LITS Monthly Report

February 2004

Digital Library Programs Strategic Planning Workgroup

This month LITS staff began weekly meetings with the Digital Library Programs Workgroup of the Strategic Planning Initiative. Notes for these meetings are available:

http://staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/strategicplan/diglib/home.htm

Participation in Planning for OAK (Blackboard) Campus Course Management Software continues:

In January, LITS staff members began meeting with the CMS Support Team on a weekly basis to help develop a list of support and training needs for the initial deployment of the new software. This month the support group has identified tasks and broken into subgroups to address specific areas. LITS staff are working with the Documentation and the Support Hierarchy subgroups.

Progress toward Implementation of SFX Service

Ex Libris installed the sfx software on our sfx server earlier this month. Several LITS staff attended training for the SFX service from Ex Libris. Others attended the opening session of the training.

ACORN Security Breach

On February 11, LITS staff discovered a toolkit on the Acorn production server (Acorn4) that indicated a security breach of the operating system. Analysis of the kit by both ITS and LITS staff indicated that a remote intruder had plans to launch attacks against other hosts on the internet at some future time from the Acorn4 server. In order to deal with this event, we took Acorn4 offline and brought our backup server (Acorn3) online in a read-only mode, as a precaution. We quickly decided that the safest course of action was to rebuild the root file system on Acorn4. As a result, Acorn was restricted to read only operations for approximately 21 hours. We worked with circulation staff in the divisions to offer an automated alternative to capturing circulation data and were able to use the data the next day to run transactions for Peabody and Central. We are pleased to report that no data was lost due to this event. We regret the interruption to normal operations for patrons and staff.

More Servers added to TVNA Server Farm

We installed four new Dell PowerEdge 2650 servers to the existing server farm used by the TVNews Archive project this month. This brings the total number of servers for this project to 10, so far.

ILLiad Server Upgraded, Prepared for Web Doc Delivery

Early this month, LITS upgraded the ILLiad system software to version 6.3.2.3. The upgrade process went well and the system was back online by 7:30am. Once the upgrade was complete, preparations were completed web delivery. This service is now ready to implement. We are working with the Biomedical, Law, and Central libraries to put this service into production. We also configured the new Z39.50 search feature from ILLiad to Acorn which will reduce time required to locate call numbers for requested items.

Workstation Replacements Continue

In late January and February, we installed new workstations at the Music and Science and Engineering Libraries. Unfortunately, the project was interrupted by the need to install OS patches to all public workstations and to deal with several outbreaks of malware. By the end of Februrary, we have installed 5 (of 6) new workstations at Science and Engineering Library and 5 new workstations at the Music Library.

Redesigned STAFFWEB Page Released

In coordination with the staffweb committee, the new staffweb pages were released this month. The URL for the staffweb has not changed:

http://staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu

DSpace

LITS staff met with the DSpace Faculty Advisory Committee this month. We have also instituted weekly update meetings with the DSpace project team (Jody Combs, Catherine Gick, and Roberta Winjum). This month we discussed the merits of manually processing local copies of the Economics Working papers to develop appropriate workflows and identify lacunae in existing metadata.

Server patches and updates

We installed several security related patches to our Windows 2000/2003 servers this month. We also installed service pack 7 and eDirectory update to all of our Novell servers.

Plan to Reindex Acorn

LITS staff finalized plans and communications for the Acorn reindexing project. The project is planned for the first weekend in Spring Break (March 5-March 8). Our procedure will involve rolling over to the Acorn backup server (Acorn3) in limited production mode while reindexing the production server. This will minimize down-time for our patrons and staff.

Personnel:

Jody Combs, Dale Poulter and Suellen Stringer-Hye attended Ex Libris SFX training on the 25th and 26th of the month.
Nancy Boggess-Korekach continued a New Horizons online course on PHP-4.
Chuck Owen was on Military Duty from Feb. 16 through March 8th.
Dale Poulter is preparing a presentation for the UUGI conference and participated in several LITA activities.

Acorn Policy Changes:

Created new holding code CEN-PERMC for PERIODICALs kept in the MEDIA-CTR and are non-circ.
Modified MNGT-MFM holding code to have item type MICROFILM instead of MICROFORM.
Created new holding codes MUS-MC, MUS-MFC and changed MUS-MFM to have item type MICROFILM.
Created new holding code MGTA-MFM for Management microfilm at the Annex.
Created new circ maps for Music MICROFILM item types and deleted old circ maps for MICROFORM item types.
Created new location SHARP for Spec.Coll. Vernon Sharp collection. Created new holding codes SPEC-SHRP for books and SPEC-SHRPP for periodicals. Created new Music location STORAGE-VT and holding code MUS-STVT for VIDEOs in Storage

Modified circulation maps for the following item types in Central:

DVD
CASSETTE
SLIDES
CD
CDROM
VIDEO
VIDEODISC

SilverPlatter Titles Updated:

Art Full Text 2000/01-2003/12
Francis 2001/12-2003/11
EconLit* 1991-2004/01
Education Full Text 2000-2003/12
General Science Abstracts 2001-2003/12
GPO on SilverPlatter 1976-2003/12
Index to Legal Periodicals 1981/08-2003/12
Mental Measurements Yearbook 2004/01
MLA International Bibliography* 1994-2004/01
PAIS International 1972-2004/01
PAIS Periodicals/Publishers 2004/01
SilverLinker 1996/01/01-2004/02/09
SilverLinker 1996/01/01-2004/02/17
SilverLinker 1996/01/01-2004/02/23
PsycINFO* 2004/01
PsycINFO* 2004/04 Week 1
PsycINFO* 2004/02 Week 2
PsycINFO* 2004/02 Week 3
PsycINFO* 2004/02 Week 4

Other CDROM Products Updated this Month

Statistisches Jahrbuch Osterreichs
Financial Accounting Research System
The Foundation Grants Index
Index to Scientific & Technical Proceedings
RISM
ABI/Inform
Proceedings of the 2003 CGO

iNFoRM Issues Resolved for the month:

204

GPO Records Loaded for the month (includes overlays): 1065

Selected Additional Activities:

Deleted quite a few user access policies, continuing project of cleaning up and deleting obsolete user policies.
Continued working with the Item Types task force in their efforts to eliminate some item types and change records to use more descriptive ones.
Finished work on the webform for requesting batch loading of bibliographic records. It will be linked to the Technical Services webpage as soon as Roberta Winjum approves it.
Worked with Jon Erickson to identify and change the current location to WITHDRAWN on all of the Science LC Tracer Bullet series records that will eventually be deleted when the material is discarded.
Worked with Zora Breeding to delete around 1300 duplicate Netlibrary records. Worked with Catherine Gick in Music to clean up some phantom copies appearing on 3 Music records.
Worked with APSU to improve the statistics available to them from Athena.
Worked with U. of South Carolina to customize their ILLiad OpenURL installation for future interfacing with Kudzu.
Generated Acorn search statistics
Generated KUDZU search statistics
Generated Athena search statistics
Generated ERL z39.50 search statistics
Sent 528 records to OCLC to have holdings updated.
Loaded/created 9 invoices with 45 invoice lines.
Created 370 new serial solutions records.
Acorntest was refreshed and testing on the new version by LITS and others started.
Implemented the tabbed interface that the AVCTF has been working on for several months.
As a result of several suggestions from the AVCTF, worked to make several changes to the Acorntest interface for evaluation.
Web Statistics for Public Web, Staff Web, Acq Web, Government Documents Web Page, and Peabody Library Web Page.
Trial Databases Page Updated
ERL License Expiration Dates page updated
ERL Database Disc Ids page updated
Modified Witchcraft CGI perl scripts.
Modified the Batch Loading Form for Library Services group.
Initiated and worked on Purchase Request Form for Library Services group (Mary Ellen Wilson).
Initiated and worked on Request Form for W.T. Bandy Center.
Provided two sets of address data of Courtesy patrons to OUL
Worked with John Skinner on getting WF installed on a new workstation in the CFT
Worked with Sue Davis on a format for a Marking statistics trial.
Continued work on Beta testing the Unicorn 2003.1 client for Sirsi
CAG Training sub-group decided to explore the option of using the Standalone for Workflows, spent some time testing the client and working with configuring it and running the associated reports.
Kept the SUS server patched and up-to-date
Updated the Music public image and made it able to jump hardware.
Re-created the Science image in order for it to jump hardware.
Created the webpage documentation for re-installing Real Player to apply important patches.
Created the documentation for the new D600 laptops. This documentation is available for the student’s use and launches on startup of the laptops.
Deployed the new circulation laptops. These 10 new laptops are loaded with XP.
Manually patched all public computers in our system (~140 computers) for MS Windows ASN.1 vulnerability.
Created a template for Yvonne and Mary Beth to use in the Baudelaire center for new publications and inserts into the newsletter. Showed Mary Beth how to copy and paste information from selected databases into the template and print onto index cards using the laser printer.
Replaced old monitors with new ones for Pete Wilson and Ann Ercelawn.
Spent a considerable amount of time moving inventory around and cleaning out cabinets in LITS
Edited inventory for Music, S/E and OUL workstation deployment
Updated Secure Remote for Celia and Kurt
Placed orders for printer rollers, new UPS battery, network cables, office supplies, new monitors and flash memory.
Worked on 2 HPLJ printers in S/E.
Posted newsletters
Installed Journal Viewer for Robert Wright
Installed barcode scanner for Jean Wright
Ordered and installed a lock for flatbed scanner in Peabody
Replaced floppy drive on public workstation in Peabody
Ghosted Sue Erickson's workstation, her NAL window disappeared after the Novell client update
Added Secure Shell to the workstations in the Electronic Classroom
Configured Computer Info app to display days to password expiration and VirusScan DAT file version
Turned off forwarding of Pegasus email for a few users.

Meetings, Committees, Task Forces:

LMC
IT School Leaders
VU Stake Holders
CMS Support Team
Inventory Reduction Task Force.
Item Types Task Force
Formats Task Force
Serials Solutions Committee
SFX Implementation Team
Digital Library Programs Strategic Planning WorkGroup

Print Conservation TF
ILLiad WorkGroup
TS TechForce
CAG
CAG Training Sub-group
CAAG
AVCTF
ISAG
Technology Support Coordinators
Training Coordinators