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Aleph Update: November 19, 2007

Dear MnPALS Consortium,

I thought I would send out a brief update about activities and progress on Aleph. Overall it is still looking good for our goal of Aleph 18 in production by February.

Aleph 18

As I mentioned before, Ex Libris did get our install of version 18 completed on Oct 29th, although it took over 2 weeks instead of 3 days. Since then we have made good progress on the numerous tasks required to get it set up.
  • All the new hardware is set up and looking stable. No new problems have appeared since we had Sun replace the defective memory module. All backups are set up and Rod is currently completing a disaster recovery plan for the new hardware and ver. 18 data.
  • Version 18 requires the upgrade of the ORACLE database from ver. 9 to ver. 10 and that Al finished that on Nov. 12th.
  • Test Data conversion from ver. 17 to ver. 18 is nearly complete, and soon our support analysts will have a working system with real data to look at.
  • The new version of the clients is being built.
  • The Support analysts are looking at documentation and planning the training curriculum.
  • Tentative dates in the second half of January have been announced for online training on the various modules.
Overall, it looks like we are still looking at a “go live” date for Aleph ver. 18 in February.

Aleph Integrated ILL

Originally we had planned to set up the integrated ILL after the rest of the version 18 was live. However, setting up the web ILL in v. 18 would take a certain amount of work and it would be used only for a short time. We are wondering now whether it would really make better sense to move directly to the integrated ILL at the same time as the rest of version 18. Obviously there is a trade-off: how much work is it to set up Web ILL for a short time, versus can our users handle a move to the client-based ILL and can we create and conduct the training in time for a simultaneous conversion?

Key Word Indexing

Don’t forget the key word indexing will happen this week starting on Wed. at 10 pm. It should be done by Thursday (Thanksgiving) evening. During the indexing the Aleph read-only OPAC will be available, but who will notice ? At the same time a service pack will be installed which will require a new cataloging client, so don’t forget to do a version check when you get back from the Thanksgiving holiday.

ARC

The Aleph Reporting Center order has been placed but we still don’t have a firm install date from Ex Libris. We’ll announce it when we have one.

List of Services Document

The PALS Support Specialists have assembled a document of all the Aleph Services that are currently available to you on our production server. You can access this spreadsheet from the PALS homepage at http://www.mnpals.org/sections/Aleph_Docs.html and from the PALS Support Center knowledge base as answer number 3211.

I know I speak for the whole staff here at the PALS office as I wish you Happy Thanksgiving. Travel safely on this busy holiday.


Sincerely,

Stephen F. Elfstrand
Executive Director, PALS
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