ISBN 13s are here

The end of 2006 marks the end of the ten digit ISBN. "On January 1, 2007 the book industry

will begin using 13 digit ISBNs to identify all books in the supply chain." according to the US ISBN Agency which has created a toolkit to help the book industry with this transition -- lots of stuff for publishers and booksellers and a little info for librarians. OCLC has provided information about this transition for catalogers in Technical Bulletin 253. Additional gory details may be found on the ISO ISBN FAQ.

The information in OCLC's Tech Bulletin about what new records will look like applies to newly-added NHU-PAC records. The transition OCLC promises in their documentation had not been completed when last we checked (a few days ago. When OCLC has updated all they records added to the database during the transition period NHAIS Services will be able to make a decision about how best to deal with transitional NHU-PAC records. As reported in NHU-PAC News #29 (January 13, 2006) : "NHU-PAC records follow the approach OCLC is using: 10-digit ISBNs appear in the 020 field while 13-digits ISBNs, if available, are in the 024 field with a first indicator of 3. ISBN-13's can be searched through the Numbers Appearing on Materials search on the Browse Indexes subtabs found on the Welcome to NHU-PAC and Advanced Searching tabs. " This searching approach is still valid.

As David reported previously searching for ISBN13s in the ILL system is not totally as it should be yet, but the improvements coming to ILL in 2007 will fix this -- and a patch may resolve it before then.

ILL improvements coming next year

SirsiDynix is now rolling out a new version of NHU-PAC's ILL program and NHAIS Services is taking steps toward getting the upgrade. Before we can run the latest ILL program, we need to upgrade the program that runs the rest of the NHU-PAC, the Horizon Information Portal. The HIP upgrade is scheduled for February 12. Allow some time after that for the ILL upgrade to be installed and for us to test its functionality. We look forward to offering you a new, improved NHU-PAC ILL program in 2007.

NHU-PAC keyword searching restored

Thursday, December 21, 10:30 a.m.: NHU-PAC keyword searching has been restored after a brief outage.

Hot swap on NHU-PAC drives

Tuesday, December 19: A technician from Sun Microsystems will be installing 2 new hard drives on the NHU-PAC's main database server around 11 a.m. today. We're told this can be done without bringing the system down but be aware that there is the possibility that the NHU-PAC may need to be briefly taken out of service.

NHU-PAC outage planned for Wednesday morning, Dec. 20

The NHU-PAC will be out of service Wednesday morning, December 20, between 7 and 7:30. This is for equipment work related to the server problems which began Friday afternoon.

NHU-PAC working, perhaps a little slower

Monday, December 18: The NHU-PAC had its ups and downs over the weekend. Users were unable to connect to the site Saturday morning. That problem was fixed around 1 p.m. that day but you may continue to see slower-than-usual behavior in the database while we await new parts for the servers. We'll need to bring the system down briefly when the parts arrive, which should be today or tomorrow.

System messages

Our technical difficulties continue - however, the functionality of the NHU-PAC is back in most of its glory. The difficulty is that one of the10 disks where NHU-PAC, the database resides has meet its maker. The only difference this should make to users is that there MAY be a slowness that usually isn't there when looking at individual records.
The defective drive will be replaced on either Monday or Tuesday by a Sun Microsystems technician. That will mean a reboot of the database server. It will be done as early as possible on morning following the insertion of the new drive.

We are experiencing technical difficulties .. please stand by

Friday 12/15/06, 3:15pm
There is a problem currently with the server that supports NHU-PAC (as well as the NHSL catalog and the Gilford Public Library catalog). This affects all NHU-PAC functionality.
It is being looked into by all appropriate experts and will hopefully be resolved shortly.

Repeated results resolved

Friday, December 15: The problem of repeated results noted in NHU-PAC searches earlier this week has been resolved. You should no longer see the same bibliographic record with the same holdings showing up more than once among your search hits.

Removing NHU-PAC holdings

Recently, a few libraries have sent NHAIS Services files of MARC records with requests to delete their NHU-PAC holdings for the titles represented. NHAIS Services cannot do this. It is up to you to delete holdings for your discards. The process is similar to adding holdings directly to the NHU-PAC: search the database for the appropriate record(s), add to My List (if doing more than one deletion), click on Holdings Maintenance and log in with your cataloging password. If you have a list of from 2 to 30 titles (inclusive), you may use the batch delete function; it's the second grey Click Here button on the page and will remove all holdings for all records in the list regardless of whether you have one, none, or several holdings on the individual titles. If you have 1 record, or more than 30, or wish to selectively remove some holdings while retaining others, you'll need to scroll down and click the Delete Holding button below a title; at the next screen you'll get to specify which holding you want removed. Call the NHAIS Help Desk at 271-2141 if you'd like to have someone walk you through this process.

Something to keep in mind when searching the NHU-PAC: you may have a holding on a title even though you don't immediately see your library listed. Holdings are sorted alphabetically by HSA code (in the Collection column) and pages with multiple hits will display only up to the first 100 holdings per title while pages with just one hit will show 20 holdings with the option to view additional holdings ("More Results") at the bottom.

Repeated results

Monday, December 11: This morning we find some NHU-PAC search results are being duplicated. A keyword search for the title "squids," for example, returns 15 hits but 2 of them are repeats--the exact same bibliographic records with the exact same holdings. NHAIS Services is looking into what's causing this.

Another ILL milestone

NHU-PAC's ILL system is poised to reach Request #400000 in the next week. With this system just a few weeks past its 4th birthday, that works out to an average of nearly 100,000 requests placed on the system each year, more than 8000 every month, nearly 2000 every week. Imagine how full your mailbox would be if all those materials were requested through e-mail messages rather than our automated ILL system that allows requests to be targeted to owning libraries.

Training libraries cannot ILL

This morning I set several requests for materials from NHU-PAC's training libraries to "not available." Please keep in mind that the following locations may have holdings listed in the NHU-PAC but they're just there for testing and training; they have no materials they can actually lend to you:

Training - Birch Public TBIR
Training - Finch Museum TFIN
Training - Ladybug School TLDY
Training - Lilac Public TLIL
Training - Newt School TNWT

You may also find "NHAIS Services NHU-PAC" available when you're asked to choose lenders from a drop-down list. When this happens with requests for serial titles, click the drop-down arrow and choose a valid lender (you'll see them listed on the right) and remember to check the box to the left of the selected location. If you see "NHAIS Services NHU-PAC" on the Select Union Lenders page when you're requesting a monograph, that usually means there are no available lenders. You'll see "No availability information (empty)" under Holding Info. In such cases, your best bet is to cancel the request and send a message to NHAIS-ILL asking if anybody in the state has a copy that's not listed in the NHU-PAC.

If you're curious about the names of our training locations, check the NH Almanac. At the bottom of the page you'll find links to information about state symbols including the official state tree, the official state bird, the official state insect, the official state flower, and the official state amphibian.

NHU-PAC keyword searching back to normal

Friday, December 8, 9:05 a.m.: After an interruption of about 30 seconds, a new keyword index has been installed so NHU-PAC keyword searches will return up-to-date results.

NHU-PAC keyword searching restored

Friday, December 8, 7:55 a.m.: NHU-PAC keyword searching has been restored...with a catch. For the next hour or so, keyword searches will be using indexes that were last updated yesterday afternoon. Materials added to the database since then may not be findable through keyword searches. Around 9 a.m., we hope to install an up-to-date index which will be continuously updated. This will require an outage of keyword searching lasting about 5 minutes.

NHU-PAC keyword searching down

Friday, December 8: NHU-PAC's index server has been down since about 6 a.m. This means you will get no results for keyword searches. Browse searches, found on the Welcome to NHU-PAC and Advanced Searching tabs, should continue to provide valid results. We are working to restore the index server.

Pulitzer Prizes in Poetry

On the Librarian's Tools Tab of the NHU-PAC there is, among other things, a link to the winners of the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. As of this afternoon this linked list includes all of the books that have won this award since 1922 when Edwin Arlington Robinson won the first Pulitzer Prize given for Poetry. He won again in 1925 and again in 1928. Robinson, who spent his summers at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, NH, is just one of the Pulitzer-winning poets with Granite State connections: Robert Frost, Richard Eberhart, Maxine Kumin, and Charles Simic are also on this list.

The only remaining category that needs to have all the relevant records coded so they will come up when you click on the NHU-PAC Pulitzer prize link is "Biography or Autobiography." The links for History, Fiction, and General Nonfiction are already complete lists.

Holdings Maintenance is back

Thursday, December 7, 10:23 a.m.: The problem with the Holdings Maintenance server has been fixed. You should be able to log in to NHU-PAC's Holdings Maintenance area as usual now.

Holdings Maintenance access problem

Thursday, December 7, 9:28 a.m.: We are currently having a problem related to the server which hosts NHU-PAC's Holdings Maintenance module. You may see a "The page cannot be displayed" message when clicking on the Holdings Maintenance tab. We are working to resolve this.

NHU-PAC searching failure

Starting about 12:05 p.m. on Wednesday, December 6, "unable to retrieve results" messages began to appear for NHU-PAC search results. It took about 2 minutes for NHAIS Services to restore service.

Congratulations to Casey Bisson!

From the Plymouth State University press release:

"You can’t trip over what’s not there. Every day millions of Internet users search online for information about millions of topics. And none of their search results includes resources from the countless libraries around the world—until now. Casey Bisson, information architect for Plymouth State University’s Lamson Library, has received the prestigious Mellon Award for Technology Collaboration for his ground-breaking software application known as WPopac. The WPopac software will revolutionize the online search process by allowing titles and descriptions of library holdings to be found on the Internet."
Thanks to Lichen Rancourt's Remaining Relevant for the heads-up about this great news.

Handouts for NHU-PAC classes

PDF versions of the handouts used in the various "Using the NHU-PAC" classes taught by NHAIS Services staff (mostly David) are now available on the NHSL website. If you took these classes when we first launched the New NHU-PAC you might want to take a look at the files as we have added some handouts to the training since it was first offered.

Finding out what's going on with NHU-PAC

As of this afternoon there are some new links available on the NHU-PAC.
You can now go directly to the System Messages postings on this blog from either the Welcome tab or the Help! tab of the NHU-PAC. We have also added a link on the Help! tab to a list of known NHU-PAC functionality issues on the State Library website.

Known NHU-PAC Functionality Issues

There are some known NHU-PAC functionality issues and we have compiled a list of these, including work-arounds where applicable. If you encounter another problem please alert the NHAIS Help Desk at 271-2141 or send us an email at networks@library.state.nh.us

Occasionally, NHU-PAC's keyword searching function stops working and you'll get a "sorry, could not find anything matching" message for all your searches (in the ILL program, the message is "search terms resulted in NO items found"); NHAIS Services can usually restore this function within a few minutes of being notified. If this problem occurs when there is no one in NHAIS Services--nights, weekends, holidays--you may be able to use browse searches instead (not an option in the ILL program) but please leave a message to let us know about the problem.