A collection of common questions (and answers) posed by prospective Public Libraries about what FOLIO can do.
Table of Contents
Catalogs (discovery layer)
Q. What catalog options exist for FOLIO?
A. VuFind, Project Blacklight and Ebsco Discovery Service.
More?
Circulation
Q. Can you print a receipt for a patron when they’re done checking out and can it be customized?
A.
Hosting Options
Q. Can FOLIO be self-hosted?
A. Yes, but with the complexity of the product - at this point - it’s recommended to have hosting assistance from one of the FOLIO partners.
Reporting
Q. Does FOLIO ship with out-of-the-box reporting tools?
A. Yes! The Reporting App can generate CSVs for export and additional tabulation.
Folio can also be equipped with an analytical database called MetaDB which offers tabular nearly real-time data, which enables other third-party reporting tools to connect to it. It also enables sharing useful queries between other libraries written in common SQL language.
Q. What third-party tools exist for reporting?
A. Redash and Metabase are two popular (and open-source) solutions, but PowerBI and Tableau can also be used.
Requests
Q. Does FOLIO support Title (bib) Level Holds?
A. Yes!
Q. Can a patron pause their holds for a period, say, when they’re on vacation of when they’re close to position 1 but not ready for the book yet?
A. No - but this feature request has been drafted and could be developed soon.
[UXPROD-3567] Suspend/Freeze/Pause a Patron Request - FOLIO Jira
SIP2
Q. Does FOLIO have SIP2 and what features/functions does it support?
A. FOLIO does have a SIP2 module, and the following codes/fields can be found <here>.
Automated Material Handling
Q. What vendors are supported for Automated Material Handling such as self-checks or returns?
A. MeeScan, M3, Envisionware, and MK Solutions are all supported using SIP2.