Nostos

Nostos simplifies library circulation systems by integrating transactions from disparate systems.

Nostos was originally developed to integrate a library's interlibary loan system with its integrated library system. This lets libraries to manage circulation within a single system, allowing patrons to check a single account and simplifying their experience. It also improves administration in that circulation notifications, policies, reporting, and auditing originate from a single sytem, which is most likely the library's most powerful/mature circulation system.

Configuration

Nostos does not ship with any particular source or target drivers. They must be installed individually and according to your needs.

Source Drivers

• Illiad

Target Drivers

• Voyager

Create a file config/nostos.yml as below. The below configuration is for the production environment. sources should be an Array of sources. targets should be an Array of targets. mapping should contain key:value pairs corresponding to source:targets respectively.

production:
  sources: ['Source::Illiad']
  targets: ['Target::Voyager']
  mapping:
    'Source::Illiad': 'Target::Voyager'

Configure config/database.yml as appropriate and run rake RAILS_ENV=production db:migrate.

Automating Nostos

Setup a cron job to run, fairly often. The following cronjob will run rake nostos:cron every 15 minutes and log the output to log/production.log.

*/15 *  *    *   *     /bin/bash -l -i -c 'cd /path/to/nostos && rake RAILS_ENV=production nostos:cron' >> /path/to/nostos/log/production.log 2>&1

Rake Tasks

In general, you should use nostos:cron to automate your system. However, there are other rake tasks available.

• nostos:poll_sources - polls sources for new transactions.
• nostos:send_to_targets - sends transactions to their target system.
• nostos:sync - syncs circulation systems. Treats the target system as the canonical circ system.
• nostos:cron - polls, sends, and syncs all in one.

Writing Drivers

Nostos is designed to be a easily extended. The following sections describe how you might implement a source or target driver for a system.

Source Interface

Source drivers must implement the following:

• Accessors: id, title, due_date, charged?
• self.find(id): returns a Source object corresponding to id
• self.poll: returns an Array of Source objects that may be new. This method may return objects that are old.

Target Interface

Target drivers must implement the following:

• Accessors: id, title, due_date, charged?`
• self.find(id): returns a Target object corresponding to id
• self.create(source_object): creates a transaction in the target system and returns the item. If the item already exists, do not create, but still return the item.

Author

Nostos was written by Brice Stacey