Library Technology Team
May 2000 Activities
Team Projects
Some of the major projects and issues addressed by the Library Technology Team this month
included:
Personnel and Staff Development
Marshall, Suellen, Nancy, and Dale all attended the Unicorn Users Group International meeting in Huntsville, AL. At this meeting, Vanderbilt and the other sites that participated in the Beta testing of Unicorn 99.4 were recognized and presented with plaques for their efforts.
Marshall and Dale attended a training workshop in Boston, MA for the SFX Beta Test project.
Dale attended the SiteSearch users group meeting in Dublin, OH.
Marshall attended the National Online/ IOLS conference and delivered the keynote speech for the IOLS conference: "Current State of Library Automation: IOLS Technologies, Marketplace Trends, and Future Expectations." He also presented a workshop on creating Web-enabled databases.
Michael Martin has accepted the Network Technician position that was vacated by Anne Laws as she entered her new role related to Acorn support.
Chris Benda has resigned from the Library Technology Team effective July 1st to accept a new position in the Education Library. We will miss Chris in LTT and wish him the best as he begins his new responsibilities. We will, of course, look forward to working with him related to technology issues in the Education Library.
Paul Gherman announced a staffing reorganization that affects the Library Technology Team. The following announcement appeared in the May 15th Library Staff Newsletter:
Managing library technology is a critically important component of any successful library. Technology is constantly changing, and as it changes, we expect our Library Technology Team in Resource Services to manage a growing and complex system. We now operate a complex network with 16 servers, over 360 desktop computers and extensive web development efforts and applications.
As our technology efforts have developed, the number of staff in LTT has grown correspondingly. I anticipate that these numbers will continue to increase in the future as we maintain an ever-larger network of more complex services. At the same time, however, we need to move aggressively to develop new automation ventures, from virtual reference services to electronic publishing projects.
Given these considerations, I am making several administrative changes, effective July 1. Marshall Breeding, currently team leader for LTT, will become Library Technology Officer and report directly to me. His new responsibilities will involve proposals for system architecture design, work on new technological developments and projects, preparation of proposals and grants, and awareness of and involvement in national-level issues relating to the deployment of electronic information resources. In his new role, Marshall will become a member of the Library Management Council. Once the necessary space modifications have been made, his office will be located in the OUL suite.
Jody Combs, currently Network Administrator, will assume leadership of the Library Technology Team. He will be responsible for the operation of that unit, which will remain part of RS and continue to report to Associate University Librarian Flo Wilson. Jody will become a member of the Resource Services Management Team. Recruitment for an additional position in LTT will likely happen in the fall.
These changes will enable Marshall to focus on future planning and development of our systems and Jody to insure that current technology applications are supported well by the staff in LTT and that new technology is smoothly integrated into our developing infrastructure. This arrangment will require significant and ongoing communication among Flo, Marshall, Jody, and myself, and we are all committed to working together to continue and strengthen the Heard Library's technology efforts.
Marshall began the month of May by attending an LMC meeting to present to that group the major projects and initiatives that the Library Technology Team has tentatively planned for the Spring and Summer of 2000. A summary of these initiatives had been previously distributed for their review, and we were interested in their reactions to these proposed tasks. This summary is available on the StaffWeb at: http://staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/libtech/projects.html.
One of the major priorities for the month involved placing orders for the major hardware and software items needed to complete the projects and initiatives described above. Some of these purchases rely on year-end funds and need to be delivered by July 1st. Marshall did preliminary research and worked with Jody to initiate orders for new network servers, desktop computers, network software, tape drive, and additional components for DB/TextWorks.
On Thursday May 4th, Marshall attended a meeting related to the Beta testing of SFX in which the library has agreed to participate. Dale attended the second day of the workshop. SFX is a "reference linking" application developed by Herbert Van de Sompel at the University of Ghent in Belgium, and which was recently acquired by Ex Libris. This meeting included staff from Ex Libris, representatives from the University of Ghent, as well as the other Beta test sites-Los Alamos National Labs, Cal Tech, Harvard, and the University of Indiana. For more information on SFX see: www.sfxit.com.
Marshall continues to work with the Web Development Task Force. We presented a prototype of the current design at a joint meeting of CAAG, ISAG, and LMC on May 8th.
Along with all other LTT staff, Marshall attended the Library Forum on the 19th.
Marshall investigated alternative authentication issues for Acorn via WebCat. We recently learned that as part of Unicorn 99.4, SIRSI has completed the development of a Kerberos interface for WebCat. This optional product will make it possible to allow WebCat to use an external database, such as VUNetID, instead of the Social Security Numbers and PINs for user requests such as renewal transactions. We are still in the preliminary phase of investigating this capability.
From May 17 through 18 Marshall was in New York attending the annual National Online/ IOLS conference. He delivered the keynote speech for the IOLS conference, entitled "Current State of Library Automation: IOLS Technologies, Marketplace Trends, and Future Expectations," and presented a workshop on creating Web-enabled databases.
Marshall attended the annual Unicorn Users Group International meeting in Huntsville, AL (May 24 - 27). He organized the Large-scale Special Interest Group meeting and was formally elected chair of the group at this meeting. He also attended a lunch meeting for the libraries that participated with SIRSI in testing Unicorn 99.4. This beta test process has been of mutual benefit to our library and to SIRSI and we have agreed to continue testing with Unicorn 2000.
As the month concluded, Marshall was away on vacation.
During May Suellen spent many hours preparing a prototype for the New Heard Library Web pages to be ready for a demonstration for a joint presentation to the LMC, ISAG and CAG. She also spent several hours updating the website for the Library Staff Forum event held on the 19th.
Suellen gave two classes, an Introductory and Intermediate, on Macromedia's WYSIWYG HTML editor, Dreamweaver, for this year's Faculty Development Workshop sponsored by the Center for Teaching. The two classes were held in the new electronic classroom and were very well attended. Faculty learned how to create basic web pages in the first session and how to create frames, forms and simple styles in the Intermediate class.
Suellen was also a member of the committee sponsoring the first Library Staff Forum. This year's topic was "The effect of Electronic Publications on Library Staff and Services". Suellen worked with the committee to develop the website for the event.
Suellen also attended the annual Unicorn User's Group International conference in Huntsville, Alabama from June 23-27. Suellen attended training on Unix, the Graphical OPAC and Formats Manager and sessions on many issues of concern to staff.
Nancy and Suellen set up buttons in Acorn test WebCat for the Genre search. ISAG will be reviewing these to see how they want to implement this capability in produciton.
Nancy and Dale continue to work on problems with the patron load report and the scripts associated with it.
Nancy worked with Sirsi on several problems reported by staff, one of which is the searching of periodical titles in WorkFlows showing incorrect cross references. Sirsi is continuing to work on this problem. Nancy also worked with Sirsi on the searching of hyphenated words. Supposedly, if a policy change is made to a field to make it triple posted, then a search can be made on a hyphenated word and the search will look for terms with the hyphen and without. Nancy made some changes in the policies for the 100, 245, and 650 fields in test to see if the policy change worked, but both she and Mary Charles could not see where they made any difference. Sirsi is still investigating this and then CAAG will have to decide whether or not they want to use this capability if we can get it to work as advertised. Another problem Nancy reported to Sirsi concerned the global edit report. The report does not work the same when run from the WorkFlows client as it does when run from InfoView. There is a problem with its lack of recognition of punctuation. This was discovered when Nancy tried to run the global edit report to change [computer file] in the 245 field to [electronic resource]. Sirsi responded that this will be corrected in Unicorn 2000. In the meantime the global edit report to make this change was created by Mary Charles Lasater in the InfoView client and will continue to run from there until we upgrade to Unicorn 2000.
Nancy ran a report to send authority records that were updated in between the emergency index rebuild and the planned rebuild so that they would affect the appropriate bibliographic records. This went well and the bibliographic records were updated so that the headings are no longer showing as UNAUTHORIZED.
Nancy met with Dale Poulter, Mary Ellen Wilson and Marshall Breeding to discuss the plan for moving the paying of invoices and issuing of vouchers through Acorn rather than having to rekey in BFAS. Dale and Mary Ellen began working on getting the information out of Acorn and then will work with Administrative Systems to further automate the process of exchanging information with them to get the checks cut and sent to the book vendors.
Nancy created a new holdings code OBSVV for PromptCat records that will be for the Observatory location. Nancy completed a project that gave unique user access names to staff members in Resource Services. The result is that the staff member’s name now appears in Acorn in the "created by" and "modified by" fields instead of a generic name such as RSCATS.
Nancy made a change to the policies for SmartPort to allow the 040 field to show in the hitlist. This field contains the symbols of the libraries that created or updated the OCLC records, so it allows the searcher to spot LC records from the list instead of having to view each record to get this information.
Nancy attended the Unicorn Users Group meeting in Huntsville May 23-27 and reported that it was one of the best meetings yet. She attended training sessions on the graphical format manager and the graphical OPAC manager, both of which will be available in the near future, and also a training session on introduction to UNIX which she found extremely useful.
Nancy continued to handle the RS overdues and recalls reports until someone can be assigned to handle these since Sylvia’s retirement. She also did the monthly cataloging statistics for RS and the new titles page for the Staff Web site. Nancy also continues to run the scripts for the weekly patron load and retrieves the weekly and monthly GPO records from Marcive that are loaded on Sundays
The month of May was very busy. During the first portion of May, Dale attended the SiteSearch users group meeting. During this meeting Dale was able to learn more about the upcoming improvements to the software. One recommended improvement is to allow for a "MyLibrary" type of development with SiteSearch. Several other enhancements discussed will be available in the new version of Athena and IRIS later this year.
The next meeting Dale attended was SFX training with Rick Stringer-Hye and Marshall. This technology will allow users to dynamically link to related resources from databases and opacs. Vanderbilt is one of only a few libraries that are participating in the beta of this software during the summer.
The last meeting Dale attended was UUGI, during the latter part of May. During the UUGI meeting Dale was able to learn how other libraries are using the system and how Vanderbilt can utilize some of their experiences. Dale was also able to share some of the innovative ways Vanderbilt uses Unicorn.
In addition to attending several meetings Dale accomplished several tasks which included upgrading Acorn to 99.4, re-writing a java class to resolve an ILL problem in SiteSearch, rebuilding the Sigaux database, modifying the way records are sent to OCLC to reduce costs to the library, and resolving 27 PTS entries.
Along with the committee members and other participants, Jody spent time in May preparing for and participating in the first Staff Forum, "Our Library's Future: The Impact of Electronic Publishing on Library Services and Staff."
In early May, the campus was hit by the VBS/ILOVEYOU virus. We were fortunate in that only three staff members opened the attachment that accompanied the email message. However, this was sufficient to result in the deletion/corruption of nearly 100 files on network file servers. The damage required approximately 20 to 30 hours of staff time to repair infected workstations and locate and restore damaged files from backup tapes. This information, along with a discussion of security procedures, was presented at the May Technology Support Coordinators' meeting. Jody is please to report that we were not affected by any of the several "copycat" viruses that followed the VBS/ILOVEYOU bug.
We upgraded Acorn (SIRSI Unicorn) to version 99.4 in May. Jody's role in the upgrade was to develop, test and monitor deployment of the new Workflows client. The deployment proceeded as planned on the 15th.
Jody worked with Marshall to develop specifications and obtain quotes for new hardware and software we will be installing this summer. This includes four servers, 108 workstations, and an upgrade to our network operating system.
Our connection to OCLC's dedicated TCP/IP network failed in May. Jody spent considerable time working with OCLC, Sprint and finally BellSouth investigating and finally identifying the cause of the disruption. The cable bundle that carried the wires connecting the GLB telephone line used to provide this service was excavated and removed by a construction project near the GLB. The cable was marked on maps as unused so construction project managers understandably decided to remove the cable during excavation. Due to the extensive nature of the break, BellSouth and Sprint decided to lay new cable rather than attempt to repair the old. The new cable should be in place and the circuits operational sometime early in the first full week of June.
The site license for our workstation antivirus software, Dr. Solomon's Antivirus Toolkit, expired at the end of March. Jody has spent a significant amount of time over the past several months (beginning in November of 1999) researching and planning the deployment of new workstation antivirus software. A stable version of McAfee's VirusScan for NT was released in late April. Jody worked with the Technology Support Coordinators to deploy and configure this software in May. The coordinators installed the new software to over 90% of our staff workstations within a few weeks. Jody reminds all library staff that while this software represents a significant improvement over our previous antivirus software, it is only one "layer" in our antivirus/workstation security strategy. The first and most important layer of any security strategy is the prudence of all staff in being cautious in opening email attachments, downloading files and using floppy diskettes to transport information.
In May, Susan resolved 52 PTS problems. She ran the ERL statistics for April.
She worked with the Central Reference staff to resolve problems with the Russian National Bibliography and the Grove Dictionary of Art.
She upgraded the following SilverPlatter ERL databases:
For Divinity, she added the Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament to their CD-ROM collection.
For Management, she upgraded the following CD-ROMs:
At Central, she added:
and upgraded the following:
To the Research Database page, she added:
To the Trial Database page, she added:
May was an extremely busy month for Anne, with two events particularly dominating her attention: the Unicorn 99.4 upgrade and the Library Staff Forum event, both of which serendipitously occurred in the same week. Prior to the Unicorn upgrade on the 15th of May, Anne spent the first two weeks of the month concentrating on the final rounds of testing of the software. This included checking out last-minute adjustments to the software by Sirsi. Following the upgrade, Anne concentrated on handling problem and bug reports from staff, particularly those dealing with the WorkFlows client. A number of these have been reported to Sirsi and have been addressed either with software patches or will be resolved in the next subrelease. In addition to problem solving, Anne also provided instructions to cataloging staff on how to take advantage of new Smartport import features. Previously, to bring in individual authority records from Passport to Acorn, staff had to follow a cumbersome procedure which required use of more than one Acorn module. Using the Smartport software, users can now import records downloaded from Passport without running the marcimport utility or the accompanying acorn reports.
Along with the Unicorn 99.4 release, planning, organization, and follow-up for the Library Staff Forum event on May 19th demanded much of Anne's energies this month. As part of the staff forum committee and with assistance from other library staff, Anne coordinated the visit of Carol Tenopir from UT-Knoxville for the Forum. Follow-up work has included seeking feedback from participants and from staff who attended the forum.
Other activities for Anne during May included installing WorkFlows on the librarian's workstation at the Women's Center, doing some emergency touch-up work on the preservation access database, and filling a few requests for current inventory information for workstation replacement assessment.
April showers, besides bringing May flowers, brought as well the Love
Letter virus, which Chris spent a couple of days eradicating by
Ghosting the few workstations that were infected by it. Fortunately,
the rest of the month was not eventful in the same way: there was
another Ghosting or two to do, some assistance with setting up the
new antivirus software, installation of a couple of new laser printers
and a couple of receipt printers (Jody did the configuration for the
laser printers), a variety of relatively minor hardware problems (the
most significant perhaps being the sudden death of one of the
flat-panel monitors in the new Electronic Classroom), installation of
software in a couple of libraries, resituating of network cabling in
the Music Library's circulation workroom, and a number of other
activities of a troubleshooting sort. Chris also spent May extending and improving the capabilities of a
change log/workstation snapshot project that he has been working
on--with Anne's able assistance as she can spare it--for about half a
year or so. Much still needs to be done to make it as useful as the
inventory database, but May saw vast improvements in its
functionality. Judy started the month of May helping instructors prepare to use the
Electronic Classroom for a seminar presented by The Center for
Teaching. She held a training class for all interested presenters and
met others individually at times that better fit their schedules. She
was available to help with any details during the week of the seminar. She was busy this month editing web pages for library staff, updating
reserve hours for the change to Maymester and making needed changes to
Pegasus addresses and distribution lists. She continues to order
hardware and software needed by the Library Technology team. The use
of the procurement card has made ordering much more efficient for
Judy. She continues to spend extra time recording CDs for the Voices
of Vanderbilt project. She has two more interviews left to record
before completing that portion of the project. The accidental cable cutting of the library's connection to OCLC
caused Judy to spend an unusual amount of time on the phone
attempting to communicate updated information to library staff. Judy attended the Library Staff Forum and the Technology Support
Coordinators meeting this month.