CCS News
FEBRUARY 26, 2010
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
Oracle Unicorn conversion and Symphony Bridge – the first sets of results are in and we are diagnosing several problems that were uncovered as a result of the tests. Thanks to all of you who worked hard to create test data.
Email/Web Server – we received our new email/web server this week and will be setting it up over the course of the next several weeks.
COSUGI – Bob and Linda will be away Tuesday through Friday for the COSUGI (SirsiDynix User Group) conference (along with Richard and Roger).
Update your WonderDesk incidents – Remember to create WonderDesk incidents for all your needs, even telecommunications changes, and keep the information up to date.
News on ICN – Robin Woodsome (ICN Regional Manager/Network Engineer) will be joining the Maintenance Coordinators Technical Group for their March 16 meeting via a virtual link to discuss what happens when you drop your ICN lines, viability of ICN in the future and their plan for fiber. Since we are all interested in cost effective bandwidth (and lots of it) you will want to be sure your library does not miss this meeting.
AUTHORITIES NEWS:
Last week, 1428 authority records were updated from a file that Marcive sent. Marcive also sent 462 new authority records that were not available before.
There will also be a CCS Cataloger’s workshop next Wednesday, March 3rd at NSLS at 9:30 a.m. Kellie Green & Virginia Seward will be discussing the often complex subject of series.
CCS BUDGET STATUS:
By this time every year, we get queries about when CCS budget figures will be available. You should see the complete budget packet on March 4 when the Executive Committee packet is distributed; final approval will come at the March 31 Governing Board meeting. This time the midyear adjustment is downward (as usual) and the FY 2010-11 budget is down an average of around $3,000 per library from the original FY 2009-10 budget. More specifics including the usual charts and worksheet are in the packet.
There will be NO CCS NEWS NEXT WEEK because of the staff absences for COSUGI.
CCS MEETINGS THE NEXT TWO WEEKS:
Wed., 3/3, 9:30, NSLS: Catalogers (workshop) (see Authorities News above)
Wed., 3/10, 10, CCS: Executive Committee
Thur., 3/11, 9:30, Niles: PAS
Fri., 3/12, 9:30, Fremont: Circulation
Thursday, February 18, 2010
CCS News
FEBRUARY 19, 2010
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
Unicode Oracle Conversion – the computer room has been quite focused on testing and planning for the Unicode Oracle conversion.
1. Date for Conversion is the week of April 19 - – Have you heard? We plan to do the Unicode conversion during the week of April 19. We will tell you more about the exact schedule based on the results of timing tests that we are conducting on the test servers.
2. Testing – many libraries have been participating in the task to create test data. Thank you for your diligence in this task.
3. Reporting – when reporting problems or questions, it is good to copy others in the computer room or post your question through the Wonderdesk.
SUBJECT HEADING CHANGES AND OTHER AUTHORITIES NEWS:
on Feb. 17, over 500 bib. records were changed to reflect the subject heading change of “Lions” to “Lion”. This change occurred because LC finally decided to conform with their own rule, that headings for animals that are only one species should be established in singular form, whereas headings for animals covering more than one species are established in plural form. [Editor’s note: we thought there were multiple species of lions.]
Last week, over 100 bib. records were changed to reflect another change from “Enemies (Persons)” to just “Enemies”.
Last week, CCS also sent 4936 bibliographic records to Marcive for authorities processing. We received back 1738 updated bibliographic records, and 2782 new authority records. All records were reloaded into our database. Marcive also started enriching some records with reading notes (Lexile, Accelerated Reader, or Reading Counts).
LEXILE NUMBER/READING NOTES PROJECT:
Last week, when CCS sent the approx. 4900 bibliographical records to Marcive for Overnight Authorities Processing, they also began enriching some bib. records with Reading notes. Marcive enriched some of our records with Lexile, Accelerated Reader, and Reading Counts notes.
Lexile numbers appear in a 521 note
For example : 490|bLexile or AD 560|bLexile.
Accelerated Reader appears in the 526 field
For example: Accelerated Reader/Renaissance Learning|bMG|c5.7|d2 )
Reading Counts also appears in the 526 field
For example: Reading Counts RC|bHigh School|c8.1|d25|zQuiz: 14149|zGuided reading level: NR.
This week, CCS sent Marcive a copy of our database. Over the next week or so, Marcive will retrospectively add these 3 notes to any of our affected bibliographic records.
THERE WILL BE NO CATALOGING DOWN TIME. When Marcive sends back to us changed records, Roger will use Cataloging Merge to add those new fields to our bibliographic records that are already residing in our database.
Now and when this is finished, searching for these notes can be done using a keyword search or a field specific search. For example, to bring up Reading Counts records, do a keyword general search on “Reading Counts {526}”. During the Oracle move in April, all headings will be re-indexed, and searches indexes will be added so that a patron or staff can search for Lexile or other reading notes.
CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:
Tues., 2/23, 9:30, CCS: Budget & Finance Committee
Wed., 2/24, 9:30, CCS: Acquisitions Discussion Group
FEBRUARY 19, 2010
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
Unicode Oracle Conversion – the computer room has been quite focused on testing and planning for the Unicode Oracle conversion.
1. Date for Conversion is the week of April 19 - – Have you heard? We plan to do the Unicode conversion during the week of April 19. We will tell you more about the exact schedule based on the results of timing tests that we are conducting on the test servers.
2. Testing – many libraries have been participating in the task to create test data. Thank you for your diligence in this task.
3. Reporting – when reporting problems or questions, it is good to copy others in the computer room or post your question through the Wonderdesk.
SUBJECT HEADING CHANGES AND OTHER AUTHORITIES NEWS:
on Feb. 17, over 500 bib. records were changed to reflect the subject heading change of “Lions” to “Lion”. This change occurred because LC finally decided to conform with their own rule, that headings for animals that are only one species should be established in singular form, whereas headings for animals covering more than one species are established in plural form. [Editor’s note: we thought there were multiple species of lions.]
Last week, over 100 bib. records were changed to reflect another change from “Enemies (Persons)” to just “Enemies”.
Last week, CCS also sent 4936 bibliographic records to Marcive for authorities processing. We received back 1738 updated bibliographic records, and 2782 new authority records. All records were reloaded into our database. Marcive also started enriching some records with reading notes (Lexile, Accelerated Reader, or Reading Counts).
LEXILE NUMBER/READING NOTES PROJECT:
Last week, when CCS sent the approx. 4900 bibliographical records to Marcive for Overnight Authorities Processing, they also began enriching some bib. records with Reading notes. Marcive enriched some of our records with Lexile, Accelerated Reader, and Reading Counts notes.
Lexile numbers appear in a 521 note
For example : 490|bLexile or AD 560|bLexile.
Accelerated Reader appears in the 526 field
For example: Accelerated Reader/Renaissance Learning|bMG|c5.7|d2 )
Reading Counts also appears in the 526 field
For example: Reading Counts RC|bHigh School|c8.1|d25|zQuiz: 14149|zGuided reading level: NR.
This week, CCS sent Marcive a copy of our database. Over the next week or so, Marcive will retrospectively add these 3 notes to any of our affected bibliographic records.
THERE WILL BE NO CATALOGING DOWN TIME. When Marcive sends back to us changed records, Roger will use Cataloging Merge to add those new fields to our bibliographic records that are already residing in our database.
Now and when this is finished, searching for these notes can be done using a keyword search or a field specific search. For example, to bring up Reading Counts records, do a keyword general search on “Reading Counts {526}”. During the Oracle move in April, all headings will be re-indexed, and searches indexes will be added so that a patron or staff can search for Lexile or other reading notes.
CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:
Tues., 2/23, 9:30, CCS: Budget & Finance Committee
Wed., 2/24, 9:30, CCS: Acquisitions Discussion Group
Thursday, February 11, 2010
CCS News
FEBRUARY 12, 2010
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
PROJECTS - The Computer Room continues to focus on a number of upcoming conversion projects in addition to the normal incidents that we receive from you. This week we have been looking at data converted in test to the Unicode format. Next week we will commence Phase 2 testing of the Symphony Bridge (Oracle/Unicode Conversion). We also expect delivery of our email server on Feb 19 and during the week of February 15 we will be shipping off data in preparation for the enhancement of the database with Lexile numbers.
This bulletin is short and sweet this week, but the Editor wishes to add commendations for the high attendance at our meetings despite the weather; thanks to all, and we send our understanding to those who couldn’t make it to Prospect Heights or Crystal Lake.
CCS MEETING NEXT WEEK:
Wed., 2/17, 9:30, CCS: SCRAP
FEBRUARY 12, 2010
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
PROJECTS - The Computer Room continues to focus on a number of upcoming conversion projects in addition to the normal incidents that we receive from you. This week we have been looking at data converted in test to the Unicode format. Next week we will commence Phase 2 testing of the Symphony Bridge (Oracle/Unicode Conversion). We also expect delivery of our email server on Feb 19 and during the week of February 15 we will be shipping off data in preparation for the enhancement of the database with Lexile numbers.
This bulletin is short and sweet this week, but the Editor wishes to add commendations for the high attendance at our meetings despite the weather; thanks to all, and we send our understanding to those who couldn’t make it to Prospect Heights or Crystal Lake.
CCS MEETING NEXT WEEK:
Wed., 2/17, 9:30, CCS: SCRAP
Thursday, February 4, 2010
CCS News
FEBRUARY 5, 2010
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
Response Time For Workflows – in the past week a few libraries have complained about response time during peak hours on the weekend. In every case we examined, the response time problems were not in the Workflows server or in our pipeline to ICN, but appeared to be at the libraries. When we look at the graphs provided by ICN (if you are on ICN) we can see saturation at the library networks.
Libraries should discuss this with their network engineers/ providers and if you are not already using packet-shaping on your network, this is an option that you might want to explore to help with response time difficulties. We use a Packeteer device; Cymphonix also offers a solution.
Why We Test — Oracle/Unicode Upgrade – As of this writing, Sirsi has restarted our index rebuilds two times on the Oracle platform due to difficulties encountered with individual records when processing the database. This means that we are at the same stage as we were at this time last week and it also points out why testing is important to try to prevent problems from occurring when we run this procedure “for real”.
LEXILE NUMBERS:
We are now planning for the retrospective addition of Lexile Numbers to the database, looking for the most efficient and least disruptive approach. Stay tuned for more details.
CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:
Tues., 2/9, 9:30-11:30 and 1-3, Prospect Heights: BiblioCommons presentations (you must be registered!)
Wed., 2/10, 10:00, CCS: Executive Committee
Thur., 2/11, 9:30, Crystal Lake: ILL
FEBRUARY 5, 2010
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
Response Time For Workflows – in the past week a few libraries have complained about response time during peak hours on the weekend. In every case we examined, the response time problems were not in the Workflows server or in our pipeline to ICN, but appeared to be at the libraries. When we look at the graphs provided by ICN (if you are on ICN) we can see saturation at the library networks.
Libraries should discuss this with their network engineers/ providers and if you are not already using packet-shaping on your network, this is an option that you might want to explore to help with response time difficulties. We use a Packeteer device; Cymphonix also offers a solution.
Why We Test — Oracle/Unicode Upgrade – As of this writing, Sirsi has restarted our index rebuilds two times on the Oracle platform due to difficulties encountered with individual records when processing the database. This means that we are at the same stage as we were at this time last week and it also points out why testing is important to try to prevent problems from occurring when we run this procedure “for real”.
LEXILE NUMBERS:
We are now planning for the retrospective addition of Lexile Numbers to the database, looking for the most efficient and least disruptive approach. Stay tuned for more details.
CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:
Tues., 2/9, 9:30-11:30 and 1-3, Prospect Heights: BiblioCommons presentations (you must be registered!)
Wed., 2/10, 10:00, CCS: Executive Committee
Thur., 2/11, 9:30, Crystal Lake: ILL
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