Stores Service Reaches Out To Sentient Lifeforms

Many habitual users of the Stores Service have become discombobulated in recent months by erratic behaviour from the store request form. This has now been fixed. Read on to learn more…

For the most part, customers request items directly through Explore, but there are exceptions. If the item is an unbarcoded periodical, for example, or if the reader wishes to collect/view the item at a site other than the Science Library, they can enter all the salient details in the generic form. This is then processed via an email-based system. Similarly, external users yet to apply for membership can place speculative requests via the form.

As with Explore requests, these are fulfilled within one working weekday, the sacred KPA of our service.

Unfortunately the CAPTCHA anti-spam feature of the form had become glitchy, leaving Stores customers uncertain as to whether their requests were being accepted, and often flooding our inbox with multiple duplicate requests. Click, click, click, click, click…

The library web support team have now moved us over to Google’s own ‘reCAPTCHA’ system. You may have seen this on your web travels – a tick-box demanding you assert that you are ‘not a robot’. You might be a cat or a parsnip or something, but as long as you’re not a pernicious bot intent on crippling us with DNS DDoS attacks, we’re happy* to provide you with material from our vast off-site collection (~1.5 million items).

We’re confident the new system will end the spate of errors, but please pass on any feedback to the contrary from readers at your respective sites. Email me with details of when the problem occurred, with as much information as possible i.e. UCL or non-UCL computer, mobile device, browser, nature of error, etc.

*note to self: confirm Mat Reynolds is happy to give membership to root vegetables with the correct forms of ID.