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