Setting up the OPAC

Turning the OPAC on is a guided flow, not a settings form. When a library has enough of a catalog to be useful, the screen: OPAC settings page shows a setup wizard that walks you through a few decisions and then publishes the catalog to students. This page covers that wizard, the visit-mode and sign-in choices it sets up, and how to change any of it after you go live.

Before you start

The wizard only appears once the library has a catalog to show — 12 copies is the threshold. Until then, the OPAC page says the OPAC needs a catalog first and offers button: Add items and button: Import catalog rather than setup. Setting up is library-manager work: other staff opening the page see only message: The OPAC is not set up yet. A library manager can publish it for this library. (A patron roster isn’t a hard requirement to publish, but you’ll want one imported before students actually sign in.)

The setup wizard

The wizard has four steps; a stepper across the top shows where you are (Welcome, Web Address, Visit Mode, Review). Nothing goes live until the final button: Publish OPAC.

Welcome. A short overview of what you’re about to set up: a web address, a visit mode, and the homepage.
Web address. Choose the web address students type to reach the OPAC (see below).
Sign-in. Choose how students visit (with their class or on their own), then how they sign in, any grades that sign in differently, and whether patrons can place holds, all on the same step.
Review. Confirm your choices (web address, visit mode, student sign-in, and patron holds) and publish. The OPAC URL goes live immediately.

Web address

The OPAC lives at a per-library URL built from a web address you choose here. Students type it to reach the catalog. Lyra checks availability as you type and validates the format (lowercase letters, numbers, and dashes).

The web address must be globally unique across all of Lyra, not just your school, and there’s no auto-fill from the library name — you type it. Keep it short and memorable. The full patron-facing URL is https://opac.lyralibrary.com/{web-address} (no trailing slash). You can change the web address later from the OPAC page’s card: Disruptive Changes card, but doing so breaks any existing printed QR codes or saved bookmarks.

Publishing

The review step lays out your web address, visit mode, student sign-in, and patron holds one last time. button: Publish OPAC makes the URL live immediately (students can start visiting right away), so this is the moment to share the link with homeroom teachers.

Building the homepage isn’t part of the wizard. A freshly published OPAC starts with two automatic lists, New arrivals (recently added) and Most checked out (top-circulating), and you curate everything else afterward on the tab: Lists tab of the screen: OPAC page: add custom lists, reorder them, and scope them to homerooms. See Lists.

Choosing a visit mode

The visit mode is the wizard’s first choice: it controls how students enter the OPAC and which sign-in methods there are. It’s a per-library setting.

With their class. The first screen offers a list of classes (teachers’ names, typically, under the heading message: Which class are you in?). Picking one isn’t required: a patron can browse the library-wide catalog without any homeroom context, and a teacher can sign in directly from this screen without picking. A patron who does pick a homeroom lands on a homepage built around that class, with lists restricted to that homeroom alongside the library-wide ones.
On their own. No class prompt. The patron lands directly on the catalog and browses the library-wide lists without a homeroom context. Once they sign in, Lyra looks up their homeroom (if they have one) and adds any homeroom-restricted lists they’re eligible for.

Elementary and most middle schools run With their class because students arrive in class groups and the class-first flow is faster on a class iPad. High schools typically run On their own because students arrive individually and there’s no class context to assume.

Aspect	With their class	On their own
First screen	Pick a class (optional), or browse without one	Browse the catalog
Student sign-in	Tap their name, name and PIN, or an emailed code	An emailed code, or none
Library card	Signs in students who tap their name or use a PIN	Not used
Teacher and visitor sign-in	6-digit code emailed to them	6-digit code emailed to them
Default browse	Lists filtered by the patron’s homeroom (where lists are scoped)	Library-wide lists, plus homeroom-scoped lists after sign-in
Homeroom-restricted lists	Visible after picking a class	Visible only after sign-in (homeroom not known earlier)

The full homeroom model is on Homerooms; lists and homeroom scoping are on Lists.

You set student sign-in during the wizard, on the same step where you pick the visit mode. The same controls live on the OPAC settings page afterward: button: Configure on the card: How Students Visit card opens the dialog: Student Sign-In dialog.

There are no passwords on the OPAC. Browsing always comes first; signing in is optional and only needed to place a hold. Teachers and community patrons always sign in with an emailed 6-digit code, whatever you choose for students. That isn’t configurable.

For students you answer one question, setting: How do students sign in?, with one of these methods:

Method	With their class	On their own
Tap their name	Yes	No
Name and PIN	Yes	No
Email code	Yes	Yes
Students don't sign in	Yes	Yes

Without a class list there’s no name to pick, so a library whose students come on their own signs them in by email or not at all.

Email code

The patron enters their email; Lyra sends a 6-digit one-time code to that address; the patron types it in. No password to remember. Middle and high schoolers with reliable email are the typical fit.

Patrons must have their email address in their Lyra patron record and they must have access to an email client when using the OPAC. If the OPAC station doesn’t have a way to check email (a shared iPad without email apps installed, a kiosk without browser-to-browser switching), the code is harder to use in practice, which is why classes on a shared device usually use a name instead.

The patron picks their class, taps their name in the class list, then enters their PIN. Lyra signs them in. The list shows each student’s first name (or preferred name) and last initial, adding more of the last name only where two students would otherwise read the same. Students can also scan their library card instead of picking their name.

PIN is students-only. Faculty rows don’t carry a PIN. A faculty patron always signs in with a 6-digit code.

This is the method for:

Younger students who can remember a short PIN (4 to 12 characters; the ones Lyra assigns are 4 digits).
Libraries where students sign in on a shared device without email.

PINs are set at the patron record:

At import time. The pin column in the Roster import seeds PINs as part of the roster upload.
From the patron record. A staff user sets a specific PIN or assigns a new random one from the patron’s library detail card (or the school patron form). When a student forgets their PIN, issue a new one there and read it back to them.

Limitations to be aware of:

No email recovery. A patron who forgets their PIN waits for a staff user to reset it. There’s no self-serve path, since the assumption is the patron may not have email. Plan for the reset workload, especially after long breaks.
PINs are not strong passwords. The value of guessing a library patron’s PIN is low, but treat PIN as a convenience method, not a security boundary. Lyra stops accepting PINs after too many wrong ones; see OPAC access.

Self-select

Tap their name: the patron picks their class; the OPAC shows them the list of names in that class; they tap their own name. No password, no PIN, no email. They can also scan their library card, which signs them in the same way.

This is the method for:

Kindergarten and 1st grade. Pre-readers and early readers who can recognize their own name but can’t reliably enter a PIN or read an email.
Class-visit-only OPAC use. A teacher brings the class to the library; the OPAC is on a tablet at the desk; each student takes their turn picking from the class list.

This is the least secure method. Anyone with physical access to the OPAC station can sign in as anyone in the class, so turning it on is a deliberate trade of security for usability in the cases that call for it. Treat it as in-class, supervised use, not unsupervised takeout.

Library card

The student holds their printed library card up to the device’s camera, types the number under its barcode, or scans it with a USB barcode scanner. The card isn’t a method of its own; it comes with the name-picking methods:

With Tap their name, the card signs the student in.
With Name and PIN, the card asks for the PIN, unless you choose Skip the PIN under setting: When a student scans their library card. Then the card alone signs the student in, and anyone holding the card, or knowing its number, can sign in as that student.
With Email code or Students don't sign in, the card doesn’t sign anyone in.

When any grade can sign in by card, the class picker and each class’s name list show button: Scan your library card. After a scan that needs a PIN, the student sees their first name, so a child who picked up a sibling’s card notices before typing. A card that isn’t a student’s, belongs to a grade whose method doesn’t take cards, or doesn’t exist gets the same message: message: That card doesn't work here. Check it's your library card, or ask the librarian.

The camera reads the Code 128 barcode Lyra prints on its cards. Cards printed by another system need to be Code 128 too, or students can type the number instead.

Different methods for different grades

The method you pick applies to every grade. When some grades need something else (kindergarten taps their name while everyone else uses a PIN, say), select button: Set by grade and choose a method for just those grades; the rest stay on the method most students use. A grade can also choose Name and PIN, card skips PIN, so the card skipping the PIN can differ by grade too.

A student’s grade is their homeroom’s grade, or the grade their class year puts them in when they have no homeroom, so the rollover is automatic: when a student moves from 1st to 2nd grade, their sign-in follows the grade without anyone touching the patron record.

When no grade can sign in in a library whose students come on their own, a signed-out visitor sees button: Teacher or visitor sign in in the header in place of button: Sign in, and the hold button and the homepage’s sign-in line are hidden.

Patron holds

setting: Let patrons place holds is on by default, and it applies to every patron who signs in: students, teachers, and community patrons. In the wizard it sits in the setting: Patron circulation section after sign-in for that reason, beside the renewals switch. Turn it off when the library doesn’t want patrons placing holds from the OPAC. Patrons then see no button: Place hold button on any item, and no note in its place. Browsing and searching are unaffected.

Turning holds off doesn’t touch holds patrons already placed: they stay in the queue, still show on screen: My stuff, and patrons can still cancel them. Staff can place holds for patrons in the staff app either way (see Holds workflow).

The setting is per library, and only a library manager can change it.

Patron renewals

setting: Let patrons renew their loans lets patrons renew their own loans from screen: My stuff, under the same renewal limits as the desk (see Renewals). It’s on by default, and the wizard offers it beside the holds switch. Turn it off and patrons see no button: Renew button; staff can renew loans for patrons either way.

The setting is per library, and only a library manager can change it.

Changing settings after you go live

Everything you set in the wizard is editable from the OPAC settings page once the OPAC is published.

Visit mode and sign-in. Change these any time from button: Configure on the card: How Students Visit card. Switching visit mode takes effect immediately for anyone visiting, so Lyra warns before you save: sign-in flow and defaults change mid-stream, which can confuse students who are already using the OPAC. Settings for the mode you switch away from are preserved if you switch back.
Patron holds and renewals. Open button: Configure on the card: Patron Circulation card and switch setting: Let patrons place holds or setting: Let patrons renew their loans on or off. See Patron holds and Patron renewals.
Sora setup code. If your catalog has digital items, open button: Configure on the card: Sora card and enter the code students type in Sora to find your school. Each digital item’s button: Read in Sora then opens straight into your school’s collection. Without one, Sora asks students to choose their school.
Homepage. Rearrange, add, and remove lists from the tab: Lists tab of the OPAC page.
Homepage headline. The large line above the search bar shows a different built-in headline each day. To show the same one every day, open button: Configure on the card: Homepage Headline card, choose Fixed headline, and enter up to 60 characters. Choose Rotate daily to go back. Students see the change the next time the OPAC loads.
Web address. Changeable, but treated as a deliberate, infrequent action (it lives in the OPAC page’s card: Disruptive Changes card) because the old URL stops working and any bookmarks break.

Once the OPAC is published, the settings page shows a card: Share the OPAC card with everything you need to get students to the catalog:

The public link. The OPAC’s full address (<opac-url>/<web-address>), with a one-tap copy button. Post it in Classroom, a newsletter, or a homeroom page.
A QR code. button: Download QR code saves a PNG (opac-qr-<web-address>.png) you can print for a poster, a shelf label, or a card by the library tablet. Students scan it to land straight on the catalog.
View OPAC is a link that opens the live catalog in a new tab so you can see what students see.

Once the OPAC is published you don’t need this page to reach it: every library screen has an button: Open OPAC button in the header, beside the search box, that opens the catalog in a new tab. It appears for every staff role, and only in libraries whose OPAC is published.

Always start a new session

The card has an setting: Always start a new session checkbox. With it on, the link and QR code point at a fresh-entry address (/<web-address>/start) that clears any existing session before loading the catalog, so each scan begins signed out and the next student never lands in the previous one’s account. Turn it on for a shared library tablet or kiosk; leave it off when you’re sharing a link people open on their own phones.

The checkbox shapes the link and QR that your browser generates. It isn’t a library-wide setting, so set it on the device where you print the QR or copy the link.

Signing out and idle timeout

Sign-in settings also shape how sessions end on a shared station. A patron who’s recently signed in on the same device may pick up where they left off; the OPAC keeps a short-lived session, and after it expires sign-in is required again. Because the OPAC is often a shared station, sessions don’t linger:

button: Done. The button: Done button sits in the header beside message: Signed in as Sam Reader (a line shown on wider screens) and signs the patron out on tap, the deliberate “I’m finished” for a student leaving the station.
Idle auto-sign-out. After a period of inactivity the OPAC warns with a countdown and then signs the patron out, so the next student doesn’t land in someone else’s account. Only button: Stay signed in dismisses the warning and restarts the timer; once the countdown is showing, ordinary taps are ignored, so reaching for the button (or an errant tap) can’t accidentally dismiss it. If a library has no idle timeout configured, the OPAC never shows the warning, but button: Done still signs out on demand.