CCS News
OCTOBER 26, 2007
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
No More Printed Reports! – You should no longer be receiving daily reports in the van. These are all available on the Web.
At the end of the month we will retrain our operators to no longer print and send any monthly reports. From November 1 forward you should see only printed notices and bills. However, if you have a special printing request please let us know.
In Transit Report - By popular demand, Bob has created a new In Transit report. It is available on the CCS Reports Web Page. Please remember to look in the three tabs (1)by owning library (2)by starting library (3)by destination library of the Excel report. Staff that have been using the “In Transit To” and “In Transit From” reports will find the same information within this one excel workbook. Eventually we plan to phase out the separate In Transit reports
Computer Room – We are in the process of installing new racks in the computer room to accommodate machines now and in the future. Eventually we will switch the machines into the new racks – but will proceed carefully and let you know in advance when this is scheduled to happen during low use times so that we can minimize any possible disruption to service.
Holiday Closing dates and times – Thank you to everyone that responded to our request for holiday schedule information. This will help us to schedule staff during the holiday. We will be cleaning out 2006 dates beginning November 1 and will be ready to add 2008 dates shortly after that.
DID YOU KNOW?
Did you know that recent activities associated with migrating CCS WorkFlows machines to the Java client have generated a lot of interest in the two free online training sessions offered by Sirsi? As mentioned in a previous Did You Know item, these sessions – Java Essential Skills and Java Circulation Basics - can be very useful for anyone that hasn’t worked with the Java client for awhile (or at all) and would like a refresher on its basic functions. Furthermore, it’s now easier than ever to gain access to the two sessions. So this is a brief reminder that there’s a document called “Guide to Sirsi’s Free Training Sessions” on the CCS web page and it provides step-by-step instructions for finding these trainings on Sirsi’s web page. The instructions include a new path into Sirsi’s online trainings that doesn’t require logging into their Client Care web page. Since Sirsi is notoriously quick to expire our Client Care passwords, potential users are often discouraged by the process of getting a new one when they want to review one of the free training sessions. Being able to skip the login/password step will make it much easier to take advantage of the Essential Skills and Basic Circulation courses that are available. The “Guide to Sirsi’s Free Training Sessions” document (which reflects the easier access method) can be found on the Sirsi Resources link of the CCS web page (under the Documented Procedures heading). Ken Victorson
ANOTHER PERSONNEL TRANSITION AT SIRSI, AND OUR BEST WISHES to our excellent Strategic Account Manager Amy Morgenthaler, who is moving on at the end of the month. Amy has been an invaluable resource and ally who has helped us to remove countless issues large and small from the “pending” pile. However, Kristina Fengl, her cohort in being an SAM for Sirsi consortia, made a specific request to inherit our account. Kristina has demonstrated her capabilities on every occasion when we have called upon her for assistance in the past, and we expect minimal disruption and a continuation of quality customer support. We’ll miss Amy, but she deserves the best and hope her new job is a big step in her chosen direction.
CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:
None! (How did that happen this time of year? We do have CCS tours for some Glenview staff members Thursday AM 11/1 and Friday PM 11/2.)
Thursday, October 18, 2007
CCS News
OCTOBER 19, 2007
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
Exercise Caution When Cleaning Up Internal Patrons – Recently a few of you have accidentally deleted patrons that are used by the system for “internal” purposes. When you delete these special patron records, sign-ons might cease to function, notices might cease to have the correct library information, and iBistro might cease to function at your library. Once deleted, the records can only be properly re-added by the computer room.
When cleaning up patrons – please clean up only those with real patron barcodes and check with CCS first . If the ID or barcode field looks something like XXXTECH, XXXCIRC or XXXIBISTRO you should exercise caution or just refrain from deleting them. These are probably records used for signing on. Similarly if the record has the name of the library spelled out – leave that one alone too! It’s probably the one where the library name and address are recorded so that it can be printed on notices. If you have questions you are better off to leave the record in place. You can always call the Computer Room to verify as well.
Director’s Station – The server for the Director’s Station has been received and is currently being configured. Sirsi will begin the software installation process for this machine shortly.
Computer Room Improvements – Along with the newest machine we are installing more secure cabinets. So if you tour the computer room soon it will seem a bit topsy turvy. The “construction” will be short-lived as we migrate equipment into the new cabinets. We anticipate no interruption in service for our production machines.
AUTHORITIES UPDATE:
Yesterday (Oct. 18, 2007), CCS sent approx. 5014 bibliographic records to Marcive for Overnight Authorities Processing. The records have been processed and were reloaded into our system, so full cataloging may resume. Of the 5014 bibliographic records, Marcive returned 1601 changed bibliographic records (it’s easier for us just to reload the changed records – less to load, so less of a strain on our system). Marcive also sent us 1758 new authority records. CCS will be sending groups of records for processing each month, so that our database will be kept up to date as much as possible.
- Virginia R. Seward
CCS Authorities Librarian
DID YOU KNOW?
Did you know that I’m adding a series of training classes to the CCS calendar that will be held in the Vicky Janik Training Room here in our Arlington Heights headquarters? Since the CCS offices are more or less centrally located, we can provide training here for individuals from libraries at the distant ends of the consortium, libraries that lack up-to-date equipment in their own training space, or at the convenience of staff who live close to CCS. The first class will be a half-day session on Java Essential Skills and will be presented on Thursday, November 8, 2007 at 9:30AM. It’s going to be a hands-on training, so attendees will review basic WorkFlows functions in the Java client environment and complete practice exercises related to the skills covered during the session.
As we continue our plans for migrating to the WorkFlows Java client, I want to encourage people that haven’t used it recently to sign up for this refresher training. If you (or anyone on your staff) would find it convenient to come to Arlington Heights on November 8th, please call me on: 847-666-3204 or email me at kenv@ccs.nsls.lib.il.us to enroll in the Essential Skills class.
Other training sessions, on a variety of topics, will be added to the calendar in the coming months to take advantage of our newly upgraded training workstations and I’ll be announcing their availability as materials for each class have been completed. The CCS training room can accommodate up to four people at a time, so attendance will be on a first-come, first-served basis. Note that the sessions held at CCS are in addition to trainings that will be conducted at individual libraries as we prepare for the Java rollout. Also: If you want to have training for a larger group and your library doesn’t have an appropriate training space, please contact me and I’ll arrange to use training facilities at another CCS library. – Ken Victorson
MARK YOUR SCORECARD:
Patrick Sommers, who was Sirsi’s CEO until his resignation last February, has been appointed CEO at Gale. Pat’s background was in the content arena and he and this job should be a good fit.
LIBRARY CLOSING:
Glencoe will be closed Friday, October 19 for a Staff Development program.
CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:
Wed., 10/24, 9:30, CCS: SCRAP
Fri., 10/26, 10:00, CCS: Federated Searching Task Force
OCTOBER 19, 2007
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
Exercise Caution When Cleaning Up Internal Patrons – Recently a few of you have accidentally deleted patrons that are used by the system for “internal” purposes. When you delete these special patron records, sign-ons might cease to function, notices might cease to have the correct library information, and iBistro might cease to function at your library. Once deleted, the records can only be properly re-added by the computer room.
When cleaning up patrons – please clean up only those with real patron barcodes and check with CCS first . If the ID or barcode field looks something like XXXTECH, XXXCIRC or XXXIBISTRO you should exercise caution or just refrain from deleting them. These are probably records used for signing on. Similarly if the record has the name of the library spelled out – leave that one alone too! It’s probably the one where the library name and address are recorded so that it can be printed on notices. If you have questions you are better off to leave the record in place. You can always call the Computer Room to verify as well.
Director’s Station – The server for the Director’s Station has been received and is currently being configured. Sirsi will begin the software installation process for this machine shortly.
Computer Room Improvements – Along with the newest machine we are installing more secure cabinets. So if you tour the computer room soon it will seem a bit topsy turvy. The “construction” will be short-lived as we migrate equipment into the new cabinets. We anticipate no interruption in service for our production machines.
AUTHORITIES UPDATE:
Yesterday (Oct. 18, 2007), CCS sent approx. 5014 bibliographic records to Marcive for Overnight Authorities Processing. The records have been processed and were reloaded into our system, so full cataloging may resume. Of the 5014 bibliographic records, Marcive returned 1601 changed bibliographic records (it’s easier for us just to reload the changed records – less to load, so less of a strain on our system). Marcive also sent us 1758 new authority records. CCS will be sending groups of records for processing each month, so that our database will be kept up to date as much as possible.
- Virginia R. Seward
CCS Authorities Librarian
DID YOU KNOW?
Did you know that I’m adding a series of training classes to the CCS calendar that will be held in the Vicky Janik Training Room here in our Arlington Heights headquarters? Since the CCS offices are more or less centrally located, we can provide training here for individuals from libraries at the distant ends of the consortium, libraries that lack up-to-date equipment in their own training space, or at the convenience of staff who live close to CCS. The first class will be a half-day session on Java Essential Skills and will be presented on Thursday, November 8, 2007 at 9:30AM. It’s going to be a hands-on training, so attendees will review basic WorkFlows functions in the Java client environment and complete practice exercises related to the skills covered during the session.
As we continue our plans for migrating to the WorkFlows Java client, I want to encourage people that haven’t used it recently to sign up for this refresher training. If you (or anyone on your staff) would find it convenient to come to Arlington Heights on November 8th, please call me on: 847-666-3204 or email me at kenv@ccs.nsls.lib.il.us to enroll in the Essential Skills class.
Other training sessions, on a variety of topics, will be added to the calendar in the coming months to take advantage of our newly upgraded training workstations and I’ll be announcing their availability as materials for each class have been completed. The CCS training room can accommodate up to four people at a time, so attendance will be on a first-come, first-served basis. Note that the sessions held at CCS are in addition to trainings that will be conducted at individual libraries as we prepare for the Java rollout. Also: If you want to have training for a larger group and your library doesn’t have an appropriate training space, please contact me and I’ll arrange to use training facilities at another CCS library. – Ken Victorson
MARK YOUR SCORECARD:
Patrick Sommers, who was Sirsi’s CEO until his resignation last February, has been appointed CEO at Gale. Pat’s background was in the content arena and he and this job should be a good fit.
LIBRARY CLOSING:
Glencoe will be closed Friday, October 19 for a Staff Development program.
CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:
Wed., 10/24, 9:30, CCS: SCRAP
Fri., 10/26, 10:00, CCS: Federated Searching Task Force
Thursday, October 11, 2007
CCS News
OCTOBER 12, 2007
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
SonicWall Training - Glenn is on a training course this week to learn more about our SonicWall Firewall.
Printed reports - As of this week the following printouts are no longer being created for van delivery: open holds pick list, search shelves,selfcheck stats. You can print these locally. We have had no calls or complaints so far – so it looks like everyone was ready to implement the change. Over the next two weeks we will stop printing the rest of the reports – but will continue to print all bills and notices.
DID YOU KNOW?
Did you know that Glenview has requested two special CCS Get Acquainted Tours for their staff on Thursday, November 1 and Friday, November 2, 2007? These ad hoc sessions will be conducted during the morning and afternoon of consecutive days, instead of back-to-back on the same day as is our usual practice. There will be one session from 10:00 – 11:30AM on the morning of November 1st and a second on the afternoon of November 2nd from 2:00 - 3:30 PM. (So there will NOT be tours during the afternoon of November 1, or the morning of November 2.) We have room for other libraries to participate in either of these November tours if your staff can arrange to attend on those particular days. Please call me on: 847-666-3204 or email me at kenv@ccs.nsls.lib.il.us to sign someone up for either of the two visits. Let me know the name(s) of the attendees and the date and time they’ll be coming.
Also: In addition to the occasional ad hoc sessions (like the ones for Glenview), I will continue my normal practice of scheduling CCS Tours in advance and posting the date and time so everyone will know when they’re being offered. But if you or members of your staff would like to visit CCS and the available dates are not compatible with your calendar, please contact me about arranging a special visit for your library. The tours are open to anyone in the CCS community that’s interested in learning about the history and organizational structure of CCS, would like to meet our fulltime staff and find out what they do, or would like to see our work environment - including individual offices and the computer room. Ken Victorson
CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:
Wed., 10/17, 10:00, CCS: Executive Committee
Thur., 10/18, 9:30, Wilmette: ILL
OCTOBER 12, 2007
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
SonicWall Training - Glenn is on a training course this week to learn more about our SonicWall Firewall.
Printed reports - As of this week the following printouts are no longer being created for van delivery: open holds pick list, search shelves,selfcheck stats. You can print these locally. We have had no calls or complaints so far – so it looks like everyone was ready to implement the change. Over the next two weeks we will stop printing the rest of the reports – but will continue to print all bills and notices.
DID YOU KNOW?
Did you know that Glenview has requested two special CCS Get Acquainted Tours for their staff on Thursday, November 1 and Friday, November 2, 2007? These ad hoc sessions will be conducted during the morning and afternoon of consecutive days, instead of back-to-back on the same day as is our usual practice. There will be one session from 10:00 – 11:30AM on the morning of November 1st and a second on the afternoon of November 2nd from 2:00 - 3:30 PM. (So there will NOT be tours during the afternoon of November 1, or the morning of November 2.) We have room for other libraries to participate in either of these November tours if your staff can arrange to attend on those particular days. Please call me on: 847-666-3204 or email me at kenv@ccs.nsls.lib.il.us to sign someone up for either of the two visits. Let me know the name(s) of the attendees and the date and time they’ll be coming.
Also: In addition to the occasional ad hoc sessions (like the ones for Glenview), I will continue my normal practice of scheduling CCS Tours in advance and posting the date and time so everyone will know when they’re being offered. But if you or members of your staff would like to visit CCS and the available dates are not compatible with your calendar, please contact me about arranging a special visit for your library. The tours are open to anyone in the CCS community that’s interested in learning about the history and organizational structure of CCS, would like to meet our fulltime staff and find out what they do, or would like to see our work environment - including individual offices and the computer room. Ken Victorson
CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:
Wed., 10/17, 10:00, CCS: Executive Committee
Thur., 10/18, 9:30, Wilmette: ILL
Thursday, October 4, 2007
CCS News
OCTOBER 5, 2007
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
Telephone – Usually we have some to personally answer your call at 847-342-5303. However if you ever need to leave a voice mail message for computer room staff, you can press “11” slowly at Bonnie’s prompt which will direct you immediately to computer room voice mail. When you leave a message in this box our phones light up, so if we were momentarily away we would see the light flash.
Report printing – we have issued the following schedule on which we will suspend the delivery of printed reports. All reports are now available electronically.
OnShelf Hold Items (Open Holds Pick List) – evening of October 2
Daily Selfcheck Stats – evening of October 9
Daily List Items w/chg-dvd (NIK) – evening of October 9
Daily List Items w/chg (NIK) – evening of October 9
Search Shelves – evening of October 9
Daily Checkin Statistics – evening of October 16
Daily Checkout Statistics – evening of October 16
Daily Renewal Statistics – evening of October 16
Daily Hold Pickup List – evening of October 23
DID YOU KNOW?
Did you know that a problem with Properties has been reported for the Java Checkin Bookdrop wizard, but it turns out the issue is one of poor design and not really a bug? When the Behavior to “Allow discharge dates in the future” remains unchecked, one would assume that Workflows will prevent setting checkin dates beyond the current date. But unfortunately it’s still possible to enter a future date when processing bookdrop items. I tried this in Java and got the same result, but after working with Sirsi I learned that the date field works as designed, it’s just not a very good design. Although it’s possible to ENTER a date in the future in the “Enter Date of Discharge” field (which it should not allow), WorkFlows doesn’t actually use that erroneous date for the discharge. When you proceed with the checkin, an error message is displayed that warns you that the “Date must be today or earlier” and you must fix the date before you can check-in the item. Since more than one person has been fooled by the poor design, I wanted to alert other Java users that this particular Properties setting can be deceptive. Ken Victorson
“FUTURE OF THE ILS” SYMPOSIUM PRESENTATIONS ONLINE:
The symposium organized by Lincoln Trail Libraries System in Champaign on September 13-14 on “The Future Of Integrated Library Systems” featured a quality array of presenters and information. Many of the presentation handouts may be accessed online at
http://www.lincolntrail.info/ilssymposium2007/agendapage.html
CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:
None! (We avoided conflicts with ILA and hope attendees enjoy the conference!)
OCTOBER 5, 2007
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
Telephone – Usually we have some to personally answer your call at 847-342-5303. However if you ever need to leave a voice mail message for computer room staff, you can press “11” slowly at Bonnie’s prompt which will direct you immediately to computer room voice mail. When you leave a message in this box our phones light up, so if we were momentarily away we would see the light flash.
Report printing – we have issued the following schedule on which we will suspend the delivery of printed reports. All reports are now available electronically.
OnShelf Hold Items (Open Holds Pick List) – evening of October 2
Daily Selfcheck Stats – evening of October 9
Daily List Items w/chg-dvd (NIK) – evening of October 9
Daily List Items w/chg (NIK) – evening of October 9
Search Shelves – evening of October 9
Daily Checkin Statistics – evening of October 16
Daily Checkout Statistics – evening of October 16
Daily Renewal Statistics – evening of October 16
Daily Hold Pickup List – evening of October 23
DID YOU KNOW?
Did you know that a problem with Properties has been reported for the Java Checkin Bookdrop wizard, but it turns out the issue is one of poor design and not really a bug? When the Behavior to “Allow discharge dates in the future” remains unchecked, one would assume that Workflows will prevent setting checkin dates beyond the current date. But unfortunately it’s still possible to enter a future date when processing bookdrop items. I tried this in Java and got the same result, but after working with Sirsi I learned that the date field works as designed, it’s just not a very good design. Although it’s possible to ENTER a date in the future in the “Enter Date of Discharge” field (which it should not allow), WorkFlows doesn’t actually use that erroneous date for the discharge. When you proceed with the checkin, an error message is displayed that warns you that the “Date must be today or earlier” and you must fix the date before you can check-in the item. Since more than one person has been fooled by the poor design, I wanted to alert other Java users that this particular Properties setting can be deceptive. Ken Victorson
“FUTURE OF THE ILS” SYMPOSIUM PRESENTATIONS ONLINE:
The symposium organized by Lincoln Trail Libraries System in Champaign on September 13-14 on “The Future Of Integrated Library Systems” featured a quality array of presenters and information. Many of the presentation handouts may be accessed online at
http://www.lincolntrail.info/ilssymposium2007/agendapage.html
CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:
None! (We avoided conflicts with ILA and hope attendees enjoy the conference!)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)