? So, this is actually one of the most exciting things about this
feature set. So, for larger title sets now, you can use the checkbox system,
which again is available in all of the views of the catalogue, to select multiple
titles that you want to act on, and manage them as a group. So, when multiple
titles are selected, as I'm showing here, I've got two selected in the check boxes
at left. And the system will open a floating menu at the top right of the page.
Now, that's in the right box to the right.
So, your floating menu is at the top of the page that'll keep count of how many
titles you've selected. It allows you to select all the titles in this catalogue with
one click. It allows you to clear your selections, and then choose the action that
you want to apply. Now, we'll just make a quick mention that you can minimize
that box so that you're just seeing the title selections count without any of the
buttons, you know, to kinda minimize what it's blocking. You can also use the
grab handles at the top left to move that box around if it's in your way. So, that
is a click and draggable box.
So, for copying and moving single titles or multiple titles, the process is very
similar. It's very similar to that current add to catalogue process. So, we have
though updated the form. If anyone's used add to catalogue, this will look
familiar, but it is changed it up a little bit. We've just made this form a little

7. easier to use, made it more obvious how to create a new catalogue with the
titles you've selected, and to scroll through the list of possible destinations.
The search feature there is still there as well if you wanna have a long list of
destination catalogues possible that you can search for a specific one. The other
kinda final change in this feature set is that we've changed the confirmation
messaging a little bit, so that you can easily navigate to the catalogue that
you've sent the titles to. So, if you're creating a new custom catalogue with the
title or titles you've selected, you'll be able to just navigate directly to that
catalogue from the confirmation message. Same thing if you are using, you
know, whether you're using copy or move, you'll be able to go to the copy or
move for new catalogues you've created, and also if you are sending those titles
to an existing catalogue, you'll just be able to navigate to that destination
catalogue easily. So, we're pretty excited about that.
We think these functions are gonna be a really huge improvement for all of our
users, and we're really excited to be getting these out to you before the end of
this fiscal year. So, there's only a few weeks left, so you can look for those soon
if you haven't seen them yet.
So, what is on the horizon for CataList? So, we're of course, still working
regularly with our user group, with the feedback that we get from our customer
surveys, and the messages that come in directly to our team, you know, to try
and make sure that we're delivering the most necessary improvements first as
things change over time. So, we don't have our full list of what we're doing,
everything that'll be in this year just yet. But there are a few things that we
know will be coming up in this year.
So, first is the upcoming transition of accounts in CataList, to move over to use
the ONIX 3 data. So, CataList is in the final testing stages for the ONIX 3
ingestion. So, we will be looking to start transitioning clients over probably this
summer, so that's summer 2023. We've already started reviewing client data for
readiness, and we'll be continuing that through the spring and feeding back
information to publishers about any of the issues that we identify.
So, how that transition's gonna happen, we're working at all of the details, the
final details here, but it will be an account by account transition. And support
for ONIX 2.1 will continue for the foreseeable future. So, there's no need to
panic if you're still relying on the ONIX 2.1 feeds. But over time, I think you're
gonna find that the publishers who are supplying us with ONIX 3 are going to

8. begin to see more of their content supported in CataLists that just can't be
supplied in the ONIX 2.1 versions.
So, if you're interested in learning more about how CataList is mapping ONIX
3 into their system, I put up a new link in the slide that links to our detailed
ONIX mapping documentation. And again, we're happy to have any
conversations about ONIX 3. You know, we do offer education and support on
the ONIX 3 standard through BookNet as well. So, we're pretty excited to see
this transition start to happen, and we're happy to answer any questions you
have about it.
Beyond that, there's a few items that we know are remaining at the top of our
users' priority lists, generally. And so, we have these on our radar for this year,
including the ability to post and control access to full F&Gs for the kids' books.
That's been a standing top priority for a little while. So, once we wrap up these
current final bits of our direct actions and catalogues feature, we'll be moving
on to look at this feature.
We will also have some additional search improvements happening this year as
we get more people looking. At backlist, more additions of backlist, we'll be
looking at continuing to improve the search features, including for search, the
ability to surface accessible ebooks more easily. So, we'll have some search
features related to that.
Performance, this is an ongoing commitment to continue improving
performance across the site. So, definitely be keeping that top of mind as we
move through and look at other features. I expect we'll see some other, you
know, smaller features and ongoing improvements through the year. So, sign up
for our newsletter to keep up on top of the new features. We send that about
nine times a year, and we will always let you know when we have new features
to talk about.
So, thanks for attending today. I hope you've seen some things today that you're
excited about. We're happy to hear any of your feedback on this year's new
feature set, and the things that you'd to see in CataList in future. So, you can
reach out to me or better yet, get in touch with the team here at catalist@
booknetcanada.ca. Thank you.