Maintenance Complete

The monthly maintenance for July is all done and everything should be working as usual. If you notice anything not functioning as expected in NHU-PAC please contact the NHAIS Help Desk by email or at 271-2141.

Brief System Outage

There will be a brief (20 minutes) system outage this morning at 8:30 for routine monthly system maintenance.

Update on van delivery service

Hello,

I thought I'd send out a quick update on where we are at with the downsized NH State Library van delivery service. It has been a pretty rocky ride since July 1st, when we lost several staff members, including two people that drove supplementary van routes 4 days a week. In addition, a regular van driver has been out since then with a medical situation and is not due back to work for a while yet. So, we've been scrambling to find substitute drivers to keep the vans on the road. Some of you have even seen Ann Hoey and Michael York delivering your books! I plan to help out on one of Monday's van routes (although it's debatable how much help I will be!). So far we have not had to cancel a van route for lack of staff, but that is still a possibility as we cope with illness and vacations.

The newly revised van routes (reductions for several libraries) are functioning, although there are definite issues with at least a couple of the routes. Some libraries are challenged by the limits we placed on the quantity of items we will pick up. We are having problems with overloaded vans and the time drivers spend on the road. We are also finding it challenging sorting the hundreds of items that come back here every day for rerouting to other libraries. We simply do not have enough staff to drive and sort van materials.

We are looking again at the limits now imposed on libraries. I hope to keep the limit at 2 bins per library. I also hope I will not have to make further reductions in the schedule. I will be taking a look at non-ILL items sent on the vans (for instance, maybe libraries should not use the van service to send their book sale extras to other libraries). I will certainly take a look at the current van schedules (when I'm not riding on a van or sorting books) to see if they can be made more efficient. I welcome suggestions as to how we can best solve the problem of providing this service with fewer staff.

In the meantime, please forgive us if you sometimes receive books meant for another library. We have a sort of "all hands on deck" approach to sorting books in the afternoon with inexperienced people helping out (including my husband who is just waiting for me to commute home with him!). And I implore you to read (again) the instructions we have posted on our van service website (http://www.nh.gov/nhsl/services/librarians/van_delivery/index.html). I find far too many libraries are a bit casual with routing labels. Please make sure they are legible! If a book is going to a school or college rather than a public library please make sure that information is prominently written on the label. And all libraries should make sure that items going to a "drop off" library are labeled correctly. I see far too many books not marked correctly. As an example, if you are at the Newington library and request a book, make sure you state that your van drop is Portsmouth. And the library sending the book to Newington should actually mark it "To Portsmouth for Newington." The list of libraries on our van delivery websites clearly states which libraries are receiving materials via drop off at a nearby library.

Again, I thank you for your patience as we try to cope with these changes.

Donna Gilbreth
Reference and Information Services Supervisor
New Hampshire State Library
20 Park St. Concord, NH 03301
603-271-2060
donna.gilbreth@dcr.nh.gov

NHU-PAC Back

NHU-PAC should be back and running fine. If you notice anything unusual, please notify the NHAIS help desk 271-2141 or NHU-PAC@dcr.nh.gov.

NHU-PAC down for maintenance

The NHU-PAC will be down for maintenance for approximately 15 minutes. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Voice mail issue

The problem with the state voicemail system has been fixed.

Voice mail issue

The state voicemail system isn't working correctly at the moment. Yue seem to be able to leave a message, but we cannot get the messages.
If you don't get through to a person when you call, please email the NHAIS Help Desk at nhu-pac@dcr.nh.gov

If you have left us a message since yesterday afternoon, please call back or email as we didn't get the message.

Brief searching outage 7/8 am

Friday, July 8: There will be a brief interruption of NHU-PAC searching starting at 7:38 a.m. today. Service should be restored within 5 minutes.

Van Route Changes and NHAIS ILL

The NHAIS ILL system has been updated to reflect the new van delivery addresses necessitated by recent budget cuts at the State Library. The addresses of most libraries have not changed, but for those that have (with the exception of one college library that is still being figured out) the new address will display in the ILL system.

As we all work to adapt to the current van delivery schedules please bear in mind that the New Hampshire
Interlibrary Loan Protocol Manual, 1999 includes guidelines for selecting a lender for Interlibrary Loan transactions. The goal of these guidelines is to balance the load of materials travelling from place to place. Please contact the NHAIS Help Desk (271-2141) if you have questions about initiating NHAIS ILL requests.

Certain protocols should be followed when selecting a lending library. Factors such as geographic proximity, document delivery networks, local ILL systems, as well as past performance of the lender, will influence this choice. Generally, Dartmouth College and the University of New Hampshire should be libraries of last resort.

1. The borrowing library should request the material from a library within the local area; e.g., a library within their consortium, cooperative or other formal or informal district.

2. The borrowing library should request the material from a liketype library. Thus, school libraries should make their first requests of other school libraries, public libraries from public libraries, etc.

3. Libraries should attempt to request material from smaller libraries whenever possible so as to better share the ILL load.

4. New Hampshire locations should be exhausted before requesting from out of state libraries.

All set

This morning's scheduled maintenance is finished and NHU-PAC should be functioning normally. If you find this not to be the case please call the NHAIS Help Desk at 271-2141.

Scheduled maintenance beginning

The NHU-PAC will be down for approximately 15 minutes beginning at 8:15 this morning. This is for monthly scheduled maintenance. A message will be posted when everything is back up and running.

No CD van route Friday 7/1

Just a reminder that the Capital District van route will not run today or next week. The revised Capital District route will begin again on July 13th. For a list of all van delivery routes please refer to http://www.nh.gov/nhsl/services/librarians/van_delivery/index.html.

Donna Gilbreth
Reference and Information Services Supervisor
New Hampshire State Library
20 Park St. Concord, NH 03301
603-271-2060
donna.gilbreth@dcr.nh.gov