RCLS: ILS Services: Aspen Discovery

Aspen Discovery is a discovery layer (public facing catalog) that is slated to fully replace our current discovery layer, Enterprise, by September of 2023. Some member libraries are already using Aspen exclusively, or alongside Enterprise. Aspen combines our library catalog with e-content, digital archives, and enrichment from the major third-party providers. It also improves relevancy and ease of use, provides native reading recommendations, and displays all formats of titles within one result called a Grouped Work.

Answers to many questions about Aspen Discovery can be found in their Online Help Center, which is freely accessible.

The decision to "Go Live" with Aspen is left to each individual library. While RCLS recommends that you acclimate staff and patrons to the new public catalog as soon as possible, we will continue to have access to Enterprise until August 31st, 2023. The following checklist is a guide for libraries choosing a "Go Live" date for their Aspen Discovery Catalogs.

The easiest way to get an Aspen URL is to perform your desired search or navigate to the desired record and then copy the URL that appears in the address bar. Depending on where you want to send the patron, the URL will look a little different. Here are 3 examples using The Last Policeman:

Sending Patrons to a Search 

The URL for sending patrons to a pre-filled search looks like this:

https://ramapo.aspendiscovery.org/Union/Search?view=list&showCovers=on&lookfor=the+last+policeman

You could construct this URL manually by replacing the "ramapo" with your own library's aspen subdomain and replacing "the" "last" and "policeman" with your desired search terms, separated by plus signs.

Sending Patrons to a Grouped Work

A grouped work contains items with the same title, but in different formats such as paper book, audiobook, and electronic formats. It looks like this:

https://ramapo.aspendiscovery.org/GroupedWork/9b1860af-eeb2-c746-76e0-9912e5c14964-eng/

The grouped work ID is an internal ID in Aspen, so unless we know it ahead of time we cannot construct this URL manually. Best practice is to navigate to this page in Aspen and copy what appears in the address bar.

Sending Patrons to a Single Record

You may want to send patrons to only the print book or only the ebook. You can do this by drilling down to the individual bibliographic record. The links look like this:

https://ramapo.aspendiscovery.org/Record/a908978

You could construct this URL manually by replacing the "ramapo" with your own library's aspen subdomain and replacing the record number with the Symphony title control number. You can find this in WorkFlows or SymphonyWeb under the "Control" tab in the Item Search and Display wizard.