request tracking

[sean dreilinger]

On Thu, 22 Apr 1999, Daniel Chudnov wrote:
__We're going through a maintenance cycle on the forms as a whole and
spent
__some time brainstorming recently on what a next-generation system
might
__looked like.  One concept that seemed to bubble up was a request
tracking
__environment built off a centralized database: patrons would still see
the
__same kinds of forms they're used to, but requests would get pushed
into a
__db and some backend logic would distribute alerts to appropriate staff
__members about waiting requests.  Each staff member could log in to the

help desk / trouble ticket / call center applications may provide a
model
(if not an outright solution) to this awesome idea for libraries.

if you want to look at two examples that come to mind, one is
peregrine's
service center: http://www.peregrine.com/corporate/subj03b.htm i believe
they sell customization along with the core application and might help
you
build what you want.

second example comes from the open-source (but not Free) software
community, called keystone. this is more the DIY approach, but does many
of the things you describe as a general problem/call tracking tracking
application: http://www.stonekeep.com/keystone.php3 
its constructed atop some very cool oss tools, php (http://php.net/) and
your choice of several free or low-cost sql rdbms's like postgresql
(http://www.postgresql.org/).

hth!

--
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