Thursday, November 11, 2010

CCS News

NOVEMBER 12, 2010

FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
Use the Wonder Desk:

Some of our libraries sometimes run into issues, or have requests or questions. Please remember to use the Wonder Desk tool found in the WWW.CCSLIB.ORG website. This is the preferred method instead of sending emails to someone specific at CCS asking for help. Not only will your ticket be seen by CCS staff, but it may even be resolved a little quicker, if another staff member can help. It is also easier to track incidents this way. There are many categories in the drop down menu, and please make sure you use your email address instead of the default address on the form. This way if someone at CCS has a question, we can send you an email, or call you for information we may be missing.

3.3.1 Testing:

We are hoping you have started to do some testing with 3.3.1. If you come upon some issues, please make sure you use the forms or Wonder Desk to document your findings. There is a 3.3.1 Test category in the Wonder Desk . Our testing period will run until December 1. The Special Instructions section of the Web site contains information about testing Release 3.3.1. Please contact Willie in the Computer Room to assist in testing or if you need us to resend our message of previous weeks.

Free Printers:

We still have 3 printers available for any of our libraries interested. Scroll down to the November 5th edition of CCS NEWS for all the info.

SUBJECT HEADING CHANGES OF NOTE:
Library of Congress is not changing many subject headings lately (must still be recovering from all those “Cookery” to “Cooking” changes), but there were two recently that affected the CCS database. “Autism – Patients” is now “Autistic people”. Also “Martinique fiction (French)” is now “Martinican fiction (French)”.

--Virginia Seward
CCS Authorities Librarian

CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:

Wed., 11/17, 9:30, CCS: SCRAP

Thur., 11/18, 9:30, Niles: PAS

Thur., 11/18, 9:30, Glenview: Acquisitions

Fri., 11/19, 9:30, Glenview: Director’s Station Discussion Group

Friday, November 5, 2010

CCS News

NOVEMBER 5, 2010

FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
3.3.1 Test – The 3.3.1 test server will be available throughout the month. We have had only one library volunteer to help us in this effort – many thanks to them! Please may we hear from the rest of you?? Contact Willie in the Computer Room to assist us in testing or if you need us to resend our message of last week.

SIP connections and the Firewall – there is good news and bad news. Freegal from Library Ideas has been added to the list of certified SirsiDynix vendors. However, the popularity of SIP connections of late coupled with many network changes in the libraries has nearly “maxed-out” our firewall. We now manage about 300 connections and have little room for new connections. We are considering the large and costly task of expanding – but we need to see if we can work within our existing firewall by addressing “clean-up” first.

! If your network engineers are aware of connections from your end that are not longer in use – please contact Frank in the Computer Room. We put out a message about this to the maintenance group in anticipation of a need to “clean up” several weeks ago but there were only a few responses.

This makes it more important than ever to notify us well in advance of any projects needing a SIP or new network connection interface. It is not too early to alert us to projects you plan NEXT fiscal year.

BiblioCommons progress – This has been a flurry of activity. We have collected, reviewed and sent on the configurations for all libraries at this point. We must be excited about BiblioCommons (I know I am) because the compliance rate was really top notch. We had 86% of the libraries respond on time. Bibliocommons is configuring the interfaces and still has some work to do on scoping. We will let you know when the interfaces are ready for examination. Right now they are “under construction” so even if you discover the URL what you see is NOT necessarily what you get and could be misleading.

FREE PRINTERS AND PAPER AVAILABLE:
Christmas has come early from your friends at CCS, free to any library(s) that may be interested. We also have some boxes of 9 ½ X 11 STDR PERFS paper, and some boxes of notice paper (paper used to feed into these printers) to go with the each GENICOM printer(s). You can’t use lose leaf paper with these Genicoms.

You must come or arrange pickup at CCS. Contact the computer room if interested. They are in good condition, no known issues, and worked fine when printing out reports. We don’t have the manuals or any spare printer ribbons, or parts.

We have 2 Genicom 4840e printers, each one weighs about 250 Lbs : http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=genicom+4840e&hl=en&prmd=ivs&resnum=1&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=8164038974337771559&ei=1jbUTO2sDtOgnQegxK3mBQ&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CEoQ8wIwAA#

CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:

Wed., 11/10, 10:00, CCS: Executive Committee

Fri., 11/12, 9:30, Prospect Heights: Circ

Friday, October 29, 2010

CCS News

OCTOBER 29, 2010

FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
Importance of testing Symphony Release 3.3.1 - If you have not already been in touch with us about helping to test Release 3.3.1, please consider doing so. The best way to become familiar with the new release and ensure functional integrity is to (1) put the test system through the normal paces of your daily routine and (2) test added features or bug fixes. In the Computer Room we concentrate on testing the installation procedures, some reports, and on configuration and backroom operations to prepare for the final installation. We could not hope to do as thorough a job testing Workflows and iBistro as you have shown us that you can do. Our testing period will run until December 1. The Special Instructions section of the Web site contains information about testing Release 3.3.1

Due to staff illness and what we are sure is a temporary state of tranquility, we have one of our shortest bulletins ever this week. Happy Halloween!

CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:

Mon., 11/1, 2:00, CCS: BiblioCommons Task Force

Wed., 11/3, 9:30, Niles: Catalogers (Serials workshop)

Thur., Nov. 4, 9:30, Schaumburg: ILUUG (State Sirsi users group)

Thursday, October 21, 2010

CCS News

OCTOBER 22, 2010

FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
Status of 3.3.1 test environment – Libraries can start testing the new release. If you are testing, remember our old rules. It is best to use a backroom workstation to download the new client for Release 3.3.1.

BiblioCommons status – we are REALLY busy this week collecting all the input regarding the library configurations for BiblioCommons. As of this writing over 2/3 of the libraries have submitted their configuration spreadsheet, awards and bestseller list and logo.

Patron emails – we have had many recent incidents where emails are being rejected by the patron’s email service because the sender in the header (the library) and actual sender (ccs) do not have the same domain. Today we sent out a memo to the circulation heads and the network coordinators explaining the situation and how we can fix it.

Freegal – this is the “hottest” new product and we see a lot of interest. Freegal requires a SIP license from SirsiDynix – this takes 6 weeks. Freegal is not yet certified by Sirsi and we understand the process has started but is proceeding slowly. Please be sure to tell your Freegal sales person that we want this product to be certified by SirsiDynix for SIP. It will help if it comes from you and not just from CCS HQ.

AUTHORITY NEWS:
Earlier this week, CCS loaded 2 files that were obtained from Marcive. One file contained 1806 updated authority records and the other file contained 407 authority records that were needed, but not available until now. What does this all mean to the CCS database? An up to date database that includes all available individual death dates, current references, and subject headings.

Virginia R. Seward
CCS Authorities Librarian

CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:

None! (Back to normal next week...)

Thursday, October 14, 2010

CCS News

OCTOBER 15, 2010

FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
Index display rebuilds - On Sunday October 24 we will rebuild the heading displays for the indexes. This will mean that Workflows and iBistro will be down between 7:30 am and 10:00 am. This is an attempt to fix a problem that catalogers have seen in Workflows.

Progress With Test Release 3.3.1 – Symphony Release 3.3.1 is ready in our test environment. Maintenance coordinators and network administrators have been given a heads up regarding accessing these servers. The test servers will have new IP’s. We will get out further information about testing 3.3.1 next week including access information. Please stay tuned.

Power Outage – ComEd did take the power down from 11pm on Friday night through 6:45 am Saturday morning. Thanks to Bob for coming in to shut everything down on Friday night about 10pm and then returning Saturday morning to get it all running again.

AUTHORITIES NEWS:
Last week, CCS sent a file of 6441 bibliographic records to Marcive for authorities processing. 2026 updated records were returned as well as a file of 3497 new authority records. All records have been reloaded into our system.

Virginia R. Seward
CCS Authorities Librarian

CCS MEETING NEXT WEEK:

Wed., 10/20, 9:30, CCS: SCRAP

Thursday, October 7, 2010

CCS News

OCTOBER 8, 2010

FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
New projects - Please let Linda or Richard know if you are planning new SIP, authentication or connectivity projects in the next six months. It would be good to discuss your plans ahead of time so that we can plan accordingly, amid our other initiatives including the BiblioCommons rollout and Release 3.3.1 testing and implementation.

Report from ILA – Linda spent part of Wednesday at ILA and it was good to spend time face to face with technical staff from TBS, Sikich, Techprologic, Evanced, and 3M. It is always an advantage to connect personally with these people who also work with us to support activities in the libraries.

Power outage – Commonwealth Edison will be interrupting power to our facility in Arlington Heights on Friday night. We are not happy as this is the second announcement, and last time they did not disturb the power at all. But we must be prepared. We will be in on Friday night at 10pm to take servers down. We will be in at 7am on Saturday to get everything running again. No systems at all will operate during the down period. This includes SVA telephone renewals, email, iBistro, and our normal telephone system.

RDA TOOLKIT
RDA is a newer version of AACR2.
RDA: Resource Description and Access is the new standard for resource description and access designed for the digital world. Built on the foundations established by AACR2, RDA provides a comprehensive set of guidelines and instructions on resource description and access covering all types of content and media.)

And the RDA Toolkit is a way to access these new standards or rules. It will only be published electronically by ALA & others

But bear in mind a few things:

·RDA hasn’t even reached full-scale testing yet by either LC or other libraries
·According to LC’s web-site, testing by the national libraries (LC, NLM, & NAL) & other testing partners was just supposed to start last week (Oct. 1st actually)
http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/rda/timeline.html
·Not until April 2011 will the testing by these groups be over, and LC will issue a report on their findings.
·During the testing period, you may find some records already encoded RDA on OCLC. For more information on OCLC & RDA (especially during the testing period), see their policy statement. http://www.oclc.org/rda/policy.htm . RDA records on OCLC will be identified as: 040 $e with value rda and Leader/18 (Desc) coded i if ISBD punctuation is used or blank if not. OCLC also asks for you not to edit a master record that’s already encoded as RDA, and change it back to AACR2. You may edit the record locally. Also OCLC asks that you don’t add a parallel record (like 2 different bib. records – one encoded RDA and another as AACR2)

So what does this mean to CCS?
·We’re all in a holding period just like lots of other libraries while the testing is being done.
·But it’s also a good time to familiar yourself with the RDA Toolkit, in case RDA is fully adopted and begins to be in full wide usage.

CCS and the RDA Toolkit:

1. CCS has just signed a Consortial license agreement with ALA
2. This will include all libraries, plus CCS HQ
3. One concurrent user per library, with unlimited signons per IP
4. CCS will be billed a certain amount annually by ALA & the CCS libraries will split the cost
5. CCS will provide a generic user name and password when it is ready to be accessed, so that the catalogers can become familiar with RDA and the RDA Toolkit.

Virginia R. Seward
CCS Authorities Librarian

BIBLIOCOMMONS DOCUMENTATION:
We have added a BiblioCommons section to the “Members Only” part of the new CCS web site, www.ccslib.org. It includes many documents which will assist you with configuration, training and understanding the implementation process.

LIBRARY CLOSING:
Winnetka-Northfield will be closed Friday, October 8 for a Staff Institute Day.

CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:

Wed., 10/13, 10:00, CCS: Executive Committee

Thur., 10/14, 9:30, Niles: ILL

Thursday, September 30, 2010

CCS News

OCTOBER 1, 2010

FROM THE COMPUTER ROOM:
Release 3.3.1 Test System Progress – We have installed Release 3.3.1 on one of our test servers. At this point we are doing some internal testing before we open the system up to general testing. We are currently spending time analyzing the patron database and understanding reports and routines that change the name field to three distinct fields. It is our goal to identify “problem” records on the test server so that they can be fixed on the production server before the conversion if possible. When we complete that analysis we will be able to open the release up for library testing.

ROGER ANDERSON UPDATE:
Roger is expected back on Monday, October 11. He has been checking e-mails and doing some CCS work from home.

LIBRARY CLOSINGS:
Glencoe will be closed Friday, October 1 for a Staff Development Day.

Winnetka-Northfield will be closed for a Staff Institute Day on Friday, October 8.

DES PLAINES IS BACK IN THE MIX FOR HOLDS AND DELIVERY!
As of the first week of October when NSLS’ LSTA funding kicks in, Des Plaines will be fully re-integrated into CCS holds for both fills and requests. This is a happy day for the library and for CCS. I am told that the library has budgeted for delivery if necessary when their next fiscal year commences on January 1, so even if System funding doesn’t arrive by then (anyone want to put money on Springfield NOT announcing shortly after the election that there’s even less money available than previously disclosed and bills will lag even further?) and delivery again becomes a paying proposition, Des Plaines should remain a participant.

CCS MEETINGS NEXT WEEK:

Wed., 10/6, 9:30, Evanston: Catalogers

Wed, 10/6, 1:30, Webinar: BiblioCommons Makeup Config Seminar (limited seats, you must register!)

Thur., 10/7, 2:00, CCS: OPAC Review Task Force

Sat., 10/9, 1-5, Glenview: Opening Celebration (please RSVP through
http://glenviewpl.org/opening)