Report from the Head of IS 04/12/2008

IS Team meeting 4/12/08 – Chair’s report

 

1. Personnel Changes – Welcome to Tom and Andy to their first meetings. Purpose of the meetings was explained.

 

Thank you to Siobhán to agreeing to take over from Jan in organising the meetings and taking the minutes.

 

Also Alan’s last meeting, so would like the opportunity to thank Alan for all his support and his contributions to the team over the last 37 years. He will be missed and I hope you will all come along to his retirement do on the 19^th December so we can all wish Alan well.

 

2. Library restructure – we are now in the consultation phase for the restructure process. The LT had a feedback meeting with the Trade Unions this week where any issues raised by members were considered. On the 15^th December the new structure with amendments as a result of the feedback will be published. The Job descriptions will be put on the Intranet a few days later and the aspirational meetings will start in January. We are on course to complete the restructure by April 2009.

 

3. HERA – The moderation of outcomes is ongoing and the TU are in negotiation with the University on the initial outcomes. No timescale for completion at present.

 

4. Change Management workshops now taken place and yesterday the LT looked at a number of recommendations made by the trainers to take forward. Also middle managers with line management responsibilities have been on a management development course.

 

5. Talis

• Integration of Talis and Oracle Financials – LT see this as a priority and we have met with ITS to discuss the detail of the integration and this is going forward to the Finance operations group in January (chaired by Margaret Laithwaite) where our work will be prioritised.
• Talis Strategic meeting –Members of the L T meeting met with the CEO of Talis Dave Errington to discuss how they many help us with moving forward with the strategy and also issues relating to response times and development requests

 

6. Learning Commons – I have been asked to chair a group called the Learning and Technology sub group of the Learning Commons Project Committee which will be tasked with looking at technology requirements of the LC . Membership and remit still to be agreed.

 

7. Laptop Loan Scheme – we are looking at alternative supplier of the services (Dinosaur supplies).

 

8. e-payments – kiosks have arrived but still an outstanding issue with the credit card payments which ITS are awaiting a fix from Salford Softward. Launch fully on19^th January.

 

9. ITLT

• looking at various options for a replacement email service and these require further consideration. Sarah Garland’s team have also done a student survey of possible alternatives including gmail and zimbra.
• Looking at resourcing of the VSD and taking action to address some of the concerns – appointed a new Service Desk Manager Sinead Renold appointed starting on 03/12/08 and 2 additional support analysts are being appointed all on contract.
• Initiating a project to complete the definition and implementation of IT security policies including data handling and a publicity / education campaign. KV will be our representative on that group.

IT Research & Development Report 4/12/08

SciFinder

The new improved Web version of SciFinder is now available, and usage has been increasing  – in October (the last month we have full statistics for) there were 452 uses compared with 150 in September.

John Blunden Ellis has now become our SciFinder Key Contact. (Diana was the previous Key Contact)
Wireless Network

The wireless network seems to have been performing well since it was installed. The change of SSID from University to University of Manchester does not seem to have resulted in many problems.

Laptop usage in the Library seems to have increased greatly, particularly in those areas which have an adequate wireless signal. The plugin zone on Blue one seems to have eliminated the spaghetti of cables all over the floor.

Green 2 Study Rooms

Currently installing the PCs in the Study Rooms, though this is quite tricky as they tend to be fully booked from 10am to 8pm. We should have one side (Rooms 1-7) completed by the end of this week, and should be able to proceed more rapidly next week now that Jan has been replaced.

At the moment, the users can’t see the PCs, and they are still connecting their laptops to the screen, but we hope to connect up the PCs to the screen in rooms 1-7 next week, at which point the access to the screen for laptops will disappear.  We need IT Services to convert the network sockets from roaming to Library network before doing the switch.

We have been running a pilot project in room 1, where the network was changed a couple of weeks ago. When people have been having difficulty connecting laptops to the screen, we’ve put them on the installed PC, and they don’t seem to have had any problems.

4th Floor Teaching Suite

The Projector in the Teaching Suite is no longer projecting a satisfactory image, and a Saville engineer we called decided that repair was not economically viable. The projector is being replaced with a much inproved one, capable of coping with the requiremwents of high Definition Video. This will be installed next Monday (8th). We’ve have a temporary system using the old projector from User Education in the room until then.

Computer Support Update

Welcome

I would like to welcome Andy Zarkesh who started with us on Tuesday 2^nd December.  Andy has started his induction programme and has met some of you already as part of the process.

 

Virtual Service Desk

The emergency procedure was invoked relating to an RFID issue. The Outlook Issue continued to keep everyone busy.  An operational review of the VSD has been undertaken and the report has gone to MT and will be followed up by going to LT next week.  IT Services are also undertaking a review.  Some issues raised are in the process of being addressed by IT Services.  The resourcing model is nearing completion and will be discussed and approved by SSAG in January.  2 analysts have been hired on a 6 month contract to assist with the service – MHS, JRUL and CSIST will be allocated them for part of the week to assist with their development and also the local service teams.

 

Brown Bag Lunch

The paper about the programme was presented to LT and accepted wit a few minor changes. The organization of these in future will move to another group.  Professor Geoff Beattie came and gave an excellent talk for the first event.

 

Eddie Davis and Precinct library

Regular service meetings will be held to ensure computer support works well.  There has been an acknowledgment that our service has improved.  At the first meeting An understanding of how the support differs between the 2 libraries was gained.  As a result of the meeting EDL have 2 OPACS and also an order was signed to enable the Business school to purchase 2 PCs to replace 2 old PCs.

 

Outlook

The Outlook issues can be resolved by applying a permanent fix.  This has been placed on the intranet. 

 

Desktop 08

More testing has taken place and te product seems more stable.  A PAT meeting will take place in December.

 

Rooms 1.1, 1.16 and 1.17

Final patching of data points needs to be undertaken.

 

Office Moves

Phil Butler’s team are now in their new office.  The copibook machine will be moved to the old bindery as soon as the work in 1.17 has been completed.

 

Rezoning project

The team prepared their report which will go to LT shortly.

 

Training and Development Activities

Karen visited the Information Commons in Sheffield and also attended a management development course.

Jan attended the coping with change course

Digitisation/Systems Development

1. Digitisation

Plans are progressing for Luna Imaging to migrate our image databases to the new server in the week beginning January 12th. There will be some down-time but it will be kept to a minimum.

A test Luna collection has been set up to hold the English Manuscripts Project data and images. The test metadata profile is currently being tested by project staff.

Special Collections have been awarded a grant to digitise a Persian manuscript. Images (about 600) will be added to the main Rylands Collection but will also be accessible via a separate website.

We have been asked if we can provide additional catalogued pamphlets for digitisation at BOPCRIS as part of the JISC/RLUK 19th Century Pamphlets Online project. Negotiations with Special Collections are continuing but we hope it will be possible.

Data has now all been copied from the old DSpace server which can now be decommissioned. It is intended that the documents it held will be made available via the new repository as soon as possible after launch.

CopiBook scanner has still not been moved. Maps stored in its new home in the old bindery office must be moved first.

2. Webfeat (SearchIt)

Search box now live on the portal, searching Web of Science, Expanded Academic index, Business Source Premier, KnowUK, Oxford Reference Online, Custom Newspapers and Talis. Preliminary statistics for numbers of searches available at s:\eres_statistics\searchit\nov08\daily_searches_sept_nov08.xls
Overall trend is rising, about 600 searches per day at present. We have made a small change to the interface to make it more obvious how to change the group of resources included in a search.

3. SFX (FindIt)

Backlog gradually reducing, thanks to help from cataloguing staff.

4. Data Curation

I attended a meeting of the Data Curation Centre “Research Data Management Forum: Roles and Responsibilities for Effective Data Management”. This looked at the issues involved in management of data, identifying the roles of data creators (the researchers), data scientists (working with researchers to optimise the way in which data generation is planned and the data are manipulated), data managers (computing specialists dealing with storage and preservation) and data librarians (advising on preservation, description, use and re-use of data). Several issues for us to consider as our re-structure progresses and the repository is launched.

5. RAE

No news yet of the return date for our outputs.

JMC. 3/12/2008

Electronic Resources Delivery

Replacement of Athens accounts by the use of central usernames and passwords

Service links and access information continue to be modified as changes are made by publishers and service providers. Some guides to accessing e-resources off-campus using central usernames and passwords have been added to the e-resources pages.

E-resources usage statistics

Usage statistics have been added to the S drive (eres_statistics) to help Faculty and Academic Liaison Librarians identify services which might be candidates for cancellation.

SCONUL statistics

Usage statistics are being prepared for the annual SCONUL return.