OK, I don't recommend that anyone fly with me anytime soon because I am obviously cursed. Our flight (Jenny, Gae and I) was canceled this afternoon due to broken bathrooms on the plane we were supposed to take to Minneapolis. Of course there were no other planes available and after standing in a 2+ hour line I was shipped up to San Francisco to take a 6:30AM flight that will get me into MKE at 2PM Friday. Jenny was fortunate enough (I think) to get the last seat on a flight that would get her into MKE tonight at 11PM and I honestly lost track of when Gae was able to get out. It seemed to be dependent on who you talked to as to when and if you got out today or tomorrow.
Northwest Airlines - WORST AIRLINE EVER
There's always tomorrow for them to screw up too.
In conference news I attended a very good session on setting up what is called the WAM Filter that will hopefully, when I get around to setting it up, provide better statistics on database usage by off-campus users. Essentially, as WAM (Web Access Management) works right now when compiling stats it counts EVERY element on a page (images, forms, style sheets) as a unique "connect' making the stats much higher than they actually are. The WAM filer allows you to not count all the superfluous stuff leaving behind (hopefully) useful statistics.
The one (and only) advantage that statistics compiled on TOPCAT have over those that you can get directly from database vendors is that those on TOPCAT can be broken down by patron type.
I'm ready to say goodbye to California now. Wish me luck.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Day 2
It was a very busy day today with 5 sessions. I'd forgotten how uncomfortable hotel chairs can be.
I attended a couple sessions today discussing Encore. One was just a general overview of the product which was good because though I've read a lot about it I hadn't seen it "in action". It certainly is a groundbreaking product in its focus on the presentation of disparate search results in a uniform interface. It also makes new use of data within the OPAC that has not been used before. One example is to weigh search results more if there are multiple item records attached to a bib. Another is to do away with specific index searching in the initial search. When a user begins a search in Encore it is assumed to be a Keyword search and Innovative is confident through a new search algorithm and by providing extensive "facets" (limits) in the first search result screen that the user can quickly find what they are looking for. Of course, an Advanced Search is available that allows the user to specify the type of search that they want to perform (author, title, subject, etc...)
There was another Encore session that focused on the development of the product over the past year which was interesting to see the completely different approach that III took in developing this product. The brought in the development partners much earlier in the process instead of creating a beta version and then having the partners test the product. Though there were not any consortia included in the initial development III has since added a number of consortia partners which will hopefully lead to a very consortia-friendly product.
Tomorrow I head back home, but I'll post one more update on the conference after I return.
Hopefully it will be an uneventful flight...
I attended a couple sessions today discussing Encore. One was just a general overview of the product which was good because though I've read a lot about it I hadn't seen it "in action". It certainly is a groundbreaking product in its focus on the presentation of disparate search results in a uniform interface. It also makes new use of data within the OPAC that has not been used before. One example is to weigh search results more if there are multiple item records attached to a bib. Another is to do away with specific index searching in the initial search. When a user begins a search in Encore it is assumed to be a Keyword search and Innovative is confident through a new search algorithm and by providing extensive "facets" (limits) in the first search result screen that the user can quickly find what they are looking for. Of course, an Advanced Search is available that allows the user to specify the type of search that they want to perform (author, title, subject, etc...)
There was another Encore session that focused on the development of the product over the past year which was interesting to see the completely different approach that III took in developing this product. The brought in the development partners much earlier in the process instead of creating a beta version and then having the partners test the product. Though there were not any consortia included in the initial development III has since added a number of consortia partners which will hopefully lead to a very consortia-friendly product.
Tomorrow I head back home, but I'll post one more update on the conference after I return.
Hopefully it will be an uneventful flight...
Day One, pt. 2
The highlight of the afternoon sessions on Tuesday was hearing about the improved printing that will begin to be rolled out with Release 2007. The printing system is being completely revamped to be much more flexible and highly customizable. Printing will borrow from new record creation and begin to use templates that can be customized for:
Finally!
- Fonts
- Font size
- Paper size
- Layout (which fields display)
- Purchase Orders
- Monographic Spine Labels
- Hold Pickup Notices
- In Transit Slips
- Routing Slips
Finally!
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Day One
A technology note: I had presumed that I would be able to post to the blog directly from sessions, but apparently providing wireless in the San Jose Convention Center is beyond the capability of those here in the Silicon Valley...
The conference opened this morning with the general session that began with a "state of the company" presentation from the CEO of Innovative (III) Jerry Kline. As is to be expected III is doing very well in a very turbulent library system market that has seen the consolidation of many of the other major players in the industry. In the past year III has added more new customers than all of their competitors combined. Since III is such a stable company, according to Mr. Kline, this leaves them with the ability to focus entirely on product development and not be as concerned with "the business".
Mr. Kline then focused on their new product Encore which provides a new search and aggregation interface that brings together the OPAC, federated searching, link resolvers and other resources into a single presentation interface. Encore is currently in development and is expected to be released by then end of 2007. SWITCH will be closely following the development and implementation of this product as it certainly fits in with our vision of how we would like SWITCH to evolve over the next couple years.
The podium was then given over to keynote speaker Robert Cringley who is a futurist and noted technology writer. His first job was also in a library in Ohio where his mother worked as a librarian. His general feeling seemed to be that though physical libraries will disappear, along with books, over the next 10-15 years that the professional librarian will become even more important as the navigator of the new virtual knowledge repository that will replace the library as a physical entity.
The keynote was followed by the IUG business meeting where we learned that there are 1,800 (!!!) attendees at this year's conference from 11 countries. The conference is getting so large that it is becoming difficult to find venues large enough to host and that the next two conferences will be held in Washington DC and Anaheim, CA. The session ended with a raffle of items donated by local businesses and III. I did win something, a $25 gift card to Starbucks, which was awarded between an iPod Nano and Canon digital camera. Timing is not my strong suit apparently.
The conference opened this morning with the general session that began with a "state of the company" presentation from the CEO of Innovative (III) Jerry Kline. As is to be expected III is doing very well in a very turbulent library system market that has seen the consolidation of many of the other major players in the industry. In the past year III has added more new customers than all of their competitors combined. Since III is such a stable company, according to Mr. Kline, this leaves them with the ability to focus entirely on product development and not be as concerned with "the business".
Mr. Kline then focused on their new product Encore which provides a new search and aggregation interface that brings together the OPAC, federated searching, link resolvers and other resources into a single presentation interface. Encore is currently in development and is expected to be released by then end of 2007. SWITCH will be closely following the development and implementation of this product as it certainly fits in with our vision of how we would like SWITCH to evolve over the next couple years.
The podium was then given over to keynote speaker Robert Cringley who is a futurist and noted technology writer. His first job was also in a library in Ohio where his mother worked as a librarian. His general feeling seemed to be that though physical libraries will disappear, along with books, over the next 10-15 years that the professional librarian will become even more important as the navigator of the new virtual knowledge repository that will replace the library as a physical entity.
The keynote was followed by the IUG business meeting where we learned that there are 1,800 (!!!) attendees at this year's conference from 11 countries. The conference is getting so large that it is becoming difficult to find venues large enough to host and that the next two conferences will be held in Washington DC and Anaheim, CA. The session ended with a raffle of items donated by local businesses and III. I did win something, a $25 gift card to Starbucks, which was awarded between an iPod Nano and Canon digital camera. Timing is not my strong suit apparently.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Near-disaster recovery
Well here I am in sunny San Jose only to find out it's warmer back home than it is here. Figures.
The full conference doesn't actually start until tomorrow, but I came in a day early to attend a pre-conference session on creating a Disaster Recovery Plan.
But as it turns out I almost needed a disaster-recovery plan for my flight from Minneapolis-San Jose last night. We were about 45 minutes from landing in San Jose when there was a strange burning smell from the front of the cabin and a small jolt felt in the plane. The pilot comes on and says we have to make an emergency landing in Las Vegas and when we do both sides of the runway are lined with fire trucks and other emergency vehicles that chase us down the runway. I'm somewhat disappointed that we didn't get to go down the evacuation slides, but maybe next time. Eventually they found us another plane and we arrived in San Jose about 5 hours later than planned.
The seminar on disaster recovery was very helpful and provided some real-world examples that SWITCH can draw from as we put our plan together. Innovative provides significant assistance when a system recovery is necessary and it is just up to us to insure that we have our ducks in a row should a situation arise when we would need Innovative to assist us in restoring our system from backup tapes.
Tonight I have my final Functional Expert (FE) meeting (and dinner) as I will be completing my 3 years as an FE and giving someone else the opportunity to wade through hundreds of enhancement requests for System Functionality. It was fun, but its time to move on...
-Bill
The full conference doesn't actually start until tomorrow, but I came in a day early to attend a pre-conference session on creating a Disaster Recovery Plan.
But as it turns out I almost needed a disaster-recovery plan for my flight from Minneapolis-San Jose last night. We were about 45 minutes from landing in San Jose when there was a strange burning smell from the front of the cabin and a small jolt felt in the plane. The pilot comes on and says we have to make an emergency landing in Las Vegas and when we do both sides of the runway are lined with fire trucks and other emergency vehicles that chase us down the runway. I'm somewhat disappointed that we didn't get to go down the evacuation slides, but maybe next time. Eventually they found us another plane and we arrived in San Jose about 5 hours later than planned.
The seminar on disaster recovery was very helpful and provided some real-world examples that SWITCH can draw from as we put our plan together. Innovative provides significant assistance when a system recovery is necessary and it is just up to us to insure that we have our ducks in a row should a situation arise when we would need Innovative to assist us in restoring our system from backup tapes.
Tonight I have my final Functional Expert (FE) meeting (and dinner) as I will be completing my 3 years as an FE and giving someone else the opportunity to wade through hundreds of enhancement requests for System Functionality. It was fun, but its time to move on...
-Bill
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
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