Technical Services Report: March 2008

System news and work completed

• Finished customization of the ILL GUI form templates from the ILL web forms for all 63 ADMs.
• Loaded the NetLibrary 2007 High School and Community College collection set for Anoka-Ramsey Community Colleges (ACC), Cambridge campus (CBR).
• Loaded March Marcive records for St. Cloud State University (SCS), St. John’s/St. Ben’s (SBJ), Bemidji State University (BSU), and Gustavus Adolphus College (GAC).
• Ex Libris announced that service packs will move to a quarterly release schedule for all versions of Aleph. The next service pack is scheduled for release in April.
• The version 18/ILL2 production date was rescheduled to June 1st, and the final upgrade will begin late on May 29, 2008.
• Because of the delay and problems encountered in the second upgrade, we will be performing a third upgrade during the week beginning March 31st and Dev18 will be unavailable until the upgrade is completed.

Work in progress

• Ongoing system maintenance and upgrades.
• Attending Indexing Task Force meetings.
• Continuing to work on PALS Support Center tickets.
• Continuing to work with the UNIX system monitoring software.
• Continuing to perform weekly updates to the Authorities database on Harp.
• Working on a new disaster and file recovery plan for backups.
• Set up backups of the Ex Libris slice on Dev18.
• Working on SQL reports and services recommended by the Reports Group.
• EZProxy has been installed and tested at South Central College (SCC). Dan is working with them to set up a link to EZProxy on their home page.
• LibProxy for Minnesota State University Moorhead (TRM) and Concordia College Moorhead (TRC) was migrated to a virtual machine. New domain names need to be registered yet, but the MSU staffer that does this is on vacation this week. The move should provide more stability and responsiveness and is being monitored. Working on EZProxy configuration steps and automating the process as much as possible to move from LibProxy to EZ Proxy.
• Installed CUFTS on a virtual machine. It is an open source open URL link resolver.
• Will be installing Koha on a virtual machine this week. Their documentation is for installation on Debian, and we are running a derivative version 6.06 called Ubuntu, which is the long-term support version. Rod will be documenting any differences between the two and sending any differences in the installation instructions for Ubuntu back to LibLime.
• Working on manual changes and set up for Version 18 and Integrated ILL. Reporting problems to Ex Libris.
• Discussing outstanding Support Incidents with Greg Gosselin, Manager of Support Services for Ex Libris.
• A local fix for the open URL ILL requests in version 18/Integrated ILL is working, but another problem with the submit request functionality in Aleph was discovered.
• Continuing to work on the Discovery Tool. Set up a job to automate database updates, and it runs every morning.
• Working on some global changes for St. Cloud State University (SCS).
• Contacted The Book House vendor to set up EDI functionality with Aleph. Working on configuring it for TST50 for testing EDI book ordering with them. They stated that they have worked with other Aleph sites.
• Working on SIP authentication against Visionware with Winona State University (WSU).
• The suggested Marcive loader workaround still needs to be tested on Lute.
• Waiting for p_manage_18_p (record loader using parallel processes), and “golem” fixes from Ex Libris.
• Waiting to hear from Ex Libris about problems with discounts and funds when using Blackwell’s Book Services Collection Manager to create order records in Aleph.
• ISRS is ready to test the cash file process, but we need an enhancement to the Aleph processes that handle this function. An enhancement request was submitted to Ex Libris. We will be working on an alternative as time permits.