Multiple users accessing Admin

We currently have three laptops signed into Admin in our school library. However, teachers want the convenience of being able to return books using their own laptops.

Would you advice multiple user access to Admin especially since they would be able to manipulate the LibraryThing data?

I am offering training to do otherwise and there is successful high trust in our organisation.

Unfortunately, with only one Admin login per TinyCat account and logins being user-based not session-based, you would surely come across issues with multiple users trying to check out and/or return books at the same time in the Admin portal. I'm sorry for any inconvenience here.

We'll be sure to announce if we end up changing the Admin logins to session-based, which would help out here. I do have it on my list of features to consider!

We have TinyCat admin logged in on various PCs here as well, and in terms of Check-in/Check-out, we have no issues with it creating conflict, since each attempt to sign something out initiates a new communication with the server and therefore is always retrieving the most up-to-date information.

I would also love to see multiple users allowed in TinyCat admin. I would also like there to be different levels of admin, so that volunteer staff don't have access to billing, LibraryCat, or "delete all" buttons.

Multiple stations would be really helpful. I noticed today when I was doing training on an iPad station that it updated on our computer station really quickly, so I definitely think that would create some issues if we were circulating at the same time.

Actually, I cannot second calls for additional admin logins strongly enough. Not being able to have limited admin accounts for volunteers basically is a deal-breaker for any library that must obey European data privacy standards. You cannot have students see the full lending history of any of their peers, period. And this means you cannot have students help checking books back in, which is the main task in our library.

Duly noted. I believe one of the biggest blocks against us doing it isn't so much "why" but rather "how". The way our accounts were set up from the beginning would involve some major functional changes to allow this to happen. Our development team is simply too small to take on such a large task where other projects are currently taking precedence. I understand the frustration, so thank you very much for your patience!

This last message is six years old.
We are an all-volunteer library, and no one is here full time. Different volunteers have different days, or different shifts on the same day.

We are currently using an Access database, and are actively looking for a web-based library to replace it, as our developer will be leaving soon (after more than 20 years!) and the limitations on the current TinyCat roles are probably a deal-breaker for us.

The volunteers have varying degrees of computer competency, and common sense. There are some I absolutely would not want to have full admin access. But they all need to be able to check in and check out books. That's what they do! That's the point of an all-volunteer library.

Six years on, are you more or less committed to keeping the current roles?

>7 SeattleMetaphysical: Just briefly stepping in for @ZephCraven while he's out for the holidays..

I see that you have some Staff Admin roles in your library, but no Volunteer-designated roles. Volunteer Admin roles can still check books in and out!

Here's the full scope of the Admin User roles (outside of your sole, main admin login):

• Staff roles have access to the following pages within your TinyCat Admin portal: the Check in/out page, the Transactions pages, the Patrons pages, and the Reports pages.
• Volunteer roles have access to only the Check in/out page and the Transactions pages.
• Billing roles have access to only the Billing pages.

Are you looking for something else? If you're looking to add logins to LibraryThing for help managing the actual library catalog data, I'm afraid this just isn't possible the way that TinyCat was built upon LibraryThing. You could share your main admin login with a small number of highly trusted individuals, but you'll want to make sure no one else has access to their browser during their session, and that they log out when they're done.

Perhaps Zeph has further ideas for you when he returns, but please don't hesitate to clarify or ask further questions.

Kristi covered it! Let us know if you have further questions though! :)

We don't differentiate between staff and volunteer - everyone is a volunteer.
One of the main reasons people volunteer is because they have a specific interest in a section of our library, and they like to catalog and look up the books in that section,
Our original database had only title and author. Some of our volunteers like to spend their time looking up our books on the internet and researching them. Many books are old and out of print; some are unique to our collection.
It looks like the only person who can do that is me (the admin)?
So if people want to do the research and cataloging, they are all going to have to sign
in as me?

Hi again,

Even if you don't differentiate between staff and volunteers in general at your library, the specific roles (which just happened to be called "staff" and "volunteer" in TinyCat) can still be useful for your library in terms of deciding what access you want each individual to have!

To add and edit items directly within your library, yes you do need to be signed in as the primary administrator in LibraryThing. We don't have an option to have multiple primary administrators at this time. We don't usually recommend sharing your primary administrator password with others, as anyone with that login can edit or delete your entire catalog, in theory. That said, you may wish to create a workaround for this process: for example, providing volunteers with a way to compile book information that you or another trusted person can log into LibraryThing and add to your catalog.

The LibraryThing app can be a useful way for multiple folks to catalog an item at the same time, especially if those items have ISBN barcodes, but it doesn't sound like that will be as useful for your library as the "add manually" form, which only exists on the web version of LibraryThing.

Please let me know if you have any further questions or if there's anything I can do for you!

Unfortunately, that restriction will preclude us from using TinyCat as our main database. Sigh.

>12 SeattleMetaphysical: I'm sorry to hear that! Of course you can always provide access to your LibraryThing account for your full team and buffer the associated risks of that in other ways, with clear processes etc. The ability to "undelete" books, etc., newly available through Edit History is a big help with this.

I appreciate the feedback either way, and please let me know if there's any other info I can provide for you.

>14 ADTANYA: >15 ADTANYA: You are badly off topic.

>15 ADTANYA: I'll message you privately!

Tany, please notice that this topic is "Multiple users accessing Admin". The group is "TinyCat".

>13 ZephCraven: thank you for your help.
I don't want to let all our volunteers have access to the account management.
I've had too many bad experiences in the past with newbies inadvertently changing passwords, linking to wrong social media accounts, irresponsibly changing settings.

I'm not too worried about them messing up a book or two's information, but I can't let everyone have access to all our main account info.

>20 SeattleMetaphysical: Yes I agree it's too risky for most libraries to do that! So it sounds like you may want to use TinyCat the recommended way after all: maintain editing access under one person with the main admin password, grant special admin-user access to your volunteers so they can help with transactions, and simply share viewing and searching access without admin access to anyone else! Let me know if you have any questions at this point.