November 22, 2004

The software on the Ask a Librarian server has been updated. Below are the changes and improvements to the software.

• The system now detects if the patron has not handled the "secure/non-secure" message that occurs during the login process. This is important because the librarian is able to accept a user before they have handled the message and if the user does not handle the secure/non-secure message, it sends the co-browse into the endless configuration loop and the librarian and patron are unable to chat. Now, if the librarian accepts a patron who does not handle the secure/non-secure message, within 90-120 seconds the session will be ended by the software and the librarian will be presented with the end-of-session question information box. Additionally, text has been added to the auto-login script that welcomes the user to alert them to handle the secure/non-secure message.
• The system now detects if a patron's browser cookies are disabled or if certain popup blockers are installed and alerts the patron to let them know that they should disable the pop-up blocker or set it to allow pop-ups from Ask a Librarian.
• In statistics, patron login parameters now match the active session numbers; previously "orphaned" patrons would cause the numbers to be off.
• The "Home" link that appears on the patron interface pages (those pages seen when not logged in as an administrator) has been modified to go to http://www.askalibrarian.org/.
• When selecting a question to populate a new Online Reference Expert entry, the user would get an error in some cases; this has been fixed.

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