To: PALNI Library Directors and Staff From: Vince Lucas, PALNI Project Manager Subj: PALNI Aleph Upgrade & Congrats from Ex Libris
As all of you know, PALNI completed its migration from Aleph Version 17 to
19 two weeks ago, and I'm happy to report that staff have made very good
progress since then in resolving the outstanding "clean-up" issues in the
aftermath of the upgrade. Of the 62 new Version 19 issues recorded on the
PALNI help desk since July 1, more than half have now been successfully
closed. Because of the inherent complexity of Aleph, a two-version Ex
Libris system upgrade like this one is a major project, and successfully
completing our V. 19 implementation is a milestone for PALNI.
I also wanted to share with all of you a couple of congratulatory emails
that we received from Ex Libris staff. First, here is an email from Alan
Manifold who leads the Ex Libris Aleph Support Team in North America, and
with whom we worked closely, especially on the latter stages of our
upgrade project:
>p/>
> >
>> >> ------- Original Message --------
>> >> Subject: Congratulations!
>> >> Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2008 12:56:49 -0500
>> >> From: Alan Manifold
>> >> To: Vince Lucas
>> >>
>> >> Vince and all the PALNI staff,
>> >> We want to congratulate you on your successful migration to Aleph v.19.
>> >> You are the first North American site to do this, and we are grateful
>> >> for your efforts to keep this project on track and to bring it to a
>> >> successful conclusion. Please share our warm thanks with all your
>> >> staff!
>> >>
>> >> Alan Manifold
>> >> Aleph Support Team Lead
>> >> Ex Libris Group
>> >> alan.manifold@exlibrisgroup.com
>> >> ---------------------------------
Also, here is an email that Susan Fipps received last week from Jo
Richardson, Aleph Product Manager for the UK Division of Ex Libris:
> >
>>> >>>------- Original Message --------
>>> >>> Dear Susan,
>>> >>>
>>> >>> I was really delighted to hear that PALNI is the first library to go
>>> >>> into production on Aleph version 19 following the successful completion of
>>> >>> your upgrade.
>>> >>>
>>> >>> I hope that you and your colleagues and users enjoy the new features
>>> >>> and improvements in this latest version, and that many other libraries
>>> >>> will soon follow your excellent example.
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Many congratulations to you!
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Kind regards
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Jo
>>> >>>
>>> >>>
>>> >>> **Jo Richardson**
>>> >>> *Aleph Product Manager, Ex Libris (UK) Ltd*
>>> >>> *Direct Line: 01895 823865 Mobile: 07710 479008*
>>> >>>
>>> >>> *1, The Long Room, Coppermill Lock, Park Lane, Harefield, Middlesex,
>>> >>> UB9 6JA*
>>> >>>
>>> >>> ---------------------------------
These emails confirm what we've suspected at times, but were never quite
certain about, that indeed PALNI is the first Ex Libris customer to
implement the newest release of the Aleph system!
At this point, I think we can conclude that our Aleph upgrade has been a
success, thanks to the Systems Librarians and staff in all of your
libraries who worked hard over the past four months to prepare for the
upgrade, to PALNI central staff who have worked many extra weekend and
evening hours over the past several months configuring, testing,
implementing, and fixing problems with Version 19, and especially to Susan
Fipps who managed our upgrade project and who successfully coordinated the
many complex details of the overall upgrade process.
Please note that several members of the staff, Susan, Larry Baerveldt, and
Chadwick Seagraves, will all be attending the annual Ex Libris ELUNA User
Group meeting beginning next Tuesday, July 29, and will be out of the
office most of the week. We appreciate your continued help and patience
as we work on resolving the problems that remain from our system upgrade.
Thanks.
Vince
--
Vince Lucas
PALNI Project Manager
INCOLSA | Email: vince@palni.edu
6202 Morenci Trail | Phone: 1-317-298-6570 or 1-800-733-1899
Indianapolis, IN 46268 | FAX: 1-317-328-2382
Copies of the PowerPoint slides from Susan Akers' May 30, 2008 All-Staff meeting presentation are attached. Both PowerPoint 'ppt' and Acrobat 'pdf' versions are included.
PALNI staff use system monitoring software to monitor and automatically log whether our Ex Libris Aleph system is online and operational at 15-minute intervals throughout the day. If the PALNI system is down for any reason, an "on-call" member of the PALNI staff is automatically paged so that any problem can be resolved quickly.
We have completed a review of our system monitor system log file for the 2007 calendar year. It shows that we experienced a total of 8.5 hours of unplanned Aleph system downtime during 2007. In addition, we scheduled a total of 9.25 hours of planned downtime over the 12 months for Aleph Service Pack installations and for other routine planned system maintenance activities.
PALNI Aleph Downtime
January 1, 2007 - December 31, 2007
Date/Time
Unplanned Hrs
Planned Hrs
NOTES
Jan 3, 02:00 - 07:00
04:45
DB Maint.
Jan 3, 07:00 - 09:30
02:30
Jan 7, 10:00 - 10:15
00:15
Jan 14, 09:30 - 10:45
01:45
Feb 4, 12:00 - 13:00
01:00
Feb 24, 08:30 - 09:00
00:30
Oracle Maintenance
Feb 25, 10:15 - 10:30
00:15
Mar 9, 23:00 - 23:30
00:30
Mar 11, 03:00 - 03:15
00:15
Apr 1, 09:45 - 11:15
01:30
Aleph Service Pack Install
Jun 3, 10:00 - 10:15
00:15
Jun 16, 14:30 - 14:45
00:15
00:15
Jun 24, 10:00 - 10:15
00:15
Jul 15, 10:00 - 10:15
00:15
Jul 22, 08:45 - 09:45
01:00
Aleph Service Pack Install
Aug 8, 09:15 - 09:30
00:15
Unplanned System Reboot
Oct 18, 10:00 - 10:15
00:15
Oct 28, 09:15 - 09:30
00:15
Nov 4, 01:00 - 02:00
01:00
Nov 22, 10:00 - 10:15
00:15
Dec 16, 09:15 - 09:30
00:15
TOTALS
08:30
09:15
As the Aleph downtime table shows, staff kept the PALNI system online and operational for over 99.9% of the approximately 8600 scheduled hours of PALNI system operation during the 2007 calendar! That is a significant achievement for a complex system like PALNI's that is routinely kept online on virtually a 24 hrs x 7 days per week basis.
Submitted by chadwick on Mon, 11/05/2007 - 2:03pm.
If you are a member of the popular social networking site Facebook, then you are most likely familiar with "Groups". Groups allow members to collaborate and discuss common interests and issues. Librarians are doing all kinds of cool things on Facebook and there are tons of groups about most aspects of our profession.
There is now a group for PALNI supported institutions titled "PALNI Librarians". It can be a place to find other librarians who work at member institutions, and even a place for Faculty, staff, or students to contribute to discussions about libraries within PALNI. It is an open group, so invite whomever you think might be interested. Most of all, just have some fun there.
Facebook requires an account to view and participate. If you are logged in you can join the group here.
From Associated Press in the Indianapolis Star this morning:
"The Tri-State University board of trustees has voted to change the school's name to Trine University in honor of a major donor. The change will take place June 1, 2009. The name honors Ralph Trine and his wife, Sheri, owners of Angola-based Vestil Manufacturing. They made an eight-figure donation to the school last year, the largest single gift in the history of the university, founded in 1884."
I will be extracting the bibliographic records to send to LTI for authority processing starting at 5am on Saturday morning. I hope to complete the project early on Sunday afternoon.
Please do not edit, overlay or delete any bibliographic records this weekend. You may continue with circulation, ordering and receiving items, arriving serials, adding holdings and items to current bibliographic records this weekend.
I will send a message to the lists when I have completed all of the processing.
PALNI libraries who are connected to the Internet via the I-Light state-wide backbone experienced problems this morning, April 4, with connecting to the PALNI systems. I-Light network staff updated router configurations last night that caused the access problems. Staff contacted INDNet and I-Light support staff early this morning when the problem was first reported, and the problem was fixed at about 10:15am. Access to the PALNI systems should now be working normally again.
Only libraries connected via the I-Light backbone were affected, and the PALNI systems were all online throughout these problems. Libraries and users who connect to PALNI through other service providers did not experience any problems.
that Janet Brewer discussed at the 2/27/2007 PALNI Board meeting is attached to this posting. Please note that the White Paper is in Adobe Acrobat 'pdf' format.
BUTLER DIGITAL COLLECTION JOINS IHC smartDESKTOP PROJECT
The Butler University Jeanette Siron Pelton Botanicals Print Collection has become the first PALNI digital imaging collection to join the Indiana Humanities Council smartDESKTOP project. The entire collection of 71 botanical-related images is now available within smartDESKTOP to be utilized by participating teachers and schools in Indiana.
Butler's collection was one of the first complete collections on the PALNI CONTENTdm server and also one of the first OAI enabled collections. The IHC is able to share information from Butler's collection via the OAI protocol and integrate the images into their learning platform.
Participants in the IHC smartDESKTOP project include the National Endowment for the Humanties, the Smithsonian Institution, the Eiteljorg Museum, IUPUI, and many others.
To learn more about how your collection can become part of the IHC smartDESKTOP project, contact PALNI today.
Susan Akers from Ball State asked that we share this with PALNI librarians:
On Wed., April 11, 2007, the Ball State University Libraries will sponsor a one-day seminar, “Digital Trek: To boldly explore copyright in teaching and learning"
Today’s library and information professionals must know how to properly use another person’s intellectual property. Learn more about the TEACH Act, Fair Use, library copying, and participate in a case study via small group. We'll have time for questions with a panel of experts and more. By attending this conference, you will hear from nationally-known experts in the field. Registration by Feb. 14 is $65 (a sweetheart of a deal!), then increases to $80 per person. After April 1, the cost is $125. IHETS members' fee is $65 before Feb. 14, then increases to $80.
Kenneth Crews, J.D., Samuel R. Rosen II Professor in the Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis and in the IU School of Library and Information Science and Associate Dean of the Faculties for Copyright Management
Donna L. Ferullo, J.D., Director of the University Copyright Office at Purdue University
Dwayne K. Buttler, J.D., Professor, Evelyn J. Schneider Endowed Chair for Scholarly Communication at the University of Louisville, University Libraries
Michelle L. Cooper, J.D., practices in the areas of employment and intellectual property law; prosecutes copyright and trademark applications, negotiates and drafts licensing agreements and handles infringement litigation.
Carl Johnson, Director of the University Copyright Licensing Office, Brigham Young University
James R. Williams, J.D., attorney at DeFur Voran LLP and is Ball State University's leagl counsel for education law
Use of the PALNI Online Catalog hit record levels in October, 2006. Across all PALNI library OPACs, 9,882 unique visitors connected to the PALNI OPAC a total of 30,309 times during the month of October. Overall, these users retrieved 762,318 web pages and generated 1,325,619 hits against the OPAC web server during the month.
Over the past 6 months, users have visited PALNI's OPAC web sites almost 120,000 times and displayed more than 2.8 million web pages
For the month of October, 2006, the PALNI OPAC was searched 154,116 times by keyword. The following chart shows the number of keyword searches for each library for the month of October.
A week has now gone by since our recent Aleph configuration changes and system upgrades, and PALNI OPAC performance continues to be very good. Over the past 7 days, between September 21 and September 27, keyword search response time has averaged 1.07 seconds for 40,431 keyword search across all PALNI libraries. That is a big improvement from an average of 3.54 seconds for the week of September 9 through September 15.
Individually, all libraries experienced immediate and significant improvements in response time when the system changes were implemented.
For example, the following chart shows detailed, library-by-library response time data for 9/21 to 9/27, immediately after the recent system changes:
To show just how much things have improved, the next chart shows library-by-library response time data from before the system changes:
The PALNI libraries that were experiencing the most serious OPAC performance problems are seeing dramatic improvements in response time. For example, average keyword search times for Huntington University improved from almost 8 seconds before the changes to just over 1 second following the system changes. Similarly, Marian College improved from over 7 seconds to under 1 second, Butler University improved from about 6.7 seconds to under 1 second, and DePauw University improved from over 4.5 seconds to just over 1 second on average.
Also note that all PALNI libraries are now well under the 3 second average keyword search response time that our contract with Ex Libris calls for.
Based on these results, and given that the system changes do not seem to have caused any new problems, it seems safe to conclude that PALNI's OPAC response time issues have been resolved at last! Staff will let Ex Libris know about the changes that we have made, since that information may be useful to other Aleph system users who are experiencing similar OPAC response time problems.
Submitted by sparker on Wed, 08/02/2006 - 10:59am.
Hi,
I wanted to share that DePauw has decided to bypass the ExLibris Reserves module all together for our print/media reserve items. We were already using Blackboard for our e-Reserves, managed by our Circulation staff. We decided to take that one step further by adding links for the rest of the reserve items to the OPAC records. So, our patrons will see all items on reserve for the library, whether print, media or electronic in Blackboard.
We will still work with Aleph to add personal copies and to move owned items into Reserves. Rather than getting into too much detail, I thought we would share our procedures and attached them in a Word document. We think this will greatly reduce the time we spent managing reserves in the Reserves module due to the problems were were encountering. We have integrated MacroExpress into our process to make the process even more efficient. Plus, we will now get a comprehensive list of reserve items WITH course and instructor name for the first time since we have been with ExLibris.
I have also attached the Macros we are using as well. If you have any questions, please let us know.
If you are a member of the popular social networking site 
