CCS News
FEBRUARY 21, 2014
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
Texting:
Currently there are 3 libraries who have started using text message (SMS) notifications with their staff and some patrons. Crystal Lake PL was the most recent and brought up a few issues related to the other reports the library currently uses to contact their patrons about available holds. Since then, some of the problems have been cleared up and we are moving forward with great caution. There are 6 other libraries currently interested in sending out text message notifications for their patrons’ holds. We have not forgotten about you, but the things we have found out and had to de-bug moved the time line a little further out than expected. Sirsi’s development team will be looking at some issues we have brought up. Hopefully in a few weeks we can start bringing the other libraries on board.
Purchase Alert and Unfillable Holds Reports:
Beginning next week the frequency with which these two reports compile will change. Currently they both compile once each week on Monday mornings at 4:00 AM. Beginning next week they will be compiled three times each week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 4:00 AM. Both reports will continue to appear in the ‘Special Weekly Reports’ section on the reports web page.
SYMPHONY UPGRADE:
Within the next few weeks, subject to progress on our office renovations, we will load Symphony Service Pack 3.4.1 SP4 onto the Test Server. There aren’t a lot of new features, but there are some nice ones. Next week we will send out Release Notes excerpts for the Technical Groups, and we’ll run through that documentation during the next round of Technical Group meetings. Happily, it’s pretty quick reading.
ENTERPRISE STATUS:
We are continuing to move toward the Enterprise transition. Sirsi has almost completed setting up Search Profiles (aka gateways) for each CCS library, to be used as a starting point. We will announce the URLs when all are ready. Meanwhile, we’re continuing to investigate the nuts and bolts of eCommerce, working on a Project Plan, working on the configuration workshop March 25 at Niles, reading documentation, and scheduling training for our own staff. Expect sundry documentation soon via email and stay tuned!
LIBRARY CLOSING: Wilmette will be closed all day on Friday, February 21 for an In Service Day.
CCS MEETING NEXT WEEK:
Mon., 2/24, 1:00, CCS: Budget & Finance Committee
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Thursday, February 13, 2014
CCS News February 14, 2014
CCS News
FEBRUARY 14, 2014
BOOKMARK TEMPLATE ONLINE:
We have posted the CCS bookmark as a .pdf on the (not passworded) Home Page of www.ccslib.org under the About Us tab, in case anyone wants to print their own. We are also printing more; please contact Bonnie Owens to request some.
LIBRARY CLOSING:
The Wilmette Public Library will be closed all day on Friday, February 21st for a Staff Institute Day. Regular hours will resume on Saturday, February 22nd.
WELCOME TO JOEL HAHN:
Joel will start on Monday, February 17. We’re proud to have him as part of the CCS staff, and again thank Niles for their graciousness in not forbidding him to leave their premises. Roger Anderson will do some training; we all look forward to a smooth transition and continued benefits from Joel’s expertise.
CCS MEETING NEXT WEEK:
Wed., 2/19, 9:30, CCS: SCRAP
FEBRUARY 14, 2014
BOOKMARK TEMPLATE ONLINE:
We have posted the CCS bookmark as a .pdf on the (not passworded) Home Page of www.ccslib.org under the About Us tab, in case anyone wants to print their own. We are also printing more; please contact Bonnie Owens to request some.
LIBRARY CLOSING:
The Wilmette Public Library will be closed all day on Friday, February 21st for a Staff Institute Day. Regular hours will resume on Saturday, February 22nd.
WELCOME TO JOEL HAHN:
Joel will start on Monday, February 17. We’re proud to have him as part of the CCS staff, and again thank Niles for their graciousness in not forbidding him to leave their premises. Roger Anderson will do some training; we all look forward to a smooth transition and continued benefits from Joel’s expertise.
CCS MEETING NEXT WEEK:
Wed., 2/19, 9:30, CCS: SCRAP
Thursday, February 6, 2014
CCS News February 7, 2014
CCS News
FEBRUARY 7, 2014
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
ICN T1 Cutover Complete:
The cutover of our ICN T1 lines at 10 AM on Tuesday, February 4, about which we have communicated previously, went without a hitch or even a noticeable hiccup. ICN has confirmed that the work
was done. This is not our switch to fiber; that is months away but in progress.
Next CCS Web Site Password Change:
Before the end of the month we will have information on our next change of the CCS Members Only section of our web site. We will announce an ongoing schedule for these changes, so you will know in advance when this will happen, and no, January 1 won’t be one of the days...
NOVELIST LIBRARYAWARE TRAINING:
EBSCO is setting up each library’s account for LibraryAware, now part of our NoveList subscription. When that is in place we will re-schedule the training which we postponed from February 18 (sorry). They’re shooting for early March, so we’ll re-schedule for either before or after PLA depending on their rate of progress.
ENTERPRISE ROLLOUT:
Sirsi is setting up a basic starting point for each library and about half our libraries now have something in place to serve as a point of departure. When that’s done we’ll send out the URLs. In the coming week or so we’ll also send out information about Enterprise eCommerce (eventually followed by a webinar), configuration documents, the Task Force rosters and registration as we have it for the March 25 configuration workshops.
CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:
Wed., 2/12, 10:00, CCS: Executive Committee
Thur., 12/13, 9:30, Round Lake: ILL
(Note to Catalogers: The February meeting is canceled!)
FEBRUARY 7, 2014
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
ICN T1 Cutover Complete:
The cutover of our ICN T1 lines at 10 AM on Tuesday, February 4, about which we have communicated previously, went without a hitch or even a noticeable hiccup. ICN has confirmed that the work
was done. This is not our switch to fiber; that is months away but in progress.
Next CCS Web Site Password Change:
Before the end of the month we will have information on our next change of the CCS Members Only section of our web site. We will announce an ongoing schedule for these changes, so you will know in advance when this will happen, and no, January 1 won’t be one of the days...
NOVELIST LIBRARYAWARE TRAINING:
EBSCO is setting up each library’s account for LibraryAware, now part of our NoveList subscription. When that is in place we will re-schedule the training which we postponed from February 18 (sorry). They’re shooting for early March, so we’ll re-schedule for either before or after PLA depending on their rate of progress.
ENTERPRISE ROLLOUT:
Sirsi is setting up a basic starting point for each library and about half our libraries now have something in place to serve as a point of departure. When that’s done we’ll send out the URLs. In the coming week or so we’ll also send out information about Enterprise eCommerce (eventually followed by a webinar), configuration documents, the Task Force rosters and registration as we have it for the March 25 configuration workshops.
CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:
Wed., 2/12, 10:00, CCS: Executive Committee
Thur., 12/13, 9:30, Round Lake: ILL
(Note to Catalogers: The February meeting is canceled!)
Friday, January 31, 2014
CCS News January 31, 2014
CCS News
JANUARY 31, 2014
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
Just in:
We were made aware of this from ICN today, and doing our best to let libraries know.
ICN is working on CT3 consolidation and in the process the T1 circuit for COOPERATIVE COMPUTER SERVICES will be moved to another CT3 on Tuesday 02/04 at 10am. It should only be a few seconds outage to move the circuit and if we run into any problems, the move will be rolled back. We will keep everyone posted on any changes and when we know the work will be complete.
Self-Check and Those Who Manage It:
An email to the Maintenance Coordinators group was sent out this morning discussing the self-check offline mode. For those in that group please be sure to read the email. For more information, please contact Bob Barth at CCS.
AUTHORITIES NEWS:
Last week, CCS sent a file of 9050 bibliographic records to Marcive for authorities processing. 6820 records were updated and returned to CCS, as well as 3988 new authority records. All of these records were loaded into our system.
Over the next week or two, two more files from Marcive will be loaded into our system. One contains 2917 updated authority records and the other contains 325 new authority records that were needed in our database, but were not available before this time.
Virginia Seward
CCS Authorities Librarian
ANYONE ELSE GLAD THIS MONTH IS ENDING??
CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:
Thur., 2/6, 9:30, Niles: Webmasters
JANUARY 31, 2014
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
Just in:
We were made aware of this from ICN today, and doing our best to let libraries know.
ICN is working on CT3 consolidation and in the process the T1 circuit for COOPERATIVE COMPUTER SERVICES will be moved to another CT3 on Tuesday 02/04 at 10am. It should only be a few seconds outage to move the circuit and if we run into any problems, the move will be rolled back. We will keep everyone posted on any changes and when we know the work will be complete.
Self-Check and Those Who Manage It:
An email to the Maintenance Coordinators group was sent out this morning discussing the self-check offline mode. For those in that group please be sure to read the email. For more information, please contact Bob Barth at CCS.
AUTHORITIES NEWS:
Last week, CCS sent a file of 9050 bibliographic records to Marcive for authorities processing. 6820 records were updated and returned to CCS, as well as 3988 new authority records. All of these records were loaded into our system.
Over the next week or two, two more files from Marcive will be loaded into our system. One contains 2917 updated authority records and the other contains 325 new authority records that were needed in our database, but were not available before this time.
Virginia Seward
CCS Authorities Librarian
ANYONE ELSE GLAD THIS MONTH IS ENDING??
CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:
Thur., 2/6, 9:30, Niles: Webmasters
Thursday, January 23, 2014
CCS News January 24, 2014
CCS News
JANUARY 24, 2014
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
The Postini antivirus/spam filtering product that we currently use for email will be discontinued in the near future, as it has been bought by Google and they have no plans for continuing it. We are in the process of evaluating other solutions such as McAfee and Symantec and will begin testing them shortly. We expect that the eventual transition to the new product to be invisible to anyone using the listservs.
ENTERPRISE:
We will be moving forward with the CCS rollout by September 15 of Sirsi/Dynix's Enterprise product as the primary user interface, along with eResource Central and Portfolio for electronic resources and digital archives respectively. Even though we are almost eight months prior to going live, we will need to take advantage of this time to review configuration, work with third parties including BiblioCommons, Boopsie and the people who manage ePay, do testing, etc. Of course this will not be possible without the participation and collaboration of all the libraries in CCS.
We will begin intensive work with our membership on this in March, after the CCS budget is completed and the office renovations are further along. We do have a head start via the version of Enterprise that was set up as part of our comparison with BiblioCommons, and Jonathan Padilla deployed Enterprise at the consortium where he worked in Oregon before joining CCS. We anticipate having at least the basic configuration for everyone finalized by the beginning of August. We can probably fast track some libraries, with two caveats: we can’t promise an earlier extraction of user-generated content from BiblioCommons, or the latest and greatest version of Enterprise, if it’s going to be much sooner.
We will soon be scheduling a workshop in March on the configuration options for a library. The Enterprise configuration guide will be posted well in advance. We will allow for two people per library, with AM and PM sessions to provide a little scheduling flexibility. Each library has been asked to designate a primary contact for this project. We will also create two Task Forces: one for general implementation guidance, the other for PR and marketing purposes. We will communicate much more broadly with the CCS community as we go.
CCS MEETING NEXT WEEK:
Fri., 1/31, 10:00 A.M., CCS: Equitable Access Task Force
JANUARY 24, 2014
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
The Postini antivirus/spam filtering product that we currently use for email will be discontinued in the near future, as it has been bought by Google and they have no plans for continuing it. We are in the process of evaluating other solutions such as McAfee and Symantec and will begin testing them shortly. We expect that the eventual transition to the new product to be invisible to anyone using the listservs.
ENTERPRISE:
We will be moving forward with the CCS rollout by September 15 of Sirsi/Dynix's Enterprise product as the primary user interface, along with eResource Central and Portfolio for electronic resources and digital archives respectively. Even though we are almost eight months prior to going live, we will need to take advantage of this time to review configuration, work with third parties including BiblioCommons, Boopsie and the people who manage ePay, do testing, etc. Of course this will not be possible without the participation and collaboration of all the libraries in CCS.
We will begin intensive work with our membership on this in March, after the CCS budget is completed and the office renovations are further along. We do have a head start via the version of Enterprise that was set up as part of our comparison with BiblioCommons, and Jonathan Padilla deployed Enterprise at the consortium where he worked in Oregon before joining CCS. We anticipate having at least the basic configuration for everyone finalized by the beginning of August. We can probably fast track some libraries, with two caveats: we can’t promise an earlier extraction of user-generated content from BiblioCommons, or the latest and greatest version of Enterprise, if it’s going to be much sooner.
We will soon be scheduling a workshop in March on the configuration options for a library. The Enterprise configuration guide will be posted well in advance. We will allow for two people per library, with AM and PM sessions to provide a little scheduling flexibility. Each library has been asked to designate a primary contact for this project. We will also create two Task Forces: one for general implementation guidance, the other for PR and marketing purposes. We will communicate much more broadly with the CCS community as we go.
CCS MEETING NEXT WEEK:
Fri., 1/31, 10:00 A.M., CCS: Equitable Access Task Force
Thursday, January 16, 2014
CCS News January 17, 2014
CCS News
JANUARY 17, 2014
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
BiblioCommons DNS Hiccup:
Late Tuesday, January 14, BiblioCommons had a brief issue with their DNS management. It was resolved fairly quickly, but if you encountered access issues then, it’s the likely suspect.
SYMPHONY SERVICE PACK 3.4.1 SP4:
Sirsi has announced the release of Service Pack 4 for our current Symphony Release 3.4.1. We were planning to go to SP3 when our office renovations are complete. Everything in SP3 is also in SP4, so our new strategy is to watch the chatter about SP4 for the next month while our renovations continue, then load SP4 onto the Test Server and bang on it for a few weeks before we put it into Production. We have posted the SP4 Release Notes on our web site on the (passworded) Members Only page. They are also accessible at this link:
http://ccslib.org/attachments/File/LibraryStaff/Sym_341_SP4_RelNotes.pdf
LIRBRARY CLOSING:
Lake Villa District Library will be closed for Staff Development Day on Friday, January 24th
CCS MEETING NEXT WEEK:
Wed., 1/22, 10:00, Algonquin: Annual and regular Governing Board meetings (catered breakfast included)
JANUARY 17, 2014
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
BiblioCommons DNS Hiccup:
Late Tuesday, January 14, BiblioCommons had a brief issue with their DNS management. It was resolved fairly quickly, but if you encountered access issues then, it’s the likely suspect.
SYMPHONY SERVICE PACK 3.4.1 SP4:
Sirsi has announced the release of Service Pack 4 for our current Symphony Release 3.4.1. We were planning to go to SP3 when our office renovations are complete. Everything in SP3 is also in SP4, so our new strategy is to watch the chatter about SP4 for the next month while our renovations continue, then load SP4 onto the Test Server and bang on it for a few weeks before we put it into Production. We have posted the SP4 Release Notes on our web site on the (passworded) Members Only page. They are also accessible at this link:
http://ccslib.org/attachments/File/LibraryStaff/Sym_341_SP4_RelNotes.pdf
LIRBRARY CLOSING:
Lake Villa District Library will be closed for Staff Development Day on Friday, January 24th
CCS MEETING NEXT WEEK:
Wed., 1/22, 10:00, Algonquin: Annual and regular Governing Board meetings (catered breakfast included)
Thursday, January 9, 2014
CCS News January 10, 2014
CCS News
JANUARY 10, 2014
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
Air Conditioner Repair:
On Monday after we closed early due to the weather, our air conditioner in the server room went down. Staff (Bob Barth) did come in to start the spare air conditioner unit, and that kept us up and running until the repairman arrived on Tuesday morning. We did have to shut down the Test Server to reduce heat in the server room, as is always the case when we have temperature issues. We were told the cause was the outside air temperature; the failure occurs when the temp drops below -15. This was a case of “what you didn’t know didn’t hurt you.” It is nice having a backup unit, especially one that works.
SIP Help Desk Tickets:
When your library requests a SIP port, please open a WonderDesk incident so we can track the ordering and configuration process, which can often be a few weeks. Thanks!
AUTHORITIES NEWS:
Two files from Marcive were loaded into our system this week. One contained 2791 updated authority records and the other contained 302 new authority records that were needed in our database, but were not available before this time.
Virginia Seward
CCS Authorities Librarian
CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:
Wed., 1/15, 9:30, CCS: SCRAP
Thur., 1/16, 9:30, Niles: PAS
JANUARY 10, 2014
FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
Air Conditioner Repair:
On Monday after we closed early due to the weather, our air conditioner in the server room went down. Staff (Bob Barth) did come in to start the spare air conditioner unit, and that kept us up and running until the repairman arrived on Tuesday morning. We did have to shut down the Test Server to reduce heat in the server room, as is always the case when we have temperature issues. We were told the cause was the outside air temperature; the failure occurs when the temp drops below -15. This was a case of “what you didn’t know didn’t hurt you.” It is nice having a backup unit, especially one that works.
SIP Help Desk Tickets:
When your library requests a SIP port, please open a WonderDesk incident so we can track the ordering and configuration process, which can often be a few weeks. Thanks!
AUTHORITIES NEWS:
Two files from Marcive were loaded into our system this week. One contained 2791 updated authority records and the other contained 302 new authority records that were needed in our database, but were not available before this time.
Virginia Seward
CCS Authorities Librarian
CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:
Wed., 1/15, 9:30, CCS: SCRAP
Thur., 1/16, 9:30, Niles: PAS
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