Lost Books List - Jan. 2007

Just three this time:

Caravaggio: a life/ Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi da
B CAR Merrimack PL

Inside man/ Grisham, John
AUD 345.766 (it's a CD) Center Harbor, Nichols ML

Master the SSAT and ISEE, 2003/ Jacqueline Robinson
371.26 ROB Merrimack PL

Margaret Perry, Assistant Director at the Hampstead Public Library compiles this list each month of the books that have gone missing between NHAIS libraries. She sends the list out to the NHAIS-ILL listserv and has given me permission to include the list here as well. If your library has lost a book in transit send the info to her email address (mperry @ hampstead.lib.nh.us)
To add a book to the Lost List you need to include:
author
title
spine lable information
owning library

NHU-PAC ILL now works with Internet Explorer 7.0

SirsiDynix has modified NHU-PAC's ILL program so it now works with Internet Explorer 7.0. NHAIS Services has done some testing with the program and it appears to work as promised. If you have IE 7.0 and do ILL through the NHU-PAC, try using the new browser for your ILL transactions. If you run into any problems, please let the NHAIS Help Desk know at NetworkS@library.state.nh.us or 271-2141.

Lost Books List - December 2006

Margaret Perry, Assistant Director at the Hampstead Public Library compiles this list each month of the books that have gone missing between NHAIS libraries. She sends the list out to the NHAIS-ILL listserv and has given me permission to include the list here as well. If your library has lost a book in transit send the info to her email address (mperry @ hampstead.lib.nh.us)

To add a book to the Lost List you need to include:

• author
• title
• spine lable information
• owning library
  

Did you notice there was no List for November? No, I didn't
forget: Absolutely none were reported!! Are we good, or
what!? And van drivers, REALLY good!

But there were three for December:
The future of media: resistance and reform in the 21st
Century.
302.23 FUT Plymouth, Pease PL

God delusion/ Richard Dawkins
There is no call number as this is a brand new unmarked copy.
North Conway

LibraryUncivilized beasts and shameless hellions/ Buford
070.92 Amherst Town Library

Enhanced content not showing

Wednesday, January 24, 12:25 p.m.: The NHU-PAC is not currently displaying enhanced content (including cover pictures, reviews, fiction & biography, summaries, and tables of contents) on individual records. We're working to restore the links to this content.

Possible slowdown Wednesday night January 23

Maintenance work on NHU-PAC's main database server will resume Wednesday, January 23, starting at 7:30 p.m. The NHU-PAC should remain accessible during this work but you may find it responding to requests more slowly than usual. We expect things to be back to normal by Thursday morning, January 24.

Early morning outage Wednesday January 24

During the early-morning hours of Wednesday, January 24, the NHU-PAC's main database server will be out of service for maintenance. Work will begin at 3 a.m. and it is expected that the server will be back online by 7 a.m. You should be able to connect to the NHU-PAC and retrieve lists of results for searches during this time but you won't be able to see details when clicking on a title.

Brief outage over

Friday, January 19: NHU-PAC was briefly out of service around 7:30 this morning to accommodate work related to our indexes.

The future of cataloging rules

Linda Tiernan Kepner of the Peterboro Town Library sent me an email this morning about an article that I think may be of interest to others following the development of RDA. The article comes from D-Lib Magazine which is an electronic journal focused on digital library research and development.
This opinion piece basically explains all the ways that the authors think that the Joint Steering Committee is heading in the wrong direction with their redesign of the cataloging rules. The author's make some valid points, and provide an excellent overview of the development of the cataloging rules along with citations (and links) to the documents and articles they are discussing.

Personally, I think the authors of this article are too willing to throw out the baby with the bathwater in their desire to look forward into a digital future instead of building on the past.

"While the goals of the progressive librarians building new interconnected
library services are admirable, they need to be achieved in short order if
libraries are to retain their users' loyalty. It does not seem to matter to most
users that libraries currently are the only conduits for a wealth of published
literature that is not available for open access on the public Internet. Users
will engage with services that provide materials quickly and with the least
effort. The "invisible library," like the dark web, is of no interest to those
who do not know that it exists. "

The premise that an electronic catalog should be driven by rules designed to create handwritten 3x5 cards has always struck me as idiotic, but it seems equally short-sighted to abandon the wealth of materials already held in (and cataloged by) libraries in favor of the born-digital documents proliferating on the web. It seems to me that a compromise between the two is the best approach to providing accurate, useful information to people when they need it. (Isn't that what libraries are here for?)

Web-based Software

Web-based software is a terrific asset for public libraries! Thanks to "Webware," library users have a large number of software choices available to them. Most of these services are available for free and without the need to download any software or files to the public terminals. Learn more about Web-based software:

"The Web's Most Useful Sites" PC World, February 2007

The printable article is here:

If you are looking for the newest software information, you might enjoy browsing "Webware: Cool Web Apps for Everyone" on a regular basis. You can find Webware at: http://www.webware.com

NHU-PAC is back

Friday, January 5: The NHU-PAC wasn't very useful for much of yesterday but it's back in service as of 7:44 a.m. today. Yesterday's maintenance work ran into a hardware problem that brought the system to its knees. That problem will be addressed next week when a new part arrives. On the agenda for today is some backup work that shouldn't disrupt service--or so we're told by SirsiDynix.

How many technicians does it take to fix a server?

Apparently more than were working on it earlier today.
On January 4, 2007, at 3:48pm the system was back up and running for about 5 minutes. It is now down again. NHAIS Services staff, SirsiDynix staff, and Sun Microsystems staff are all working on the problem. The good news is that they think they know what the problem is. The bad news is that it will take at least a couple of hours to fix. It may be time for you to call it a day and try tomorrow.

SirsiDynix says it will be at least another hour

Thursday, January 4, 2:45 p.m.: Today's maintenance work on the NHU-PAC has proved to be more disruptive than originally advertised. At this writing, searches yield messages like "Sorry, unable to retrieve results" or "Search terms resulted in NO items found." SirsiDynix now tells us they will need at least another hour to complete their work on our system. We will let you know when there is new information

No search results until 2:30 pm Jan. 4

Thursday, January 4, 1:30 p.m.: Today's maintenance work on the NHU-PAC has proved to be more disruptive than originally advertised. At this writing, searches yield messages like "Sorry, unable to retrieve results" or "Search terms resulted in NO items found." SirsiDynix now tells us they expect to restore service today around 2:30 p.m.

NHU-PAC maintenance Jan. 4-5

SirsiDynix will be doing maintenance work on NHU-PAC's main server on Thursday and Friday, January 4 and 5, 2007, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. We don't expect any major service interruptions but it is possible you may experience longer-than-usual response times in the NHU-PAC during the hours noted.

OCLC's Bibliographic Formats and Standards Updated

OCLC’s Bibliographic Formats and Standards has been completely updated with information from recent technical bulletins. The updated Bib Formats is now available online. This document provides details on all the MARC tags used in OCLC records (and thus in NHU-PAC records.)

The updates include the following information from recent technical bulletins which are now obsolete and no longer available from OCLC:
TB 240: Pinyin Conversion Project
TB 241: National Library Control Number Changes
TB 242: OCLC Symbol Expansion
TB 244: OCLC MARC Format Update 2001
TB 246: Database Enrichment
TB 247: OCLC-MARC Format Update 2002
TB 249: OCLC-MARC Format Update 2003
TB 250: Parallel Records
TB 251: Connexion WorldCat Searching
TB 252: OCLC-MARC Format Update 2006
TB 253: ISBN and OCLC Number Changes

In addition to the material from technical bulletins, the first five chapters of Bibliographic Formats and Standards have also been completely updated and revised.
The first five chapters are also available in Spanish. The revision of Bibliographic Formats and Standards remains ongoing and the printed edition is scheduled for the third quarter of 2007. Printed copies of Bib Formats will be available from OCLC for $40.00, plus shipping and handling. (And will be out of date as soon as they are printed -- so stick with the online edition.)