CCS News
MAY 28, 2010
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
Domain – we will be taking over our domain ccs.nsls.lib.il.us from NSLS. In fact at the time of this writing, changes in DNS settings to effect the change are being handled at CCS, NSLS and ICN with help from our friends at all agencies.
Holds – as we are all aware, a hot topic is “how do we handle holds” with changes in van delivery and policy. We have been busy looking at options settings with Richard and ready to make necessary changes.
Email mysteries – we have had several reports of emails going to the wrong patron. This occurs when a patron is set for email but there is no email address. SirsiDynix is still stymied about why this happens and we are as well. To prevent it, when there is no email address in the record be sure the patron does not have Notify Via EMAIL – change it to PHONE or use paper notification instead.
CHANGES REGARDING SIRSI HOLDS:
In June the existing NSLS van delivery service will change to a member-funded operation for three months. All CCS libraries except Des Plaines will participate fully; Des Plaines will receive two delivery visits per week. Due to interest in reducing van traffic, Des Plaines will not be placing Sirsi holds against other CCS libraries; their sirsi holds will remain local. Whether they will still fill holds from other CCS libraries is still being clarified; they are willing but the resulting van traffic may be viewed as too problematic.
The Governing Board took further action on May 26, effective Wednesday, June 2:
*As a three month trial, we are turning on an option available as part of our current release, as described in the Release Notes (3.2 Notes, page 73):
“New Option To Change System Range Hold To Group Range Hold
For all system range holds placed via iBistro… there is now an option for the software to do an additional check to determine if there is a holdable copy owned by the pickup library or owned by a library within the hold group of the pickup library.
In addition, there is also a new option for whether to base group range holds on the station library of the user or the pickup library of the hold.
By default, SirsiDynix Symphony is configured not to change hold levels… By default, group range holds will continue to be based on the station library of the user placing the hold.”
(Note: both these changes involve calling Client Care and having them flip the switch. If the goal is to minimize van traffic by keeping holds local, it would make sense to have the group be based on the pickup library. If anyone wants to speak against that, please do so this week! There will be discussion at the June 3 ILL meeting.)
We are setting every library’s hold group so that it consists of the library, plus any branches or bookmobiles which are additional service outlets.
What this means is that:
1. iBistro holds will still be systemwide when placed by the user (and subject to the Hold Map)
2. The software will now check to see if the pickup library has a holdable copy (even if it’s not currently available, i.e., it’s already checked out); if so, it will change the iBistro hold to a group range hold; instead of trapping the first available copy systemwide, it will trap the first available copy locally when the hold is at the top of the queue
3. If there are no eligible local copies to fill an iBistro hold, it will remain systemwide
4. Holds placed in Workflows by staff will be unaffected, so that’s how to place an “Old School” systemwide hold as needed for Book Clubs, etc.
5. We will monitor the effect on van traffic and the average time to fill a hold to see whether this means a longer wait or whether not having as many items flying around may actually help
*We will have a short explanatory message on the iBistro Welcome Screen.
Okay, further questions welcome!
AUTHORITIES NEWS:
Earlier this week 2 files from Marcive were loaded into our system. The first file updated 4900 authority records and the other file included 434 authority records, which were needed, but were not available before. These Marcive update files do affect the database – name changes and adding death dates are common reasons for a bibliographic record to be updated.
UNICODE CLEANUP:
Special thanks to Roger Anderson and Joel Hahn for completing the manual cleanup of 1,900 records which needed it after the Unicode conversion!
A FINAL COMMENT:
We can’t let the near-demise of NSLS pass unnoted. Without NSLS, there would be no CCS, and even after the two organizations were separated (an action which leaves CCS on much more solid ground today), NSLS provided crucial support, whether it was delivery, meeting facilities, CE, management of buying cooperatives, grant funding for our OCLC batchloads or a myriad of other helpful contributions. We wish all the best to the human beings whose lives are being disrupted by the effects of the fiscal problems, and hope for a re-structuring that will mean all that good work for over forty years wasn’t just a historical footnote.
CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:
Wed., June 2, 9:30, Ela: Catalogers
Thur., June 3, 9:30, Round Lake: ILL
Thur., June 3, noon, Palm Court: Continuing Education Steering Committee
Fri., June 4, noon, Jameson’s: Technical Group Secretaries Appreciation Lunch
Thursday, May 20, 2010
CCS News
MAY 21, 2010
It’s been a week of turbulence and sadness, between Sirsidynix’s consolidation of most operations in Provo and the bad news from NSLS and the other Library Systems around the state. We are working on a menu of options for managing resource sharing in light of the delivery changes; we are also working on separating our Internet turf from that of NSLS; and we appreciate very much how our libraries stepped up to host meetings previously slated for NSLS. Much more will come to light with greater specificity and detail soon. Meanwhile, our thanks and best wishes follow all whose lives are being disrupted. On the positive side, the original decision made some 25 years ago that CCS should become autonomous has never looked better... but we remain a part of the community, enhanced by the many benefits NSLS has offered.
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
Outage on Saturday – On Saturday morning, regrettably, we experienced a situation where our system locked up and we were down from 10:30am until 2pm. Working with Sirsi we have identified the root cause of the lockup now and we are working to be sure it does not happen again. We will keep you posted on our findings.
CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:
Tues., 5/25, noon, Jameson’s: Technical Group Chairs luncheon
Wed., 5/26, 9 AM, NSLS Conference Room: Executive Committee (special meeting)
Wed., 5/26, 9:30, CCS: Acquisitions
Wed., 5/26, 10:00, NSLS Auditorium: Governing Board (last CCS meeting at NSLS!)
MAY 21, 2010
It’s been a week of turbulence and sadness, between Sirsidynix’s consolidation of most operations in Provo and the bad news from NSLS and the other Library Systems around the state. We are working on a menu of options for managing resource sharing in light of the delivery changes; we are also working on separating our Internet turf from that of NSLS; and we appreciate very much how our libraries stepped up to host meetings previously slated for NSLS. Much more will come to light with greater specificity and detail soon. Meanwhile, our thanks and best wishes follow all whose lives are being disrupted. On the positive side, the original decision made some 25 years ago that CCS should become autonomous has never looked better... but we remain a part of the community, enhanced by the many benefits NSLS has offered.
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
Outage on Saturday – On Saturday morning, regrettably, we experienced a situation where our system locked up and we were down from 10:30am until 2pm. Working with Sirsi we have identified the root cause of the lockup now and we are working to be sure it does not happen again. We will keep you posted on our findings.
CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:
Tues., 5/25, noon, Jameson’s: Technical Group Chairs luncheon
Wed., 5/26, 9 AM, NSLS Conference Room: Executive Committee (special meeting)
Wed., 5/26, 9:30, CCS: Acquisitions
Wed., 5/26, 10:00, NSLS Auditorium: Governing Board (last CCS meeting at NSLS!)
Thursday, May 13, 2010
CCS News
MAY 14, 2010
Wow, what a week. Between the unfortunate reductions and changes at NSLS and the consolidation of Sirsidynix operations in Provo (which we hope won’t cost them too many good people for whom relocation isn’t in the cards), the environment in which we operate has changed as much as it has in any 24 hour period we can recall. But we are keeping an eye on the situation, and are in a relatively fortunate position. We are sure that some adjustments loom and look forward to coping with them. Meanwhile, our thanks and good wishes go to NSLS and the staff there.
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
Email server – we have installed a new email server and as of early this week all emails have been going out from the new server. The transfer went well and without a hitch. So we want to say thank you to Frank for his hard work on the smooth transfer.
Goodbye to Jim – as of the first of May we said goodbye to one of our night operators of over six years, Jim Kraft. We have been interviewing to fill the position and hope to have more news soon. In the meantime our other operators will be filling in the open slot.
LION, TIGER, AND BEARS, OH MY! – OR SOME SUBJECT HEADING CHANGES OF NOTE:
Earlier this year, the Library of Congress changed all the subject headings from “Lions” to “Lion” 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. Now it’s the tiger’s turn. On Tuesday night, over 500 bib. records were changed from “Tigers” to the singular form of “Tiger”.
In relation to these types of changes, LC also added 3 new subject headings, that will cover tiger sub-species (Bengal tiger, Siberian tiger, and Sumatran tiger). These new subject headings were added to all appropriate bib. records in our system.
CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:
Wed., 5/19, 9:30, CCS; SCRAP
Thur., 5/20, 9:30, NSLS: PAS
MAY 14, 2010
Wow, what a week. Between the unfortunate reductions and changes at NSLS and the consolidation of Sirsidynix operations in Provo (which we hope won’t cost them too many good people for whom relocation isn’t in the cards), the environment in which we operate has changed as much as it has in any 24 hour period we can recall. But we are keeping an eye on the situation, and are in a relatively fortunate position. We are sure that some adjustments loom and look forward to coping with them. Meanwhile, our thanks and good wishes go to NSLS and the staff there.
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
Email server – we have installed a new email server and as of early this week all emails have been going out from the new server. The transfer went well and without a hitch. So we want to say thank you to Frank for his hard work on the smooth transfer.
Goodbye to Jim – as of the first of May we said goodbye to one of our night operators of over six years, Jim Kraft. We have been interviewing to fill the position and hope to have more news soon. In the meantime our other operators will be filling in the open slot.
LION, TIGER, AND BEARS, OH MY! – OR SOME SUBJECT HEADING CHANGES OF NOTE:
Earlier this year, the Library of Congress changed all the subject headings from “Lions” to “Lion” 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. Now it’s the tiger’s turn. On Tuesday night, over 500 bib. records were changed from “Tigers” to the singular form of “Tiger”.
In relation to these types of changes, LC also added 3 new subject headings, that will cover tiger sub-species (Bengal tiger, Siberian tiger, and Sumatran tiger). These new subject headings were added to all appropriate bib. records in our system.
CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:
Wed., 5/19, 9:30, CCS; SCRAP
Thur., 5/20, 9:30, NSLS: PAS
Thursday, May 6, 2010
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
What went wrong with the indexes? We now know that during the migration to Unicode two procedures were run out of order accidentally by Sirsi. Usually, all authority indexes are built followed by bibliographic indexes. However during the migration these two steps were reversed. This came to light as a result of a large authority file that was loaded in the week following the migration. Therefore we had to run some authority cleanup procedures followed by a rebuild of the index file. All is now well.
Director’s Station – The problems transferring our Director’s Station data are indirectly related to the Oracle move. We predicted that we would have a “burn-in” period where processes during the night would have to be adjusted as some are taking longer. In this case our Director’s Station processes are taking longer and “collided” with other processes. We have tuned up the schedule now and the transfer is going fine.
CCS Meetings Next Week:
Tues., 5/11, 9:30, Dundee: Director's Station Discussion Group
Wed., 5/12, 10:00, CCS: Executive Committee
Fri., 5/14, 9:30, NSLS: Circulation
What went wrong with the indexes? We now know that during the migration to Unicode two procedures were run out of order accidentally by Sirsi. Usually, all authority indexes are built followed by bibliographic indexes. However during the migration these two steps were reversed. This came to light as a result of a large authority file that was loaded in the week following the migration. Therefore we had to run some authority cleanup procedures followed by a rebuild of the index file. All is now well.
Director’s Station – The problems transferring our Director’s Station data are indirectly related to the Oracle move. We predicted that we would have a “burn-in” period where processes during the night would have to be adjusted as some are taking longer. In this case our Director’s Station processes are taking longer and “collided” with other processes. We have tuned up the schedule now and the transfer is going fine.
CCS Meetings Next Week:
Tues., 5/11, 9:30, Dundee: Director's Station Discussion Group
Wed., 5/12, 10:00, CCS: Executive Committee
Fri., 5/14, 9:30, NSLS: Circulation
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)