Library systems report 5th March 2009

1. Talis. Problems with access to My Account in OPAC  have been investigated and substantial  improvements made. There is another update waiting to be installed which will also help.

 

OPAC PCs in the Main and site libraries are finally being replaced, and we are using a new browser set up  with Opera in kiosk mode instead of IE and Deep Freeze. This is working much better and gets rid of the problems of blank screens or failed links.

 

We have put in a new system for library users to request items from Store, designed to cut out the manual paper work that was being done before.

 

Prism 3 to be installed this summer. The implementation group will meet on 19^th March with Imraz from Talis.

 

Talis Aspire (reading lists) Barry, Ian and I attended a meeting yesterday . We are in the next group of sites to be converted. There will be a period of dual running.

 

Decisions – Now working correctly for all users and John and I will be meeting with users after holiday.

  

2. Self service. All systems working fine now including Stopford.  We have some new screen graphics to put into the displays  on the discharge machines using photos taken by David Ormond. Some downtime on two of the machines due to repairs.

 

3. Sentry. Our Sentry database and software are now running on a new ‘virtual’ server in Kilburn. Also the systems in each library site have been updated to the latest release of Sentry which we are beta testing.

 

Room bookings system – have had two meetings involving SB electronics to look at the design of a new system, and with Estates to sort out networking etc issues.

 

 4. E Payments. Working on facilities for external members to have payment and printing facilities.

Report from Head of IS: 5th March 2009

1. Personnel changes: Good news is that Val will be staying with the IT Support Team until the end of June, seconded from IT Services. Olivia will be returning to work on the 16th April. She will be working 3.5 days a week for 6 months before returning to full time hours in October.

2. Library restructure: Good progress is being made and this week we will be announcing the Grade 9-6 roles that have been confirmed so far. In the IS team the E-Library Infrastructure Manager has been advertised and short listing will take place on 6th March with interviews on the 16th March. The panel will be Sandra Bracegirdle, Lorraine Beard (chair) and Allan Copley from IT Services. The Software Developer will also be going to advert shortly, that will be a 2 year fixed term post. The new structure will come into being at the end of March and I will be talking individually to staff whose roles are changing about the transition.

3. HERA: Negotiations continuing and there will be a further meeting with ACAS on 6th March.

4. Learning Commons: There will be a Learning Commons Planning Away Day in March will staff from Library and IT Services attending. Lorraine is also going to a technical meeting as well later this month

5. Talis Prism 3 – There has now been a project team set up, chaired by Janet Barratt to agree the design and the implementation of the new interface which will go live in September. Sandra and Lorraine have given Talis and the group a set of objectives of what we want the new interface to do which links to the Library strategy.

6. IT LT: 

• Paul Harness’s email options paper is going to PRC on the 10th March with the recommendation to implement a Microsoft exchange server for email. 
• VSD – The resource model was agreed i.e. the contribution that everyone makes to the service. For the Centre which includes The Library this was agreed as I and in practical terms that means that the JRUL contribution is unchanged at two half days a week. 
• Desktop 08 – IT LT agreed to change the name of this to Staff Desktop/ Student Desktop. Staff Desktop is going to be trialed by small groups of staff initially including the IT LT. 
• IT Security Implementation Project has now ended as the new policies have now been published; they were in staff update this week. Karen’s team will be starting to do the encryption of devices identified as holding sensitive data.

7. IS Budget submission

• That went to John on the 27th February and will now go forward to Finance. Thank you to everyone for there input into that. 
• Jan has asked Lorraine to put in a bid for equipment to support teaching and learning. This includes e-book readers, disability equipment, huddle boards etc. Thanks to Andy for his help in putting this information together. 
• At the next staff meeting there will be a session on the Financial Situation of the Library and the University.

8. Review of Information Desk provision: Katy will be leading a group to review physical information desks, online help and the e-resources help following on from the Enquiry review which made a number of recommendations to Leadership Team. With the move to the Learning Commons this group will also include the IT help desk so Sinead Renold who is the ITSD service desk manager will be involved in this.

9. IT Services have just purchased a knowledgebase solution called Right Answers which will be used to help improve the first time fix rate at the Service desk as it includes a large amount of pre-populated information about University systems and we can add information about local applications and systems. At the moment it doesn’t include Talis information but the supplier is already talking to Talis about this. Lorraine is on the Right Answers Project Board and it may be that we use Right Answers as a Library knowledge base as well

10. GF refurbishment: Details have been circulated regarding likely staff moves. Also the Information Desk and the IT Service desk will also be relocated. Karen is on the Project Team for this project to represent IS but Steve will also be consulted where necessary.

11. Management Development Programme: Starting in April there will be a series of workshops for Middle Managers who have line management responsibility. These will include performance management; sickness absence management etc and you should be receiving details of these shortly. Members of LT will attend these workshops where diaries commit.

Electronic Resources Delivery 05.03.09

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

We are still working towards implementing the use of University usernames and passwords, rather than Athens accounts, for off-campus access to electronic resources. Links are being modified as publishers and service providers join the UK Access Management Federation and implement Shibboleth. The use of EZProxy for other services will be investigated with Pete Birkinshaw, Senior Directory and Registration Administrator in IT Services.

Usage statistics

Siobhan has continued to update the electronic resources usage statistics on the S drive to assist Faculty Librarians and Academic Liaison Librarians in identifying services which might be candidates for cancellation.

Electronic resources

Electronic resources lists, links and descriptions continue to be amended to reflect current subscriptions.

Digitisation/E-resources R&D Update

Luna server and its collections

Slow saving in the images database on the new server has been fixed.  Took a long time to identify the cause and 30 seconds to fix.  Save times reduced from 45 seconds to 5.

Rylands Medieval collection is now live, already contains 5 of the projected 40+ manuscripts

Genizah Project group have identified a need to include rotated and enhanced images of their fragments in the Genizah Collection.  A test area has been set up for them to experiment to find their preferred method.  Several possible methods have been identified and discussed:   now awaiting a final decision on which to implement.

 

Pamphlets

Final batch dispatched to Southampton for scanning.  Project launch in Liverpool on March 20^th.  Christine Chappelle and JMC will attend.  Some content from Newcastle, Liverpool and UCL now live at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/news/announcements/2009.jsp#FebA

 

IMP Conferences Scanning

Project being set up to digitise 44 printed volumes of IMP conference papers held in EDL.   Later volumes are already available in online form on the IMP website.   Aim is to unite the two sets of content in the IR with a supporting website providing kudos for JRUL/MBS. 

 

Scanning Equipment

Move of CopiBook scanner to old bindery office and installation of public scanner(s) on Blue 1 both imminent.

 

SFX

Peter Jervis is being trained to give additional help with SFX checking and knowledgebase updates.

 

We are providing our SFX usage statistics to ExLibris for inclusion in their bX project.  BX is a new service, due for release later this year, which mines collected usage data to provide information about usage patterns and give feedback along the lines of “others who consulted this article also looked at ….”   Idea is that this will give a more current view of usage than the necessarily retrospective citation analysis.  We will have 3 months free trial access when the service launches.

 

Thin Client Server

Server in mourning for Alan?  Many of the applications are not working but before they are repaired the server needs patching and service packs/hotfixes applying.  Initial attempt to do this has failed due to licencing problems.  IT Services are investigating. 

Computer Support Update

1.       Staffing

It is with much thanks to Sinead Renold in IT Services that I can tell you that Val will continue to work as part of our  team until end June.

 

2.       Virtual Service Desk

Nothing new to report.  The reporting tool is now in use to produce regular progress reports/updates.

 

3.       AV support

The majority of support calls coming in for the green study rooms relate to students connecting their laptops to the large monitor, where the monitor or keyboard has been unplugged so the following group are asking for help for the set up to be put right for them.  The support for AV can be reached via phoning the work mobile 07827281051 during normal working hours. 

 

4.       Conflicker virus

A large number of our OPACS have been infected with this virus.  As part of the PC replacement programme these infected pc’s have been replaced with newer PCs with an image which includes anti virus software.

 

5.       Network Update

The upgrade of the campus network has started.  Phase1 of the project is dealing with the main building on Sackville Street.  All those involved are being kept up to date with the schedule.  The precinct library is included in the project and is scheduled to take place in May – this date may well change as it is a suggested date at this moment.  Lorraine and I had a meeting with Darren Hankinson to discuss network projects.

 

6.       Ground floor Refurbishment

The plan has been signed off.  There will be a website available soon with all of the information about the project and timescales.  Discussions about budgets have been underway and also the plan of where services will be moving to whilst the project is underway, more news will be available in the next few weeks on locations – as soon as I know where I will be assessing the requirements  for data points…..

 

7.       Management Team Update

KB presented an overview of the website, potential future developments and asked us as a group to consult with our teams and provide feedback to him about what we think would be useful for the website.  There will be a focus group for users to obtain their feedback.  When we receive the questions I will circulate around the group.  There was some discussion about the ground floor refurbishment, graduate trainees.  Steve has been invited to come and talk about Talis at the May meeting.

 

8.       Desktop 08

Alison is working with Dave Cornthwaite in CSIST to build the JRUL specific applications.  D08 has become more stable and an agreement has been reached that all Faculties and Services within the University will be implementing the image.  There will be a call for a list of applications for Sept 09 by the end of March (from IT Services) – an email will be sent to all JRUL staff shortly, however if you know your requirements please let us know.  The new image in September will move to using Office 07.

 

9.       Team Meetings

We are having regular weekly meetings so there may be some times when none of us are in the office but you can reach us by phoning 07827281051.  We have also started with our monthly 1:1 meetings.

 

10.   Upcoming Work

Implementing IT Security Policy.

We have a list of projects linking to the strategy which we will be working through – this will be made available online soon.

 

11.   Training and Development Activities

Steve has provided Val and Andy with some training on the self issue machines.

Andy, Val and Alison have attended a workshop on encryption

Karen attended a PRINCE 2 project Management course (and passed the foundation exam)