Tuesday, Jan. 31, 8 a.m.: This morning's NHU-PAC server restart appears to have revived an issue we had a month ago: duplicate search results. Some NHU-PAC search results may be listed twice so that, for example, a search which ought to yield 33 results shows 49 instead. All are valid results but some are listed twice.
Tuesday, Jan. 31, 7:50 a.m.: All NHU-PAC services are back in operation following this morning's routine monthly restart of servers except that the ILL server remains on the blink. We're expecting to receive some new parts for the ILL server later this morning. We hope that will take care of its hardware issues and then we can look at whether there are any software issues standing in the way of restoring NHU-PAC's ILL program.
This being the last Tuesday of the month, NHU-PAC servers will be restarted this morning as part of scheduled maintenance. The NHU-PAC will go offline at 7:40 a.m. today and should be back in service within 10 minutes. Holdings Maintenance sometimes takes a few extra minutes to be restored but should be back in service by 7:55.
Monday, Jan. 30, 1:15 p.m.: New parts for the ILL server are on their way. The plan is to install them tomorrow and see what happens. That doesn't necessarily mean the ILL program will be up and running tomorrow but it's a significant step toward our goal of restoring ILL service.
For suggestions on managing ILL in the absence of the automated system, see Mary Russell's message posted last Tuesday.
In response to my earlier post about ILL Contact Lists we got a question from a library asking them to be posted in Word or Excel so they can be used more easily for mailing. Pdfs are a pain to harvest addresses from, and that helps keep spammers from harvesting this info off our site which is why I am not going to post the info in a more accessible format.
However, if you are a NH library and would like a Word 2003 version of the document (which is what I have it in) you can email nhu-pac@dcr.nh.gov and ask to have the latest version emailed back to you for use internally in your library.
We have heard from a few libraries since we put the ILL contact info sheets up on the website that the email addresses were out-of-date. I updated the lists this morning, so if you are using them to directly contact libraries you want to borrow stuff from please update your copies. There are only a few revisions, so you may want to make the corrections on your existing pages rather than print new ones. I used red text for the changes so you can find them easily if you want to do this.
There are two lists: ILL contacts by HSA code and ILL contacts by Town
If you can contact a library directly that holds something you want to borrow, instead of filling the ILL listserv with general requests, that will save a lot of people a lot of email deleting.
If the contact info on these lists for your library needs correcting, please email the change (including your HSA code) to nhu-pac@dcr.nh.gov and I will do another update next week.
Due to the weather conditions, the North Country and Lakes Region van routes are cancelled. For a list of affected libraries please refer to our website: http://www.nh.gov/nhsl/services/librarians/van_delivery/friday.html
At this point, I believe the three other van routes (Southwest A, Southwest B, Southeast) will take place, although perhaps a bit behind schedule.
Donna Gilbreth
Supervisor, Reference and Information Services
New Hampshire State Library
20 Park Street
Concord, NH 03301
603-271-2060
donna.gilbreth@dcr.nh.gov
Thursday, Jan. 26, 11:45 a.m.: It was exactly one week ago that the first call came in from a user who couldn't get to the NHU-PAC ILL login page. The ILL server, the oldest one in our system, had crashed.
After repeated attempts in the past week to revive the server, we're now looking at options to replace it. I don't know how long it will take but be assured that we are working to have NHU-PAC's automated ILL service functioning again. When service is restored, it'll be the same ILL program, more or less, but we still haven't been able to determine if outstanding transactions can be recovered.
The volume of messages on the NHAIS-ILL e-mail list has increased significantly in the past week. You can help keep the traffic manageable by following the suggestions from Mary Russell in a message posted Tuesday.
A recent announcement from Janet Eklund, Administrator of Library Operations, New Hampshire State Library:
As you may know, LSTA (Library Services & Technology Act) provides funds to each state. The amount of funding received by New Hampshire is based on a population-driven formula. In order to continue receiving federal LSTA fund, we are required to submit a plan every five years that outlines how our LSTA funding will be used to meet the goals of the Library Services & Technology Act. The act also requires NH to conduct an evaluation of its programs from 2008 - 2012. Our next five year plan is due to the Institute of Museum & Library Services in June, and will incorporate data from our evaluation. Our evaluation is due to IMLS in March.
Please take a few minutes (no more than 10 min. to complete) to take the survey to help the NH State Library in its evaluation requirement. We need you to complete the survey by the end of THIS WEEK. Click on this link to take you to the survey:
http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/779084/New-Hampshire-LSTA-Survey
The State Librarian and I thank you for your input.
Wednesday, January 25, 8 a.m.: Diagnostic procedures will continue today as we try to determine what can be restored from our crashed ILL server and what needs to be replaced. For suggested interim ILL procedures, see Mary Russell's Tuesday message.
Wednesday, Jan. 25: There will be a brief interruption of NHU-PAC searching starting at 7:40 a.m. today. This is to allow updating of searching indexes. Searching should be restored in about 5 minutes.
We continue to work with SirsiDynix and our NH Department of Information Technology colleagues to figure out what is wrong with the ILL server and get it sorted out. It will be at least another few days and could be longer, so some interim ILL procedures are probably called for. There has been some discussion of this issue on the NHAIS-L listserv and several good points have been made there:
Monday, Jan. 23, 3:10 p.m.: NHU-PAC's ILL server remains out of service. Tomorrow we'll be working on seeing what can be recovered from the system. Once that's determined we'll have a better idea of exactly what needs to be replaced.
Remember that the rest of the NHU-PAC remains up and running (catalogers, please note that there remains an issue with searching logins and Holdings Maintenance) so you can determine which libraries hold materials you're seeking. For contact information for individual libraries, consult the Directory of New Hampshire Libraries. In addition to going there directly, you can use the "Directory of NH Libraries" subtab on NHU-PAC's About NHAIS tab.
Friday, Jan. 20, noon: The news isn't good. NHU-PAC interlibrary loan service will be unavailable for several more days. Repeated efforts to revive the server have been unsuccessful. Replacing the server won't happen today. It will take a coordinated effort among several parties to get this done and not all the parties will be available until Monday.
Is all the data about ILL transactions gone? Maybe. Maybe not. The data is stored on a disk array that's separate from the server so there's some hope that it can be recovered.
The next message about this situation will be posted sometime Monday.
Thursday, Jan. 19, 3:50 p.m.: NHU-PAC interlibrary loan will be unavailable at least through noon on Friday while efforts continue to restore the server.
Thursday, Jan. 19, 2:00 p.m.: There are major issues with NHU-PAC's interlibrary loan server. We're trying to recover the system now but plan on NHU-PAC ILL being out of service for the rest of the day. The rest of the NHU-PAC is unaffected by this outage.
Thursday, Jan. 19, 11:50 a.m.: NHU-PAC's interlibrary loan server is currently offline. We're looking into the problem.
Wednesday, Jan. 18, 7:50 a.m.: NHU-PAC's Holdings Maintenance server is back online. As was true yesterday, all functions appear to be working reliably unless you're using a searching login or a saved list. For an explanation of those terms, see Mary Russell's Tuesday afternoon message.
Wednesday, Jan. 18: NHU-PAC's Holdings Maintenance server will be offline starting at 7:40 a.m. Service should be restored within 15 minutes. Other parts of the NHU-PAC are not affected by this outage.
After the posting earlier today about Holdings Maintenance we heard from a couple of libraries who were confused about what lists were being referred to. On the theory that if a few people ask more people are probably wondering, I want to explain a bit about the List functions available in NHU-PAC.
Anyone who searches NHU-PAC can create a list of records, which is called "My List" To do this you click on the button marked "Add to my list" which appears to the right side of each title in a search result list or on a single displayed record. At the top right corner of your web browser window there is a link labelled "My List" which has a number after it indicating how many records have been added to this list. You can add up to 75 records to this list according to the documentation. I have never tried more than about 30 for reasons I will explain shortly. If you click this "My List" link it will display the items in "My list" and from there you can delete items, look at the details about each item, or email the list to someone (including yourself). "My List" will remain available for use as long as you don't close your browser window or navigate to a different web page.
If you are a library with a NHAIS cataloging password you can display "My List" then click on "Holdings Maintenance," log in with your cataloging password and add or delete holdings to each record on the list one at a time or to the entire list at once (as long as the list has no more than 30 records on it which is the limit for batch processing in the holdings maintenance program). This functionality of Holdings Maintenance is back up and running as of earlier today.
Each NHAIS library that has gone through NHU-PAC Training has a set of 3 searching passwords assigned to them. If you log in to NHU-PAC with one of these passwords (using the "login" link at the upper right of your browser window) you have some additional options available to you on the "My List" page. When you are logged in as a searcher you can create additional lists beyond "My List," give them names so you know what they are, and save them. These saved lists will remain available to you each time you log in with the searcher password they were created under for 10 days. These saved lists should be available to you in Holdings Maintenance in the same way that "My List" is. This functionality is still not working consistently. We continue to work on this issue and will provide updates on progress here on the NHAIS Notes blog.
You may now resume using Holdings Maintenance to add and delete holdings on NHU-PAC records.
EXCEPT:
The system still CANNOT pass saved lists of records into Holdings Maintenance correctly when the user is logged in as a searcher. We are still messing with this and will have additional info about it soon.
If you notice ANYTHING out of the ordinary as you are working in NHU-PAC please let us know right away as we did not necessarily think of every possible situation to test.
Starting immediately, Holdings Maintenance will be shut down so that some work can be done on it. This should only take 15 minutes or so and will (hopefully) result in substantial progress toward getting everything back up and running.
The state email system is "experiencing an outage." If you need to reach us, please call. The NHAIS Services Help Desk is at 271-2141.
The Lakes Region Van Delivery Route is cancelled today, Thursday, January 12, 2012. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.
Thursday, Jan. 12: While we're testing recent tweaks to the Holdings Maintenance program, please limit your Holdings Maintenance use to the functions outlined in Mary Russell's message of Dec. 30. Do not use Holdings Maintenance to add or delete NHU-PAC holdings until we say it's OK to do so.
Thursday, Jan. 12: There will be a brief interruption of NHU-PAC searching starting at 7:38 a.m. Searching service will be restored within 5 minutes.
Wednesday, Jan. 11: There will be a brief interruption of NHU-PAC searching starting at 7:38 a.m. Searching service will be restored within 5 minutes. A similar interruption is expected tomorrow morning.
Monday, Jan. 9, 2 p.m.: SirsiDynix technicians are tinkering with our Holdings Maintenance program this afternoon. It's possible this work may cause some interruption of service although it isn't expected to.
Please refer to Mary Russell's message of Dec. 30 for what you can and can't do in Holdings Maintenance. Be aware that it is still the case that the Holdings Maintenance program is displaying the "Thank you for adding [or removing] your holdings" message even when it hasn't actually made the requested change in the NHU-PAC. For that reason, you should not attempt to use the add or delete holdings functions. For a workaround to add holdings to the NHU-PAC, see the Dec. 30 message.
Friday, Jan. 6: As I write this, SirsiDynix engineers are taking yet another look at what's not working in our Holdings Maintenance program. As things stand, nothing's changed since Mary Russell's message last Friday.
A few users have asked about saved lists of NHU-PAC titles. Because we're currently having trouble getting saved lists (but not My List) to transfer data to the Holdings Maintenance program, and because saved lists are stored on our server for only 10 days, and because it's possible (although highly unlikely) that the repair work SirsiDynix is doing may mean those saved lists are deleted, NHAIS Services does not recommend using saved lists at this time as a means of storing information for later adding or deleting of NHU-PAC holdings.
Separate from the Holdings Maintenance work, NHU-PAC's ISBN index will be rebuilt starting sometime this afternoon. It's not expected to interrupt searching capabilities but if you get some odd results from ISBN searches late in the day it's probably related to the reindexing.
