Another take on the OCLC kertuffle

Rule #1 for Surviving Paradigm Shifts: Don’t S**t Where You Eat

OCLC’s proposed new guidelines for the transfer of bibliographic records

An analysis of OCLC's proposed guidelines. (Apologies for some of the language...)

The Digital Generation

Generational Myth - Not all young people are tech-savvy

ALA Copyright Slide Rule

http://librarycopyright.net/digitalslider/

Google Used Librarians?

One librarian's opinion:

How Google Used Librarians...And Got Away With It

-Bill

OCLC=non-profit?

The founder of Library Thing's take on OCLC's non-profit status:

OCLC's non-profit status

-Bill

Release 2007 Update (just one more, really!)

It looks like we will receive one more "final" update this week that will bring us up to speed with the version of Release 2007 that will be made available to all customers starting tomorrow (4/6).

-Bill

IUG 2008 Day 1 pt.. 2

After the Keynote I attended a session titled "WebBridge Strategies, Tips & Tricks" which is obviously very relevant to what I'm presently working on. I picked a few valuable tips that I will be able to implement in our iteration of WebBridge including adding a WebBridge link on a no-hit search result page and I have a much clearer understanding of how and when to use what are called "category suppression rules" which allow a particular category to be suppressed when another is "active" and vice-versa.

The following session I attended was called "What's Up With Hardware?" which was presented by Doug Randall a VP from Innovative in charge of Product Technology. Doug's sessions are always mandatory as far as I'm concerned because he is in the position to give us a good idea of what is coming down the road in terms of hardware and other infrastructure to support Innovative systems. A few point from Doug's talk:

• Server life is 3-5 years maximum. Start planning for your next server as year 3 rolls around.
• The server that we just purchased last year from III, a Sun V245, is being replaced as the turnkey server option this year with a Linux-based Intel system. In general, Millennium doesn't care which kind of server that it runs on, so Innovative's change to Linux servers in no way means that our Sun server is obsolete in any way. They are just adapting to the server options available in the larger marketplace. One significant improvement with the new Linux servers will be the incorporation of hardware RAID to replace the less-efficient and more CPU-intensive software RAID that TOPCAT currently uses for data storage.
• Innovative is making a new service available called ServerPlus which is a new program in which Innovative builds the cost of server replacement into yearly maintenance fees. So instead of paying separately for a new server every 3-4 years, you simply receive a new server when III deems it necessary. This service also includes all installation, setup and Force Majure insurance coverage. This means that if the server is damaged for ANY reason, that III will replace it free of charge. Then with each new server your receive you also get:

• Re-indexing
• A workshop registration
• A WebOPAC Refresher

• This new product is obviously meant to help libraries more easily plan financially for inevitable server replacement by building the cost into annual maintenance and be able to have server replacement part of the operating budget.

Opening Session

The conference opened today with the traditional update from Jerry Kline the CEO of III. Innovative continues to be the leader in the ever-shrinking ILS market. They added 93 new partners over the past year and did not lose any customers to other systems.

He made a point of emphasizing that III will be gradually moving away from yearly, large system software updates to a more streamlined model of development that will get products and enhancements out much quicker than with the traditional once-a-year model that they have used up to this point. He does not expect new products to be perfect before making them available and has had to repeatedly remind the staff at III of this new thought process. They will strive to get more products out that will receive much more frequent updates. fixes and additional functionality. This philosophy meshes very well with SWITCH's commitment to make new products and services available ASAP instead of waiting until everything is perfect. There is no perfect time to make changes or add modules so just get it done as fast and prudently as you can.

There are nearly 1600 attendees at the conference this year with nearly 25% of them attending for the first time.

All that was great, but the highlight of the opening session was when I won a $25 Borders gift card during the raffle.

IUG 2008 Washington D.C.

In contrast to last years IUG Conference my flight to DC was uneventful and on time. On Sunday evening I attended my final Functional Experts meeting where we perform a post-mortem on the past Enhancements Cycle and look forward to the next one. After four years I will be cycling off the committee.

More later.

Release 2007 Update

On Thursday we received another "final" update from Innovative for Release 2007. This update was very small in scope and none of the fixes should affect TOPCAT. Release 2007 is very close to being made available to all III customers.

Update R

We received the latest update yesterday and I'm happy to report that this is the last weekly update that we will receive for this beta testing phase. From now until Release 2007 is put into general release, III will only be applying patches individually to our system as necessary.

There will eventually be one last update to the final version of Release 2007, but I don't have any information as to when that will occur.

-Bill

Update Q

As you probably noticed when TOPCAT didn't work for a couple hours today that we received this week's software update. Other than breaking access to the catalog there don't appear to be any significant updates (for us anyway) this week.

-Bill

Update P

We received this weeks update this morning. The most significant fix is a resolution to the problem reported on 3/14 where a patron will receive a 404 Error when trying to connect to a database for the first time.


-Bill

Sorting fixed

Innovative has applied a patch to our system and the issue with sorting results has been repaired.

-Bill

Release 2007 Update O & WebPac sorting problem

We received Update O last night. Nothing significant to report on that.

I did just receive a report from CSU though that is a bit alarming. It seems that when Sorting a results page you may receive erroneous titles when clicking on an item in the sorted results. This is not good. Fortunately Innovative has been aware of the problem for a couple of days and we should have a fix by next week at the latest. Hopefully sooner.

You won't see any problems if you leave search results "System Sorted".

-Bill

IE Authentication bug

CSU reported a problem to me this morning with accessing databases using Internet Explorer. When a user clicks on a proxy link they are asked for name/barcode but after they click on Submit they get a 404 Error page.

Fortunately I discovered there is a workaround. Clicking on the back arrow from the 404 screen and then clicking on the link again the user should then be allowed into all their databases for the remainder of the session.

There is a call open with Innovative on this issue.

-Bill

Update N & Request issue info

Innovative loaded Update N of the Release 2007 software last night. Nothing major fixed this week except for a few bugs that were causing slowness in the WebOPAC and periodic Keyword search problems. I'm not sure if we were experiencing these issues, but if we were, they're fixed.

Regarding the request issue reported last week by WLC. It turns out that we were just seeing the book paging slips in the article request file as they were passing through on their way to queuing paging slips. I learned that ALL requests (book and article) initially go to the Read Patron Requests file and then the book requests are taken out and moved to the paging slip queue. So we were just seeing them as they were passing through.

New request issue

You may have noticed some oddities in the Read Patron Requests are of the system since Tuesday...

WLC reported yesterday that when a patron places a hold on a non-serial item that a paging slip is generated (as it should), but also an entry is added to Read Patron Requests at the same time as though it were an article request. Essentially duplicating the request in two places.

This is annoying, but not too bad since the paging slips are still generated and article requests can just be removed.

Actual article requests (from bib's with checkin records) are working normally and just producing a request entry in Read Patron Requests as they should.

III is aware of this issue.

-Bill

Update M

The latest update to Release 2007 was loaded last night. Nothing significant for us this week with a lot of fixes for INN-Reach sites and other modules that we don't have or use.

-Bill

Update L

We received this week's update last night.

Nothing major this week, but the issue reported on 2/13 regarding sorting in the WebOPAC has been fixed.

-Bill

Update K

We received our weekly update last night. Nothing of import to note since we don't have any major issues we're waiting to have fixed.

-Bill

Updates

The sorting issue reported yesterday is already with software engineering for a fix. It was definitely caused by this week's update and is affecting all beta sites.

The other WebOPAC display issue reported on Tuesday regarding some titles displaying in a larger font has been resolved.

-Bill

WebOPAC Sorting isssue

Neal from CSU noticed a small problem when attempting to change sorting from a search results screen. If you do an author search for "hemingway" for example and then using the drop down boxes near the top of the page to change the sort to "Reverse Year" and click on the Sort button, nothing will happen.

In this same situation if you clicked on the Sort/Limit button and then selected a different sort from the bottom of the page it works fine.

III is aware of the problem.

-Bill

Weird Display Issue

While fixing another issue of non-MARC titles not displaying in the WebOPAC I created a display issue. If you do a title search on "treasure island" and then click on the result with 22 entries you will see some of the titles in a much larger font. This only seems to occur in Title search results pages.

Jenny is working on fixing this right now.

-BIll

Release 2007 J

This week's update was just loaded within the last hour and the two major bugs we've been experiencing have been fixed!

Good News

It looks like both major issues that we've reported to III (article requests and bookings display in Bookings Maintenance) will be fixed in this week's update!

Normally the updates are loaded on Tuesday or Wednesday and I'll send out another announcement when we've received it.

-Bill

Release 2007 Update I

We received the weekly update last night. Again neither of our two major issues are addressed this week (bookings and article requests). I've asked for an update on the fixes for these issues and will report back if they are able to provide any information.

-Bill

Release 2007 Update H

We've received our weekly software update today, but unfortunately neither of the 2 major issues we're experiencing were fixed this week.

Millennium will load slowly the first time re-starting after the update.

-Bill

LC Shelving Game

Here's a Flash-based game that you might want to use with new student workers to hone their LC shelving skills:

LC Shelving Game

Weekly update loaded

I just received an email from III that the weekly update was loaded on our server.

Next time you start Millennium new "jars" may be downloaded so plan accordingly.

-Bill

Weekly Update details

I now have the details of this weeks software and it looks like none of the issues we've reported will be fixed this week. They were probably submitted too late in the week to make it into this update, but hopefully by next week.

Workarounds

From Charles at Alverno:

I am suggesting a workaround for the staff of SWITCH libraries who would like to place journal article requests for their patrons:

Journal article requests can still be placed in the old text-based public mode of TOPCAT.

1) Telnet to topcat.switchinc.org

2) Log on as "SWO"

3) Key in "J" for Journal Title search

4) After reviewing holdings type in "G" to initiate request.

Starla also mentions that Bookings can be viewed in text-based.

First Weekly Update

We'll be receiving our first weekly update to the Release 2007 Beta software by Thursday this week. I'll know more as to what is specifically fixed this week by the time the software is loaded and will pass on that info when I get it.

We should be receiving weekly software updates during entire beta process.

-Bill

Interesting read

The results of a survey done by Marshall Breeding on librarians satisfaction with their ILS system. Innovative does very well.

Perceptions 2007: An International Survey of Library Automation

Workaround for Course item location issue.

Innovative has been able to reproduce this issue and it has gone to engineering for a fix. Meanwhile they suggested this workaround for changing the location of an item on reserve:

According to my testing, if you toggle the item status to inactive
and back to active, the "Location" drop-down should become editable
again.

Article Request feature

New one:

• Article Request feature is not working. After user enters citation information and clicks on Submit nothing happens. Screen redraws, but user is not asked for filling location and the request is not submitted.
  

Release 2007 issues.

We're back! I'm going to use this blog to keep track of issues that arise from Release 2007 Beta.

Here's two that have been reported so far:

• Unable to change location of items on Course Reserve. When selecting Change Status of an item in reserve the Location drop-down box is grayed out and will not allow a change to be made to the location. Reported by Sandy Lemke at WLC
• Bookings not appearing in Bookings Maintenance that should be. The only bookings that are appearing in Bookings Maintenance are canceled ones. The bookings are still on the patron record, just not showing up when using Booking Maintenance mode.