Latest News
August 10: Service Pack 1738 Installed
Service pack 1738 has been installed.
You will need to run version check on your pc clients to get new executables for the Aleph GUI client.
August 5: Service Pack 1738 Install
This Sunday morning, August 10, 2008 some time before 9 AM PALS will be installing the latest service pack, 1738. The system will be down for about 15 minutes.
This service pack install includes new client executables including the print daemon. You will need to run version check to get the new executables.
The descriptions for the service pack can be found at:
http://forums.mnpals.org/index.php?topic=577.0
Besides numerous fixes, a large portion of them for ILL, there are also fixes for the marcive loader and vendor discounts.
FYI: Ex Libris only releases service packs 4 times a year now. The next service pack is scheduled for an October 10, 2008 release.
July 18: PALS "Discovery Tool" Available This Fall
Stephen Elfstrand, PALS Director, summarizes our work on MnPALS Plus, a "Discovery Tool" designed as a replacement for, or as a supplement to, the Aleph Web OPAC. Details Here
July 14: System Maintenance: Tuesday, July 15, Midnight - 6:00 am
From Rod Bruce, MnPALS UNIX System Administrator
We just received notification at the PALS office that there will be an interruption in our Internet service from midnight to 6:00 am tomorrow morning (Tuesday, July 15). Due to road construction Charter Communications needs to relocate some fiber facilities. During this interruption you will not be able to access the MnPALS Library System, proxy services, forums, wiki, mailing lists, home page, or any other services hosted in the MnSU-Mankato Data Center.
We apologize for the VERY short notice on this; we just found out about it this afternoon ourselves.
June 5: System Maintenance: Sunday, June 8, 6:00 am
The maintenance that was performed on our storage area Tuesday night did not resolve the problem we are having. The next step in fixing the problem requires that we take the entire storage array offline. This means that the MnPALS Library System WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE during this maintenance time. Maintenance is scheduled to begin this Sunday morning (June 8) at 6:00 am. We are hopeful that we will be back up and running by 8:00 am. Watch the MnPALS-Announce mailing list for a message when the system is back up OR with a status report if we cannot get the system back up by 9:00 am.
UPDATE: After a short delay, the system was brought back up by 10:10 am.
May 31: Aleph Version 18 Live
We finished the version 18, Integrated ILL upgrade work early and brought the production system up. You can now use Version 18.
Please refer to the following Go Live on Version 18 document on the MnPALS homepage: http://www.mnpals.org/sections/aleph18golive.html
The Web OPAC has been redirected back to the production server.
If you go to: http://aleph.mnpals.net/ you will find links to all of the version 18 servers including the tables and such.
You can go to: http://dev18.mnpals.net/ to access the test/development pages.
May 30: Downtime for version 18 upgrade
The Aleph production server will be down beginning at 1:00 am, Friday, May 30 for the upgrade to version 18. We expect to have version 18 live early in the day on Sunday, June 1.
Also, please note:
- The OPAC will be redirected to the version 17 development/test server during the down time.
- Interlibrary loan will not be available during the down time.
- If you choose to use Aleph offline circulation, use the Aleph v.18 circulation client. See Support Center answer #3079 for instructions on using offline circulation.
May 21: Version 17 and 18 Tables Changes
This is a reminder that any updates on tables to version 17 will not be propagated to version 18. If you update tables in version 17, you also need to update the tables in version 18.
Our tech staff last did a diff at 10:15 AM today (May 21). Any changes done before this time on harp in version 17 have been propagated to jazz version 18. We will not be doing this check again.
We will be propagating any changes done on jazz version 18 through May 23rd to the production environment next week. The dates can be seen on the forum at: http://forums.mnpals.org/index.php?topic=477.0
May 20 Lute and Dev18 Unavailable
We need to clone data from harp to lute; so lute will be not working for several hours on May 20. Harp will be available as usual.
UPDATE: LUTE is back up and running as of May 21, 10:15 am.
As part of the preparation for our upcoming migration to Version 18 of
the Aleph software we need to take the Dev18 server offline tonight from
9:00 pm until about 8:00 am tomorrow morning. This will not affect any
of our production systems.
UPDATE #1: We did not finish the work that we started last evening on Dev18 by 8:00
this morning as we had hoped. The work will be completed by noon;
until then Dev18 will be unavailable. We apologize for any inconvenience
this may cause.
UPDATE #2: Dev18 is back up and running as of May 21, 3:15 pm.
February 27: Delay of Version 18 and Integrated ILL
The upgrade to Aleph version 18 has been delayed until the weekend of May 29 - June 1, 2008. There are several reasons for this decision, but the primary one is that outstanding issues with the new integrated ILL software make it too risky to implement during a very busy time of the academic year.
For more details, click here.
February 26: New Mailing Lists Live; Old Mailing Lists Deactivated
If you have not registered yet for the new MnPALS mailing lists, please do so by the end of tomorrow (Wednesday, February 27). After that there will be only the 2 new MnPALS mailing lists.
We are completing some testing and configuration and then we will be switching over to the new lists. Originally we were going to forward messages from the old lists to the new lists; we are NOT going to be doing that. After tomorrow if you send a message to one of the old lists you will receive a gentle reminder that those lists are no longer being used and a link for registering for the new lists. Once the old lists are gone and if you have not subscribed to the new lists, you will not receive any information.
The 2 new mailing lists will be:
- MnPALS-Announce - this list will primarily be used for maintenance notifications and system alerts. It can only be posted to by the PALS staff.
- MnPALS-Discuss - this is a discussion list for topics of general interest to MnPALS libraries. Enter in the Subject line the group/module this pertains to, then the subject content (e.g. "[SYSTEMS] Mailing Lists"). This list may be posted to by any list member. If you want to continue to receive information from the PALS office you should be subscribed to this list - MnPALS Discuss. The MnPALS Discuss list will replace all the PALS subsystem/module mailing lists as well as replacing the general PALS-discussion list.
For details on subscribing to the new mailing lists, click here.
February 14: Update on New MnPALS Mailing Lists
As we mentioned last week we are in the process of re-organizing the MnPALS mailing lists. Today, tomorrow, and possibly into the beginning of next week you will receive an e-mail invitation to both the MnPALS-Announce and the MnPALS-Discuss lists. The subject of the email will be something like:
confirm 1a47a0d896a7276dbb2a97d456501496afd19f
and the sender of the email will be either:
MnPALS-Discuss-request@lists.mnpals.org
or
MnPALS-Announce-request@lists.mnpals.org
Please read the message and follow the instructions.
It will take a week or so for the majority of subscribers to get subscribed to the new lists. In the mean time, continue to use the old lists. When we are ready to switch to the new lists we will send out an announcement. Also, at that time we will re-direct postings sent to the old lists to the new MnPALS-Discuss list.
February 7: Call for Agenda Items: Spring User Group Meetings
The Spring 2008 Consortium of MnPALS Libraries User Group meetings will be held on Thursday, April 17th and Friday, April 18th at St. Cloud State University, Atwood Memorial Center. The purpose of User Groups is to create a forum for all of the consortium libraries to come together for networking, discussion of issues, and exchange of information.
In preparation for the Spring 2008 User Group meetings, please send agenda/discussion topics to the appropriate User Group conveners listed here. Send topics pertinent to the subsystem you use.
The deadline for submitting agenda topics to your User Group Convener is Monday, March 10.
February 7: Alpha version of new Discovery Tool
MnPALS announces the availability of an alpha version of a new Discovery Tool we have been working on. Some of you might have seen a demonstration of the software at the 2007 Fall MnPALS User Group meeting. You can access this new tool at:
http://solr.mnpals.net/
More information can be found here.
February 7: Changes to the MnPALS Mailing Lists
Rod Bruce of the MnPALS office announced changes to the MnPALS mailing lists, based on the recommendations of the MnPALS User Council and the MnPALS Executive Committee. Full details can be found here.
January 23: PALS R&D Activities: Open Source ILS
An announcement from Stephen Elfstrand, PALS Executive Director, regarding some R&D activities we are planning at the PALS office.
January 18: Version 18 Implementation Delayed
Dear MnPALS Libraries,
The fact that Aleph v.18 integrated ILL cannot accept OpenURL requests from SFX, Serials Solutions, and OCLC, is a major problem. OpenURL users would be subjected to a very unpleasant experience; after doing a search, and choosing the OpenURL service “get it from Interlibrary Loan” the user would get a completely blank screen! Am I wrong to think that we just can’t do this to our users? If that’s the case, we can hardly go ahead as planned can we? As was pointed out in yesterday’s message, there were 2,200 such requests in a 5-day period even though this is a relatively slow time for ILL.
We will be looking at all our options, but in any case, production use of version 18 and, Integrated ILL will have to be delayed. If a fix was included in the Feb. service pack, for instance, it would still be next to impossible to install and test it in time for the Feb. 18th target upgrade date. If we decide that the best solution is to stay with web ILL with version 18, considerable setup and testing would be required.
The PALS management staff met today and recommended to me that it would be unwise to proceed with the upgrade on Feb. 18th as we planned. I concur with that assessment. Right now it looks like the next likely dates for the upgrade would be either Mar. 28-31 or April 4-7.
Please feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss this further.
Stephen F. Elfstrand
Executive Director, PALS
(507) 389-5059
(507) 381-6999 mobile
January 17: Integrated ILL Problem
We have updated the PALS forum with a new problem that has surfaced in the integrated ILL software. Please check the forum for the details.
We have been reporting our progress with version 18 and integrated ILL on the PALS forum. Go to Aleph and then Aleph 18 upgrade. On the forum, you can choose to be notified by e-mail when new posts are made. For those of you that have not had the opportunity to register yet, please see the following link for instructions and information http://www.mnpals.org/sections/wikiforum.html .
January 11: Holiday Greetings from the PALS staff
The PALS staff photo for 2008 can be found here
January 9: PALS Office Closed January 21
The PALS Support Center will be closed January 21, in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. You may continue to send problem reports and questions to the PALS Support Center http://pals.custhelp.com during this time period. A Support Specialist will tend to these requests when we return to the office.
January 8: MnLINK Gateway Down January 15-17
There will be an upgrade to the MnLINK Gateway ZPORTAL software next week. The upgrade process will begin on Tuesday, January 15th at 4:00 when the system will be taken down. The MnLINK Gateway will be accessible again either on the 16th in the afternoon or on the 17th depending on any issues they run into. There will be a message of the day posted on ZPORTAL alerting users of the downtime.
2007 News
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