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PALS Technical Services Report: Fall 2007 User Groups

System Operations

  • The mainframe was shutdown in July, and all processing is occurring on Harp.
  • Completed the hardware upgrade and switch over to the production server on 9/23/07.
  • Working on upgrading the old production hardware to the new development server. When the upgrade is complete, the production and development servers will be identical Sun 6900s and running on Solaris 10.
  • Ordered two new x86 servers that will run Linux and VMware for sundry projects such as the proxy server.
  • Ongoing system maintenance, security patches, and upgrades.

Aleph

Task Forces, Presentations, Committees, Training:

  • Attended the ELUNA conference and technical seminar in Spearfish, SD.
  • Attended the Reports Group meetings.
  • Attended Solaris 10 training.
  • Attended Oracle 10G training.
  • Attending the Indexing Task Force web meetings.
  • Attending Discovery Tool Task Force meetings.

Enhancements, Fixes, Miscellaneous:

  • Installed MediaWiki and Simple Machines Forum (SMF) software.
  • Installed and investigating an open source Discovery Tool. Al will be giving a short demo during User Groups on Thursday morning.
  • Received a license for EZProxy. Will be installing this software after the hardware upgrades are completed.
  • Ongoing installation of service packs on Lute and Harp. Service packs for version 17 and ILL are being released on a quarterly basis now, and the latest one was installed on Harp when we switched to the new hardware (9/23/07). The next service packs are scheduled for release in November.
  • Continuing to work on PALS Support Center tickets.
  • Continuing to report ILL and Aleph version 17 software problems to Ex Libris.
  • The Marcive loader matching algorithm is not working. Ex Libris thinks the matching routine does not filter by OWN code, and it is not a quick fix. They suggested a possible workaround, and we will be testing it on Lute as time permits.

Record Loads:

  • Performing weekly updates to the Authority database on Harp.
  • Deleted and reloaded all of the Marcive records for Gustavus Adolphus College (GAC) in July.
  • Loaded the Marcive records for the Marcive subscriber libraries through July 2007: Gustavus Adolphus College (GAC), Bemidji State University (BSU), St. Cloud State University (SCS), and St. John’s University/College of St. Benedict’s (SBJ) through September 2007.
  • Loaded NetLibrary 2006 Community and Technical College Shared Reference collection for Minneapolis Community and Technical College (MCT).
  • Loaded NetLibrary 2005 Shared Collection IV for Bethany Lutheran College (BLC).
  • Loaded a set of NetLibrary records for Riverland Community College Libraries (RVL Austin).
  • Loaded NetLibrary 2007 Shared Community/Technical College and High School and/or NetLibrary 2007 Academic and/or NetLibrary 2007 Reference collections for the following libraries: Ridgewater College Libraries (RCL Hutchinson, Willmar), Minnesota State Community and Technical College Libraries (CTC Detroit Lakes, Fergus Falls, Moorhead, Wadena), Winona State University (WSU), University Center Rochester (UCR), St. Cloud State University (SCS), St. John’s University/College of St. Benedict’s (SBJ), Inver Hills Community College (IHC), Minneapolis Community & Technical College (MCT), South Central College Libraries (SCC Mankato, Faribault), Alexandria Technical College (ATC), St. Cloud Technical College (SCT), Riverland Community College Libraries (RVL Austin), Minnesota School of Business (MSB), and Vermilion Community College (VCC).

Reports:

  • Working with Ex Libris to schedule installation of ARC2 on Harp with possible installation in November.
  • The following custom reports are in production and available through the Services menus in the following modules:
    • Cataloging –
      • (cat/services/items) Item Count (mnpals-16), New Titles (mnpals-14), Titles Never Loaned (mnpals-22), Items Not Linked to Holdings (mnpals-23), Non-deleted ADM Docs without Links (mnpals-24), Titles in a Collection (mnpals-27), Bibs Without Titles (mnpals-39), Bibs with Many Holdings (mnpals-32), Retrieve Call No Keys by Barcode (mnpals-37)
    • Circulation –
      • (circ/services/items) Item Count (mnpals-16), Titles Never Loaned (mnpals-22), Titles Had Been Loaned (mnpals-26), Browsed Issues (mnpals-36), Move Inventory file to ADM’s directory (mnpals-15)
      • (circ/services/patron records) Empty ILL (mnpals-20), ILL Loans without ILL Items (mnpals-21)
    • Acquisitions/Serials –
      • (acq/services/budget management) Titles per Budget Spent (mnpals-28)
      • (acq/services/edi) FTP EDI Incoming Messages (p-mnpals-10)
      • (acq/services/serials) Titles with Claims (mnpals-30)
  •  Working on the following custom SQL reports: Titles Loaned (mnpals-26), Blocked Patrons (mnpals-31), Patrons Owe Money (mnpals-34), Issue Titles Circulated (mnpals-35), ILL Unit Codes (mnpals-39), All Searches for Your Library (mnpals-42), Most Popular Searches (mnpals-43).

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI):

  • Implemented EDI book ordering with Yankee Book Peddler for Metro State University (MTR).
  • Working on configuring and testing EDI with Yankee Book Peddler’s GOBI product with St. John’s University/College of St. Benedict (SBJ).

Version 17 and Oracle:

  • Completed global changes as requested by libraries.
  • Tested and implemented a new method of indexing that reduced the production system down time to approximately eight hours.
  • The production database was re-indexed on Lute and copied back to production on June 17. The re-indexing fixed the phrase searches, “see reference” browse displays, browse indexes for all logical bases from the GUI, and added the MnPALS Indexing Task Force (MITF) recommendations to the bib records (tab_008_config, tab_006_config, tab_type_config), and new keyword fixed field indexes to the holdings records (tab_007_config, tab_008_config, tab_ldr_config).
  • Tested and implemented the new version 17 Inventory functionality.

Version 18 and Oracle:

  • Working on the version 18 project plan. Draft was prepared and presented at the User Council and Executive Committee. More details and an updated version 18, ARC2, and ILL project plan can be found at: http://www.mnpals.org/aleph/18projectplan20070926.pdf
  • The version 18 and Oracle 10G software installations are scheduled to take place on October 15 – 17. Once this has been done, we can begin the upgrade process. Once the upgrade and conversion is complete, we will have a better idea of the effort involved for our libraries.
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