The last service pack for Voyage 8 was released a week or so back as 8.2.2, and work continues with the coding of Voyager 9.0 including the enhancements list submitted after last year’s NERS vote.
The expected release data has slipped a few months into Q2, 2014 due, I understand to the additional work necessary to incorporate utilities such as those developed by Gary Strawn into the core Voyager product.
As more and more sites move from Voyager (hopefully all) to Alma, these essential utilities need to be retained.
A decision was recently taken by both the IGeLU and ELUNA PWGs to cancel and have Ex Libris close enhancement requests older than 2009 so the next round of enhancement voting for Voyager 9.1 will offer members a list of candidates that is manageable. The site that raised the old enhancements have been notified of the closure, and given the opportunity to re-submit the request if they want to do so.
Click to see the list of closed enhancements
Over recent weeks the PWGs have been reviewing the full list of likely candidates and it is expected that about 60-70 enhancement statements will be put to the vote, with the hope that Ex Libris will accept the top ranked 20 and code for them in addition to the development they will be making for 9.1.
Voting will run from September 3rd to 17th.
The PWG will have vacancies from Berlin 2013 and details of these and links to the IGeLU PWG guidelines will be posted to Voyager-L within the next few days.
As more Voyager sites (especially those outside North America) move to Alma the international group is working closely with the ELUNA PWG, but it remains important that the needs of the international market are not overlooked.
Ray Delahunty, Voyager PWG coordinator