New COO at SirsiDynix

Dear SirsiDynix Customer,

Tomorrow, SirsiDynix will issue a press release, the contents of which we want to share with customers prior to a general announcement. The news is that SirsiDynix has hired a new chief operating officer (COO) named Matthew J. Hawkins. Matt will be working primarily out of our office in Provo, Utah, and will have responsibility for the Client Care, Implementation, and Consulting & Education organizations. Matt’s direct reports will be Terry Jarnagin and Mike Casale.

Matt brings varied experience from a range of high-level operational roles, including most recently the role of vice president and general manager of Henry Schein Practice Solutions, a Utah-based provider of healthcare software, equipment, and value-added services. Prior to joining Henry Schein, Matt served as a strategy consultant for McKinsey & Co. in Dallas; as a project manager for Tenfold Corp., a software firm in Salt Lake City; and as a financial analyst for Electronic Data Systems in Chicago, Dallas, and Tokyo. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University.

With his extensive experience in managing software, technology, and business operations, I’m confident Matt will be an important asset for Terry, Mike, and our entire Operations organization as we work to deliver products and services that make a difference for your institutions, staff members, and users.

So look for the press release on our Web site about Matt’s appointment later today or tomorrow. Please let me know if you have questions or comments.

Regards,

Gary Rautenstrauch

SirsiDynix CEO

NHU-PAC outage Sunday morning July 29

The NHU-PAC will be unavailable starting at 6 a.m. on Sunday, July 29, 2007. If things go as planned, the database should be back online around 6:30 a.m.

Card printing delayed

New Hampshire Correctional Industries has told us to expect a delay of several weeks in the printing of catalog cards requested through the NHU-PAC. The last batch of cards to be printed was "harvested" on July 18. Any card requests submitted through the NHU-PAC since then will have to await the installation of new equipment at NHCI. You may continue to submit your requests for printing of shelf list cards or full sets through the NHU-PAC but don't expect delivery until the latter part of August. General information about requesting catalog cards through the NHU-PAC is available here. Details about card formatting can be found here.

NHU-PAC connection problems

Friday, July 6, 9:15 a.m.: Some locations report problems connecting to the NHU-PAC this morning. The server is running and we're looking into why some users aren't able to get to the welcome screen.
[9:45 a.m.: Locations previously reporting connection failures are now able to connect.]
[10:15 a.m.: Three more locations reported connection failures which cleared up in about 15 minutes.]

Sue's Clues: NH Downloadable Audio Books

Those of you who belong to the State Library's Downloadable Books program may be wondering how to count access to those titles in the NH Public Library Annual Report. You may have already figured it out, but in case you haven't....

They should be counted as Electronic Books [e-books] in question 33. Report the number of electronic units available. Yes, this may create an exaggerated view of how many downloadables NH libraries own, but at the moment it can't be helped. In the future we hope to have a better definition and location for this figure, but at the moment we're forbidden to make any changes for the federal statistics program.

The State Library offered 1294 downloadable books in 2006 to those of you subscribing to the program. Please enter this figure for question 33 on the NH Public Library Annual Report.
If you buy e-books and/or or subscribe to downloadable e-books directly, also enter those figures on line 33.

Remember, the deadline for submitting the report is Friday, July 13.

Sue's Clues - Logging in to Bibliostat

This tip is for those of you who are having trouble logging in to Informata's Bibliostat Collect web site to access the NH Public Library Annual Report questionnaire. Look to see if the home page is actually hiding behind the login screen if you've entered your username and password and nothing seems to have happened.
The home page comes up with the heading "Bibliostat Collect Documentation" and a sidebar on the left titled "Survey Navigator". Normally the login screen disappears, but sometimes it stays stubbornly in plain sight, hiding the page you want. If this doesn't work and you're still having trouble logging in, please let Sue know. Between her friendly neighborhood techie at Informata and herself, they can probably have you entering data in almost no time...

Open Enrollment Period for Downloadable Audiobooks Consortium

During the month of July there will be an open enrollment period for public libraries to join the NH Downloadable Audiobook Consortium. If your public library has any interest in joining the consortium, please contact me as soon as possible.

For the libraries that have already contacted me about joining the consortium, I will be calling you this week to gather information. If you don't hear from me this week, please do not hesitate to give me a call or send me an email.

Currently, the consortium fee schedule looks like this:

One-time set-up fee paid to OverDrive: $600

Yearly membership fees to pay for content:

Libraries serving a population less than 2500: $200
Population 2500-10,000: $500
Population over 10,000: $1000

Here is a general timeline:
During the month of August, staff members will gain access to the online library for training and practice. The service will go live for your patrons in early September.

Please let me know if you have any questions!

Bobbi
bslossar [at] library.state.nh.us

General consortium statistics:

We have 1524 unique titles in the collection.
There are 1799 copies in total in the collection.
We subscribe to 50 titles that are always available to be checked out.
We have circulated nearly 30,000 titles in less than a year!