LITS Monthly Report

March 2004

Research Continues for Software Auditing Solution

The Internal Audit for the library included a recommendation that the library develop an inventory of all software installed and maintained on its workstations and conduct an audit of software installed on its workstations annually, at a minimum. We have been researching automated software inventory solutions for the past several months. Included in our research has been open-source, free solutions and commercial solutions. We are nearing a recommendation which will be presented to LMC during the month of April.

The software inventory is one part of a complete system. We will also need to determine the best way(s) to record the number of licenses owned by the divisions for those applications that require licensing. We are in the process of developing specifications for this component.

A third component of the system will be a list of application software sorted into categories: officially supported (both licensed and freeware); "greyware" (not officially supported, but not presenting a threat to the workstation or network); and explicitly disallowed (e.g., licensed software for which the license has not been purchased, software that presents a security threat to the workstation or network, etc.). This final component will be developed in collaboration with LMC, TSCs, and the Training Coordinators.

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

In March, LITS staff members continued meeting with the CMS Support Team on a weekly basis to help develop a list of support and training materials for the initial deployment of the new software. LITS staff are working with the Documentation and the Support Hierarchy subgroups. We have developed a template for the central support web site which can also be used by the schools for their local support sites. We have also helped develop documentation templates and content for some of the documentation needs. We attended the first of the "Train the Trainer" workshops. Finally, with LMCs help we have provided an initial list of Trainers and Tier 1 Support providers, along with an initial estimate of the number of Tier 1 Plus support providers for the library.

Several Problems with Spyware and Multiple IM applications

While this has been a slowly growing problem, we had an unusually high number of workstations infested with "spyware" programs (brief definition) requiring complete rebuilds this month. Some of these were re-infestations. In several cases, the workstations infested were specialized stations or stations with higher level privileges to secure systems, making the infestation particularly troublesome. Specialized workstations can require hours of technician time to rebuild, stations with access to secure systems should themselves meet a higher than normal level of security. We will need to develop appropriate guidelines and training for users of these systems to limit the potential for damage.

Decision to adopt the Workflows Standalone Client

The CAG Training and Documentation sub-group proposed in March that the libraries adopt the Workflows Standalone client for use during emergencies. We demonstrated the client for the group at the March CAG meeting and have all but completed on-line documentation and instructions for the use of the client.

Unusual Number of Server Hardware Failures this Month

We responded to an unually high number of hardware failures on servers this month. The ERL/Silverplatter (WebSPIRS) server lost one of its hard-drives, requiring immediate action to repair several affected databases on this drive. Library1a (staffweb and smtp gateway for Pegasus) had a drive-related failure, requiring us to move existing drives to a spare server and work with Dell support to determine the cause of the failure. Library28 (one of the TVNA servers) required an LED hardware replacement. Library16 (ABZU, ETANA) required a power supply backplane replacement.

SFX Project Continues

LITS staff spent much of March working with the SFX product implementation team and becoming more familiar with the software. We completed the first monthly update of the system software without any down time. In addition, we configured the system to backup the databases twice daily. We also worked on the button design and design of the sfx menu.

Workstation Replacements Continue

This month we completed rollouts to the Science and Engineering Library, OUL/ILL, Annex, and began rolling out Central’s workstations, deploying a total of 11 new workstations.

Acorn Reindexed

LITS staff implemented our plans for the Acorn reindexing project over the first weekend of Spring Break (March 5-8). The project went according to plan with minimum downtime for patrons and staff.

In addition to the reindex, we:

Upgraded the webserver on Acorn4, Acorn3, and Acorn1
Upgraded Acorntest to U2003.1.2.1
Upgraded the operating system on the acorn backup server
Revising the Print/email page

DSpace

The Institional Repository Advisory Board met this month. LITS staff were assigned the task of drafting a section of the report to the Provost dealing with estimated hardware and support costs.

Selected Statistics:

GPO Records Loaded for the month (includes overlays): 1200
Retrieved, edited and loaded the Evans Digital Editions records (36,307).
Retrieved 1885 records of NetLibrary titles and edited them in preparation for loading the first of next month.
Sent 42,022 records to Marcive
613 records send to Oclc for holdings update
A total of 32605 Acorn user sessions occurred during the month of March 2004. This includes 50665 searches from the basic search form, 4281 complex searches, 436 callnumber browse searches, 380 other advanced searches, 215 browse searches, 4293 subject hyperlinked searches, 166 title hyperlink searches, 1610 author hyperlink searches, 75 genre hyperlink searches and 1257 crossreference searches.
KUDZU statistics for March 2004
- Total number of logins: 3566
- Total number of searches: 7052
- Total number of ILL requests: 430
Total Z39.50 (EndNote, etc) connections to the ERL server for Mar 2004 was 199
ATHENA statistics for March 2004
- Total number of logins: 3436
- Total number of searches: 6910
- Total number of ILL requests: 220

Personnel:

All staff completed the Annual Performance Review process during the month.
Dale Poulter worked with the LITA MDC to get out information about ALA Annual
Nancy Boggess-Korekach completed a New Horizons Online course on PHP 4.
Anne Martin attended a two-day "Train the Trainer" session for OAK support.
All LITS staff participated in the Time Allocation Study.
Chuck Owen was on military duty for the first week of the month.
Several staff took vacation time around the Spring Break.

Acorn Policy Changes:

Modified the Fund Extended info TEMPLATE synonym list to use FUNDX-FULL instead of FUNDX-BR so that the COMMENTS field could be used in create and edit fund wizards. RMS#115650.
Created new holding code MNGT-EMBA for Management EMBA item type and location CIRC-DESK, circulating. These are for EMBA reports.
Annex discontinued using OVERSIZE and OVERSIZE- and PER-OV-L for Annex shelved materials. These will be shelved with the other regular books from now on. Updated the staff webpages to mark those item types above as obsolete for Annex material and the ANNEX-OVER location code, as well as the following holding codes:

CEA-OVER,CEA-OVNC,CEA-OVP,DVA-OVER,DVA-OVERP,MGTA-OVP,MGTA-REFO,MUA-OVER,MUA-OVPE, MUA-OVSC,SCA-OVEP,SCA-OVER,SCA-OVNC,SCA-OVP.
Edited the libtable file to show these holding codes as invalid. Did NOT mark these as obsolete in the policy descriptions since the items that are presently shelved in oversize in the Annex will remain there. RMS#115809.
Created new item type VCD for Video CD's and new location code for Central:CEN-VCD.
Created new holding codes for videos in Spec. Coll. for WILLS, VU-PUBS, and SOUTHERNCV locations: SPEC-WLVID, SPEC-VCVID, SPEC-SCVID. RMS#115850.

Modified circulation maps for the following item types:

Removed OVERSIZE-F circulation maps
Created new circ maps based on the DVD circ maps for Central. RMS#115834.

SilverPlatter Titles Updated:

Sociological Abstracts* 2003/01 - 2003/12
Philosopher's Index 1940-2003/12
ERIC* 1992-2003/12
Bibliography of the History of Art 1990-2003/03
Francis 2001/12-2003/11
SilverLinker 1996/01/01-2004/02/23
PsycINFO* 2004/03 Week 1
PsycINFO* 2004/03 Week 2
PsycINFO* 2004/03 Week 3
Education Full Text 2000-2004/01
MLA International Bibliography* 1994-2004/02
PAIS International 1972-2004/02
MLA Directory of Periodicals* 2004/02
PsycINFO* 2004/03 Week 4
General Science Abstracts 2001-2004/01

Other CDROM Products Updated this Month

Updated the Libros EnVenta database for Central
Updated the International Eric database for Peabody
Updated the British Parliamentary Papers database for Central
Updated the Index to United Nations database for Central
Updated the Bibliografia Nazionale Italiana (BNI) database for Central
Updated the Old Testament abstracts on CD-ROM database for Divinity.
Updated the ABI/Inform database for Owen
Installed update for ISTP - Index to Scientific and Technical Proceedings on Science CDROM Workstation.
Installed update for Inorganic Crystal Structure Database (ICSD) on Science CDROM Workstation.
Installed update for the Foundation Grants Index on CD- ROM on the Central CDROM workstation.
Installed the OAG ? North America Flight Planner database on the Central CDROM workstation.

iNFoRM Issues Resolved for the month:

255

Selected Additional Activities:

Created & pushed out a registry adjustment so the Workstation Only check box on the client will not remain activated if it is used during troubleshooting or workstation deployment
Rebuilt Library0 to possibly be used as a test logging server
Pushed out registry settings to turn on heuristic scanning on workstations.
Began testing utility that will “kill” unwanted programs on workstations
Had cable tray installed in GLB server room so network cables can be organized.
Continued working with the Item Types Task Force in their efforts to eliminate some item types and change records to use more descriptive ones.
Created a new webpage for the location codes that includes the descriptions from the policies, cleaned up some of the descriptions in the policies so that they are now more detailed.
Ceated a new webpage for the item type codes like the new locations one that includes the descriptions and, in the process, cleaned up the item type descriptions in the policies. Added links to both this page and the locations page to the holding code policy index webpage so that TS staff could have ready access to the location and item type description. This was very well received by the TS staff who found the descriptions very helpful.
Worked with Catherine Gick to remove some phantom copies on a couple of Music records.
Did some clean-up work on the New Titles index page.
Worked with Marie Swearingen in Management to set up new holding code for their EMBA reports. Changed the existing records to have item type EMBA and location CIRC-DESK and those that we determined were no longer in the library, we changed to location WITHDRAWN.
Roberta Winjum gave the final ok to the new online form for requesting batch-loading of large files of bibliographic records. Linked the form to the TS webpage.
Began development of new webpage for new staff to request their WorkFlows PIN.
Worked with Clint Grantham so mark the OVERSIZE locations for ANNEX as obsolete in the policies and on the staff webpages.
Worked with Liz Leis (Graduate Registrar's Office) on several ETD problems and talked to a couple of students as well.
Jeff Taylor reported a link on one of the ETD's that was not working -- corrected the problem.
Worked with Sirsi on a problem Chris Waldrop was having with not being able to see other libraries' order records without changing his setting each time. Kat Stephens at SIRSI identified this setting and we were able to give Chris this capability as a default.
Instituted new display for materials in the WTBandy Center.
Worked to create new request form.
Worked with Tabs Task Force (of AVCTF) to reorganize bib record disply for Marc Format
Worked on design of SFX menu
Worked on design of SFX button
Met with Larry Romans to discuss Govt Info database
Created pages for mail-to forms. Created staffweb mailto template. Changed out many mailtos on public and staff webs.
Revised student application form page including adding a new picture
Created several accounts for creating surveys
With Training Coodinators, continued work on Computing Proficiencies checklist.
Began looking into LITA program on XML for Libraries
Managed keys for New Horizons
Management Library's Electronic Resources Librarian Search--selected 4 candidates for interviews.
Updated the staff workstation image with several configuration changes.
Updated the Circulating Laptop XP image so that is will “jump” to the three different laptop models currently in circulation.
Worked with Dell to replace the LCD in one of Central’s circulating laptops.
Worked with Gateway to repair two of the Profile 4 workstations that are located in the Science Lobby.
Installed LCD monitors for staff in Science and Engineering Library.
Supervision of the SUS server.
Worked with Dell to repair Norman Nash’s former computer (processor problem).
Troubleshooting of several PDA devices. For some reason we have had an abundance of issues with staff member’s PDA devices.
Updated ERL Database Disc Ids web page
Updated ERL License Expiration Dates web page.
Update Trial Databases page.
Created reports for Web Statistics for Public Web, Staff Web, Acq Web, Government Documents Web Page, and Peabody Library Web Page.
Assisted to get ILLiad Web-delivery into production
Moved the weeding database to another server (it was impacting performance on ERL/WebSPIRS).
Added 5 items to the proxy servers
613 records send to Oclc for holdings update
Attended the campus WebSpiders meeting and spoke about the proxy server.
Lots of time editing workstation inventory.
Delivered new monitors to Music Library
Met with a technician from Technical Innovations about a new screen for the Electronic Classroom.
Began work on orders for next batch of replacement workstations.
Negotiated orders for LCD monitors for S&E Library staff.
Began research on options for wireless AP and project for Goldberg room.
Joe Collins uninstalled WF on his workstation, helped reinstall using Remote Assistance.
Met with Peabody Information Commons task force
Continued research on Business Resumption Planning.
Reviewed specs and negotiated pricing for storage upgrade for TVNA servers.
An average of 1/2 hour each day checking on security issues, updating security resources page (notifying workstation support team and server support teams of any patches or virus updates indicated).

Meetings, Committees, Task Forces:

LMC
IT School Leaders
VU Stake Holders
CMS Support Team
LITS Team Meeting
Campus WebSpiders' Group
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
Peabody Information Commons TF
Technology Support Coordinators
Training Coordinators
Undergraduate Services Strategic Planning WorkGroup