Ceridwen Self Issue Client

The Ceridwen Self Issue/Self Check Out client software provides library users with the ability to self check out books to themselves rather than relying on a staffed circulation desk. It presents a graphical interface to the library user and communicates with the back-end library system via a network. It is not itself a library system or catalogue.

The self issue client uses 3M SIP version 2 (Self Issue Protocol developed by 3M, also known as SIP2) to communicate with a suitable 3M SIP enabled library system. 3M SIP is an industry standard protocol for patron checkout of library materials. 

Prerequisites

The Self Issue Client is platform independent and will run on Windows, Macs, Linux, etc.

To install and run the Self Issue Client you need a computer with:

• Java runtime environment (JRE) 9 or above
• a network connection
• a video card and monitor capable of a minimum resolution 1024 x 768 resolution

For the Self Issue Client to be useful you need a back-end library system providing a 3M SIP2 server and a network connection.

Download

The latest versions can be downloaded from github.

The source code is available under GPL V3 and is available from a git repository. The repository contains source code for the SelfIssue client as well as a standalone 3M SIP Java library.  

Running 

To run the configuration editor, run the following command in the directory into which you have extracted the zip distribution

java -Xbootclasspath/a:conf-jar ConfigEditor.jar

To run the client, run the following command in the directory into which you have extracted the zip distribution

java -Xbootclasspath/a:conf-jar SelfIssue.jar

Configuration

The Self Issue Client includes a GUI configuration tool which can change most aspects of the software including visual appearance, connection settings in order to connect to different library systems using 3M SIP over telnet or socket connections. The Client can also send error and logging messages via e-mail. 

See the documentation for the Configuration Editor.

The Client can be configured to run in two modes:

• Trust Mode – in this mode, the Client will allow the issue of books which would normal be prevented by the library system. This is intended for use where there are no security systems to prevent unissued books being taken from the library. This was originally designed for use in Oxford Colleges to allow students a means of reconding when they had taken a book. When the Client cannot check the book out automatically on the library system, it will still allow the book to be issued, and will send an e-mail detailing the issue to the librarian to handle the issue on the system manually.
• Normal Mode – in this mode, the Client will report any denials to issue books from the library system to the user.

The Client can also be configured to allow offline operations when the library system or network is unavailble. In this mode, books will still be issued, and the Client will inform the library system of the books issued when it can reconnect. If there are any problems it will e-mail the librarian for manual intervention.

The Client has an plug-in API to integrate with patron barcode readers, item barcode readers. and security systems. Sample plugins are included which will work with JavaCard compatible RFID devices. For further information or bespoke customisation please contact development@ceridwen.com.

Problems and Issues

For general problems please contact us. For bugs and feature requests, please use our online issue tracker. 

Automatic updates

The Self Issue Client can also be run using NetX (an open source version of Java Web Start) to enable auto-updating of the client software. This is particularly useful for system administrators maintaining several client machines. 

To configure this, unzip the jnlp directory in the client distribution to a central location on a web server, e.g. http://myserver/selfissueclient/jnlp/

Copy the netx.jar file and the conf directory from the client distribution to the local machine.

To run the configuration editor run:

 java -Xbootclasspath/a:conf-jar netx.jar -jnlp http://myserver/selfissueclient/jnlp/ConfigEditor.jnlp

Note: the configuration options are stored on the local machine

To run the client, run: 

 java -Xbootclasspath/a:conf-jar netx.jar -jnlp  http://myserver/selfissueclient/jnlp/SelfIssue.jnlp

License

The Ceridwen Self Issue Client is available as open source under GPL v3. Contact us for other licensing options.