News from 2006
September 15, 2006: ALEPH: Filenames cannot contain UNIX command characters
From: Mary Ann Greenwald
REMINDER: If you are creating reports from the various ALEPH module Services, the output filenames you give to those reports *cannot* have UNIX command characters within the name. If a UNIX command character is used, an error will appear in the log file saying 'no such file or directory' and you will not get a report.
These are some UNIX command characters *not* to use in an output filename: asterisk (*), exclamation point (!), ampersand (&), slash (/ or ). This filename will not work 'callnumber/mg'. You can use a dash (-) or underscore (_). This filename will work 'callnumber_mg'
September 15, 2006: PALS Shut Down
The last day for access to the PALS server will be October 31, 2006. Any work you would like to do on PALS, including running reports, looking at data, and closing out ILL transactions, must be completed by this date. This is also the last date that the Depcon server will be available to provide access to reports.
August 22, 2006: Acceptance of the Aleph software
To: Consortium of MnPALS Libraries
From: Todd Digby, System Director of Libraries, Minnesota State Colleges and Universities
Linda Richter, Executive Director, PALS
Re: Acceptance of the Aleph software
On July 14, 2006, in a letter to the President of Ex Libris USA, Joyce Hommel, MnLINK Director, on behalf of the MnLINK executive committee, agreed to "accept the full Aleph product as complete". It was agreed that the remaining outstanding issues would be resolved through Ex Libris support services.
The final acceptance of the Aleph product was made possible by efforts on the part of the vendor, as well as contributions by many in the Minnesota library community. We would like to extend our sincere appreciation to all those affiliated with the Consortium of MnPALS Libraries for their time, commitment, and perseverance in bringing this endeavor to a successful conclusion. Library leadership, library staff, and the PALS staff all put in tremendous effort in order to make our new system work as well as possible for all involved. The entire consortium will benefit from your dedication.
As always, the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities and PALS are committed to providing you with the best service possible in library and information technology. Now that the Aleph software has been accepted and the migration completed, we are moving forward with new versions of Aleph, implementing new features, and other new technologies. Together, we will strive to meet the future needs of the patrons that we serve. Please feel free to contact either of us with your questions or comments.
August 20, 2006: Aleph Unlinked Records
The MnPALS Cataloging User Group, at its Fall 2005 and Spring 2006 meetings, had requested a report that would list unlinked records for each individual ADM. Libraries requested this report so they could identify and manually link unlinked bibs, holdings, and items. The PALS office was able to obtain an SQL query from ExLibris that could create such a report. When we ran the SQL query against each individual ADM, it was too expensive an SQL query and Oracle choked on it. We then ran the query on the database as a whole and were able to get results.
3 spreadsheets were created from these results. Those spreadsheets are located at the PALS homepage/ALEPH Secure Documents/Unlinked Records.
The spreadsheets contain the following files:
- unlinked_records – these are records that have neither an ADM or a holding record linked to them.
- unlinked_to_adms – these records do not have an ADM record linked to them.
- unlinked_to_holdings – these records do not have a holding record linked to them.
You will notice the first column contains the Aleph system bib document number, the second column has the OWN code, and the third column has the title of SYS01 bibs that are missing links. You will find your libraries’ unlinked records by finding your 3-digit OWN code symbol on the spreadsheets of the database as whole.
The libraries who looked at the reports after our May 30th announcement made a request that a 4th column be added – STATUS. The purpose of the 4th column is to identify ‘acq-ordered, acq-created, ser-created, circ-created’. These 4 status types of bib records may possibly *not* have a holding or item record. In this situation, you can ignore unlinked records from these reports.
PALS will run this report annually against the whole database. You can expect to see this report in May of each year.
July 27, 2006: Aleph Inventory Service now available to MnPALS libraries
PALS along with some testing assistance from Minnesota State University, Mankato has assembled all of the pieces needed for libraries to use Aleph for inventory. Please see the series of steps necessary to start using inventory.
The documentation is also available from the PALS eDesk Answers as answer number 3043. You can either enter the number into the search box or search "Inventory documentation".
Please watch for additional information regarding PERCON scanner contracts and purchasing.
If you have any questions after you've looked at the documentation please contact the PALS eDesk at pals.custhelp.com.
June 9, 2006: PALS Staff On Call Policy
System Support Services Provided by PALS During Hours When the PALS Office is Closed (On Call Policy)
Weekdays
Coverage hours are Monday through Friday, 4:30 pm - 9:00 pm. MnSCU operators are provided with a list of PALS staff members that they should try to contact if there is a system problem during the time they are on duty.
During evenings when we are aware that there is no operator on duty, a PALS staff member will be assigned to be on-call. In addition, if a production system or application is deemed to be particularly at risk, someone will be assigned to be on-call. The on-call hours will be 4:00 pm to midnight.
Weekends
On-call hours are Saturday, 9-5 and Sunday, 1-9. A member of the PALS technical staff is available via cell phone to receive and respond to emergency system down issues.
Holidays
Holidays where no on-call will be provided include the following:
- Independence Day
- Labor Day
- Thanksgiving Day
- Day after Thanksgiving
- Christmas Eve
- Christmas Day
- New Year's Day
- Memorial Day
Holidays where on-call is provided include the following:
- Veterans Day
- Dr. Martin Luther King Day
- President's Day
- A holiday exchange day such as December 26
This policy can also be found here.
May 30, 2006: MnLINK Gateway downtime and enhancement
The MnLINK Gateway will be down today, beginning at 1:00 p.m (Friday, June 2, 2006) for an upgrade. We anticipate that the Gateway will be back up on Monday after 12:00 noon.
After the upgrade, MnPALS users will be able to sign in to the MnLINK Gateway and then click "My Requests" and will then be redirected to the "Your Borrowing Record" sign in screen in the MnPALS Union View web OPAC. Their barcode will be transmitted also, so they will just have to reenter their password and then will have access to their ILL and circulation activity in Aleph.
February 23, 2006: MnPALS libraries to go live on Aleph ILL!
From Becky Bell, Assistant Director/Aleph Implementation Manager:
I'm very pleased to announce that seven MnPALS libraries will begin using Aleph ILL on Monday, February 27. The PALS staff thanks the libraries for their efforts in reaching this milestone and congratulates them on going live.
The libraries are:
- College of St. Benedict & St. John's University
- Gustavus Adolphus College
- Minnesota State Law Library
- Minnesota State University, Mankato
- Riverland Community College
- St. Cloud State University
- South Central College
At the same time the MnPALS libraries go live, MINITEX will also begin using Aleph ILL to process ILL requests with the initial seven libraries.
PALS staff has been working closely with MINITEX staff and the University of Minnesota staff on this project. We appreciate all their work, time, and attention given to this project.
Please watch for additional announcements with details on changes in the MnPALS OPAC interface, ILL training plan/schedule for the balance of MnPALS libraries, and registration announcements for classes.
January 17, 2006: Organizational view added to the PALS eDesk
Libraries are now able to view all questions/requests sent in by your institution to the PALS eDesk. Anyone from your institution who logs on with their own user name and password can view the questions/requests that have been sent in by anyone at your site.
This feature allows people to either look at just what questions/requests they have sent to the PALS eDesk or what anyone at their site has sent.
To take advantage of this feature do the following:
- Log into the PALS eDesk https://pals.custhelp.com with your User Name and Password.
- Click on the My Stuff tab and then click on Questions
- Directly above the list of questions is a drop down box that appears. In this box select either "My Incidents" or "My Organizations Incidents".
** Note: In addition to viewing all questions from your library on this page you can also update incidents that someone else (from your library) had sent in. The PALS eDesk will track who has sent the updated information.
January 9, 2006: netLibrary Collection Set IV and Shared Reference Collection
MINITEX notified the PALS office in August 2005 that there were (2) netLibrary collections to load for PALS libraries who had purchased the collection sets. If you will recall, PALS was able to load the collection sets for libraries still on PALS. But, for libraries on ALEPH, we were unable to load these netLibrary records because the ALEPH loader was not working.
PALS received a fix for the netLibrary loader in a recent service pack. We have now been able to load the (2) collection sets for MnPALS ALEPH libraries. For all the records loaded by the PALS office, bib records were loaded along with the automatic creation of the corresponding holding and item records.
- netLibrary Shared Collection Set IV -- 1,581 records have been loaded for the following MnPALS ALEPH libraries:
- Crown College
- Fire/EMS Safety Library
- Minnesota West CC & TC - Worthington
- Ridgewater College Library - Willmar Campus
- Rochester Community & Technical College (UCR)
- South Central Technical College - North Mankato
- Southwest Minnesota State University
- St. Cloud State University
- St. John's University
- Winona State University
- netLibrary Shared Reference Collection - 163 records have been loaded for the following MnPALS ALEPH libraries:
- Rochester Community & Technical College (UCR)
- South Central Technical College - North Mankato
- Winona State University
- Minnesota State University/Mankato -- NOTE: imported the file of records and loaded the set themself
For a list of the titles within these collection sets, contact the MINITEX office.
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