Update on OPAC Bugs

Hi all. I just wanted to let you know that I've been sending your OPAC bug reports to Bob at the server site, and he informed me today that he's used this info to make a configuration change that he thinks will help with the weirdness we've been experiencing.

If you have the opportunity, please make a note of any odd OPAC behavior you encounter and let me know if you feel like it's gotten better, worse, or (fingers crossed) ceased completely.

As always, if you have any questions, just drop me a line.

GPC Databases vs. GALILEO Databases

Hi all. I've had a lot of questions recently about where to report problems with certain databases, so I just wanted to take the opportunity to review the whole procedure.

Problems with GPC databases should be reported to me, if they're very detailed problems, an email is better. If you just want to say, "Hey, Tessa. JSTOR is down," of course, you can just give me a jingle.

Problems with GALILEO-managed databases should be reported to GALILEO. I am not able to correct problems with non-GPC databases, and don't even have contact information for those vendors, so I would just have to forward your problem report to GALILEO, and that is not GALILEO's preferred method. They want you to report problems directly to them using the Contact Us form at the top right of their webpages. Make sure you report the problem from the computer you're actually experiencing it on. The form will collect information about that computer and your session which could be very helpful to the GALILEO folks trying to diagnose the problem.

Now, how can you tell what's a GPC database and what's a GALILEO database?

If you're on the library website, GPC databases are those listed on the following page (except the GALILEO link, natch):

http://www.gpc.edu/library/articles.htm

Anything not on this page is a GALILEO-managed database.

If you're in GALILEO, GPC databases are those that have the little GPC orb to the right of their names (in the Databases, A-Z list) and state, in red type, "Subscription provided by Georgia Perimeter College."

Please just let me know if you have any more questions about this procedure. Thanks everyone!

NonPrint Recommendations

Hi again, everyone. I just wanted to let you know that Michael and I have been working on a form for patrons to recommend purchases for the NonPrint collection, and it's live now, at the following link.

http://www.gpc.edu/library/technicalservices/
nonprint/nprecommend.htm

If you encounter patrons who might be interested in this, please feel free to refer them to this page. There is also a link for it on the main NonPrint page.

http://www.gpc.edu/library/technicalservices/
nonprint/index.html

Of course, library faculty and staff are welcome to use the form as well, or just send slips directly to Michael if you prefer.

Thanks!

Problems with Opposing Viewpoints

Hi everyone. Just wanted to update you all on some off-campus database access issues. Yesterday, it was brought to my attention that one of our students was having trouble accessing Opposing Viewpoints through GALILEO, from home. He could use the GALILEO password to get in, but was booted out whenever he tried a search, and was then being prompted for a password other than the GALILEO password.

I tried it from home last night and experienced similar results, whether I entered through GALILEO or through the database page on the website. I was booted out after a few clicks and taken to a page with 2 hyper links, one for the library's homepage and one to start a new session. Either link took me to the page prompting me for a mystery password.

Our EZproxy administrator confirmed that it wasn't a problem on our end. I just got off of the phone with Gale tech support and they think that they have corrected the problem, but I'm going to try it from home one more time, just to be sure.

If you hear of anyone experiencing these, or other difficulties with a GPC database, please don't hesitate to let me know and I'll get it fixed as soon as possible. GPC databases are those listed on the following page (except the GALILEO link):

http://www.gpc.edu/library/articles.htm

Anything not on this page is a GALILEO-managed database, and problems with them should be reported directly to GALILEO using the Contact Us form on their website.

Thanks everyone! Please let me know if you have any questions.

IMPORTANT: Change to Voyager Upgrade Date

To accommodate the schedule of my gracious OIT contact, I have to upgrade the Voyager clients beginning around 2:00pm on Tuesday, August 7. Since the server is being upgraded that evening, Voyager will be inaccessible after I do our upgrade. Circulation & Media Services should be prepared to do manual check outs from 2:00pm until closing, and anyone else who has any work to do in Voyager should try to do it before 2:00pm. If you are leaving the office before 2:00pm, please leave your computer on, just log off of your profile.

When you come in on the morning of August 8, our server will have been upgraded and the clients should work just fine. Your upgrade liaisons will be giving you a heads-up before the upgrade begins.

Clarkston: Amy Yang
Decatur: Adrienne Graham
Dunwoody: Carmel Chaille
Newton: Rebecca Rose
Tech Serv, Media Serv, NonPrint: Tessa Minchew

Please let me know if you have any questions, and thanks in advance for your patience during the upgrade.

Voyager Upgrade Date Set

Hi everyone. Just wanted to let you know the date of the Voyager upgrade has been set. Our server will be upgraded on the evening of Tuesday, August 7. This means I will be upgrading Voyager clients on the morning of Wednesday, August 8. This process will work much as it has the last few times. I will be performing the upgrades remotely, and each campus will have an upgrade liaison to facilitate the process and report problems to me. Here are the folks who have graciously agreed to be your upgrade liaisons.

Clarkston: Amy Yang
Decatur: Adrienne Graham
Dunwoody: Carmel Chaille
Newton: Rebecca Rose

I'll be handling the liaison duties for Technical Services, Media Services, and NonPrint.

Remember, when the server is upgraded, the Voyager clients will not work until they are also upgraded to the new version. So, Circulation, especially, should be braced for a little downtime, but I will do my best to turn the upgrades over as quickly as possible, and, on that note, there are a couple of things that you can all do to help me achieve that goal.

1.) This week, your liaison will be checking the IP address of every computer requiring a Voyager client, and reporting that information to me. If you need the client, make sure you make it on this list.

2.) Please remember to leave your PCs on on Tuesday evening, this is especially important if you won't be in on Wednesday morning. You can log out of your profile (Start > Log Off > Log Off on XP machines) but the PC must be POWERED ON when I start the upgrades on Wednesday morning. If it isn't, then I have to get your liaison to power it on, which may involve getting office keys, and always fouls up my workflow.

If anyone has any questions about the upgrade, please just let me know. And thanks in advance for your patience!

Finally Getting Around to Tweaking Blogger

Hi all. Guess you've noticed that things are a little different here. In its recent upgrade, Blogger added a lot of new features that I just haven't had time to take advantage of, but I did get to hack at it a little bit today.

First thing that you will notice is a new template. This one seems to go with the library style sheet a little bit better, and it's available for free through Blogger. So, no coding for me! Yay! Now, in order to convert to it, we did lose a bit of our sidebar content, but I'm not sure how much we were using that anyway. The RSS feeds section went away, but there's a link to an Atom feed at the bottom, which should work fine in most major feed readers.

Is anyone particularly attached to the "Library Blogs" section? I'd like to build it up a bit or get rid of it altogether. Please let me know how you feel about that, and if you'd like to add anything else in the sidebar.

Next, we now have the ability to tag our posts! Blogger calls them "labels" for some reason, but they act like tags. When you are editing a post, you will see a field in the lower right called "Labels for this post." Just type your tags in there, separated by commas. I've gone back and tagged the last few months worth of posts, and will try to tag it back to the beginning eventually. If you click the "Show all" link next to the right of the "Labels for this post" field, you will see the tags that I've already used. Click on the ones you like and they'll appear in the field, no typing. I recommend doing this, so we can class like posts somewhat together.

I can add a category list in the sidebar, and put links to the most used tags, if you all want. However, you can also just click on a tag in any post and see all the posts that share that tags.

I'll try to keep an eye on the new posts, and tag the ones that need it. So, if you don't like tagging, or just don't want to do it, no worries. I'll take care of it for you.

So, tell me how you feel about all this new blogginess, by email or in the comments.

Another Voyager Upgrade On Its Way

Hi everyone. I just learned that we will be upgrading from Voyager 6.2.1 to Voyager 6.5.1, somewhere between Friday, August 3 through Friday, August 10. I won't know the specific date until I hear from our Service Site Coordinator, but I wanted to give you all a heads up.

Most everyone knows the drill by now. The server will be upgraded, usually in the evening, and after this you will be unable to access Voyager from your PCs until I have upgraded the clients. This has to happen on each and every PC that runs Voyager. The last couple of times, OIT has been gracious enough to help me push out a script to each computer, which dramatically reduces our downtime. Otherwise, I would have to drive to each campus, and upgrade each PC by hand, which can take quite a while.

I've also found it helpful to have an "upgrade liaison" on each campus, to check that the script has run correctly on everyone's PC, relay questions, etc. I'm going to be contacting folks about doing that and I'll let you know when we have our victims, *ahem*, I mean lucky volunteers.

For a little more info about 6.5.1, allow me to quote the esteemed Phil Williams. "One of the primary features of this upgrade will be the implementation of the "UB Local Block Policies". The Service Site Staffs will set the appropriate UB Local Block Policy Definitions in accordance with established GIL Express standards. We are anticipating that GIL Express transactions will continue through the upgrade period, however if difficulties do arise a notice will be sent to the listserv and a message will be put on the GIL Universal Catalog web site."

I would advise that everyone read the release notes for this version.

http://download.gil.usg.edu/gold/0605/relnotes.pdf

If, after that, you're feeling especially curious, please feel free to peruse the rest of the 6.5.1 documentation.

http://download.gil.usg.edu/gold/0605.html

Both of these links will ask you for our GIL Knowledge Base username and password (which is the same as the Endeavor Knowledge Base username and password). Give me a call if you've forgotten it.

If anyone has any questions, please drop me a line. And thanks in advance for your patience during the upgrade!

New Committee Page Created

Hi all. Just wanted to let you know that the web pages for three committees have moved from David Free's directory to the main library pages. Please update your bookmarks accordingly.

I've created a directory just for these committee pages. Here is the URL for the index page.

http://www.gpc.edu/library/committees/

David burned a disk of everything for us, but I had to relink a lot of things, so please take a look over your respective pages and let me know if you see any mistakes.

From here on out, you can send your minutes to me and I will post them on the appropriate page.

Thanks everyone.

GPC get-together at ALA?

David Free and I were wondering if anyone else from GPC libraries is going to ALA in June, which is in Washington D.C. If so, it would be fun to get together and have dinner, dessert, or drinks on Sunday evening, June 24th. I think at this point anytime after 5:30 is sounding good. You can post here or email me or David. Thanks and hope to hear from you soon. (For those of you who can't make it to D.C. this year, I am planning on taking copious notes so I'd be happy to share with anyone who is interested. Maybe I'll even post something on the blog if there's anything that I think everyone would enjoy reading about).

Rockdale/Newton Becomes Newton

Just wanted to let everyone know that, with their move, the Rockdale campus will now be known as Newton. To that end, I've changed all the instances of "Rockdale" to "Newton" in the Voyager back-end, the OPAC, and on the webpages I have control of. The other webmasters will be changing their pages shortly, if they haven't already.

For those who use the Cataloging module, you will notice that drop-down menus are reading something like "Newton Book," but the location code will still be "ROBook." I'm afraid that Voyager doesn't allow for changing permanent location codes, just the way they display, so we're stuck with this. Those using Acquisitions and Circulation probably won't notice this. I think all you ever see is the display name, which will be "Newton Book," "Newton Reference," etc.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

Update: In the OPAC, the Location field of the Narrow My Search limits and in the Quick Limits under the Exact Search still say "Rockdale." Bob Trotter will have to change that and I emailed him on 4/1.

"What Goes Around"

This Chronicle article is well worth a read. It was written by Susanna Ashton, an associate professor of English at Clemson University in South Carolina. Apparently, when she was a Fulbright scholar to the Republic of Ireland, she was surprised with a whopping ILL bill that opened her eyes to how fortunate we all are to have an ILL system in the U.S. that is very low cost, if not free to the user.

The line that promises to leave no dry eye in the house, "The greatest resource sharing our libraries practice is sharing their faith in us."

Oh! I'm verklimpt. Talk amongst yourselves.

Let The Database Trials Begin!

It's database evaluation time, and here is the URL for trial access to the databases under review for 2007.

http://www.gpc.edu/library/technicalservices/db/databasetrials.htm

The review period runs from March 1st to April 2nd, but some of the providers wouldn't run the trials past the end of March. So, if you try to get in after that and are denied, drop me a line and I'll see what I can do.

You'll notice that there are three links at the top of the page, one for the procedures and timetable, one for a database evaluation form (graciously created by Sherry), and one for a printer-friendly database list. All these are MS Word documents. I'd recommend printing out the database list while you're looking at the trials, so you'll have it handy for some of the more complex access instructions like the Encyclopedia of Religion.

We want everyone's input, so if you won't be attending the reference committee meeting to discuss the databases, please fill out some evaluation forms and pass them along to your committee rep or myself. And let me know if there's anything else that I can do for you.

Student Email Username and Password Retrieval

In answer to the question that was raised at yesterday's discipline meeting, OIT says that the limit for retrieving a student's email user ID and password is 5 times. After that, a student will need to go to a computer lab where supervisors and other designated employees can obtain the information or contact the Help Desk for assistance. There may be a brief (15 minute) lag time before the student can actually log on to a computer.

Looking for a conference to attend?

I found a handy list of library-related conferences at:
http://homepage.usask.ca/~mad204/CONF.HTM

Blog Upgraded to New Version of Blogger

[Too many upgrades these days for my tiny little brain.]

Well, I've been putting it off, but Blogger finally bullied me into upgrading the blog. You wont notice anything too different on the front-end, but a few added features under the hood including a "Labels" feature which sort of functions like categories, in a less satisfying way. Anyway, poke around and tell us what you think.

One little problem, now that the blog is upgraded, you will have to convert your Blogger account to a Google account if you want to post or comment. It's pretty straightforward. If you try to log in using your Blogger account, it will badger you to convert to the new account before you proceed. Just follow the prompts. If you already have a Google account, you can use that. Or you can create a new one, again, by following the prompts. A word to the wise, when converting a Blogger account and creating a Google account at the same time, you will be prompted for an active email address. Whatever you put in here is what you will use for your login name, so choose wisely grasshopper. You might be able to change it later on, but I'm not sure about that, so why not save yourself the trouble and give it some thought up front.

Creating a Google account through Blogger will not give you access to purportedly life-changing features like Gmail or Google Talk. If you want to sign up for a Gmail account and then use that as your Blogger account, you have to have an invitation from an existing Gmail member. Please email David Free or myself and we'll shoot you an invite. [Update: You can still email David Free or me, we always love attention, but it looks like you no longer need an invite for Gmail. You can just sign up on your own.] Also feel free to email or call us with any questions you may have about this switch.

Upgrade to Voyager 6.2

Just wanted to let everyone know that the server site has informed us that we must undergo another Voyager upgrade next week. Apparently v.6.2 has some needed fixes (see attachment). It has been road tested by the folks at UGA, and passed their approval, so everything should be fine. (I have some hopes that it will help with our OPAC-issues, but there are absolutely no guarantees on that, so keep sending in those problem reports until you hear from me otherwise.)

As of now, the schedule I've been given for the upgrading GPC's server is the evening of Monday, February 26th. This means that when you come in on the morning of the 27th, Voyager will be down on everyone's PC. I am working with OIT to prepare another packet delivery system and we have high hopes that it will work as smoothly as it did last time. If it does, down time will be minimal. If not, I may have to drive to your campuses to upgrade PCs manually. Let's all keep our fingers crossed that it doesn't come to that. I don't want you to experience any more down time than is absolutely necessary.

As I understand it, GIL Express transactions are expected to function normally between 6.1 and 6.2 libraries, so no GIL Express downtime is expected. Please report any problems you might experience.

Thanks in advance for your patience! Hopefully this will be our last upgrade in 2007.

Hello, and wildcard searching

First of all, hello! I am Amy Eklund, one of the new catalogers in Tech Services. I am really glad to be here at GPC and I am really enjoying working here (I started Dec. 1). I look forward to meeting those of you I haven't had the chance to meet yet.

Secondly, I wanted to mention something I noticed while doing a recent database maintenance project. I have been using truncation and wildcard searching in the Voyager cataloging module (which I didn't know was possible until I began working here) and that got me wondering about those capabilities in GIL, as well. So, after some playing around in GIL and reading all the "Help" documentation (particularly the sections on "Searching" and the "Technical Documentation"), I discovered that both right-truncation (using ?) and wildcard searching (using % anywhere in the word) are possible in keyword search and command search in GIL. Truncation is mentioned in the "Help" documentation, but wildcard searching is not. I can see how wildcard searching might be very useful if you haven't been aware of it before, for instance if a patron comes in asking for a book about Powerpoint by "Munson" but they are not sure whether it is spelled "Mansen", "Munson", "Monsen", or "Munsen" (so you could do a fielded keyword search for "M%ns%n" with a keyword search for Powerpoint).

Hope this is useful for you if you didn't already know about it, and happy searching!
Amy

Problems with the OPAC? Part Deux

I'm still working with Bob Trotter on our various and sundry OPAC problems, and he's asked me to give him the full URLs of the oddities.

So, from here on out, report any OPAC weirdness to me as follows.

1.) Copy and paste the URL of the problem page into the body of a plain text email.

2.) Include as full a description of the problem as possible [what problem is occurring (we have three right now), time, date, what kind of search you were doing, did you go in through the Quick Search originally, what you clicked on right before the bug occurred, etc.] There is no such thing as too much detail here. Give me everything you can think of.

3.) Email this to me at tminchew@gpc.edu.

You no longer have to send me printouts, just follow the above instructions.

To recap, these are the three different instances of "weird" OPAC behavior we are working on now:

1.) Sometimes the Item Status in a record display will read "No Information Available" even though there are clearly item records attached, as the number of items will be set. Then the Item Status will revert "Not Checked Out". I'm not clear on whether or not this happens automatically, or if the user has to hit Refresh. On the one instance report I have of it, the item status read one way on one computer, and a different way on the other during the same one minute period.

2.) When leaving search results idle for a little while, then coming back and clicking on the Quick Search link at the bottom of the screen, people are being thrown into a plain white screen containing only the text "lost+found".

3.) After taking some action in the OPAC, people are thrown into a screen entitled "Builder Search". The style sheet changes from our usual blues to reds, and the search itself doesn't always work. The majority of the time folks seem to have been doing an exact search, then left the connection idle for a while, then clicked on New Search, and were thrown into the red screen. However, this is not always the case.

Thanks everyone! Keep these reports coming. Hopefully Bob will be able to figure something out. And please let me know if you have any questions or encounter any new problems.

Pharos

In a recent gen-mail from Keith Chapman, he stated that students can access their printing account either by swiping their card or by entering their official GPC login and password at the print release station. When I asked Barry Bailey about this in December, however, he said students can only access their account by swiping their access card. I checked with Keith about his e-mail and he said his understanding was that, "Dexter's group with OIT is installing a password authentication program on all print release stations." Keith said he thought maybe Dexter hasn't gotten to Dunwoody with it yet. I haven't heard any more updates since then. So, does anyone know about this? Do other campuses have this password authentication program? We need to clarify this because we have had students ask about this (yes, apparently someone actually read the gen-mail).

Problems with the OPAC?

I've gotten a couple of reports about problems with the OPAC since the upgrade. The scenario is always the same, after taking some action in the catalog, people are thrown into a screen entitled "Builder Search". The style sheet changes from our usual blues to reds, and the search itself doesn't actually work. The only option to get the OPAC working again is to completely exit and start over.

I've had this happen to me a couple of times over the years, but not often enough to worry about. After the upgrade, I've had it reported by two librarians on two different campuses, and each says that it's happening several times a week or more. Bob Trotter and I can't seem to replicate it, so there isn't much that we can do right now, and I was just wondering if this is happening to anyone else. If so, please drop me a line and give me as many details as you can (time, date, what you were trying to do in the catalog when it happened, etc.). Thanks!