Brief NHU-PAC outage Tue 2/28 7:45am

Tuesday, Feb. 28: There will be a brief interruption of NHU-PAC service this morning starting at 7:45. Service should be restored by 8. It usually takes a few extra minutes for Holdings Maintenance to come back online after the rest of the NHU-PAC is back in service.

PL Statistics Deadline is Approaching

Make sure your library is counted. Submit your Public Library Annual Statistical Report. Visit the survey site at http://collect.btol.com to submit your 2011 statistics. You will need your library's individual Username and password, which you can get from Janet Eklund if you do not have it. Completed surveys are due by April 6th....

As of 2/24/12 there were:
30 libraries submitted
74 libraries started
138 not started

Please contact Janet Eklund, Administrator of Library Operations, New Hampshire State Library (603-271-2393) with any questions. Thank you in advance for completing your report.
　

Z39.50 Update

The cause of the erratic errors we were seeing in the NHAIS ILL system and Z39.50 searches has been identified. The specific cases that didn't work (the ones I know about anyway) all had a blank marc tag in them. When the tag was deleted the records could be retrieved through NHAIS ILL as expected.

My expectation is that this is a problem that won't come up for anyone outside of NHAIS Services. If you do get an error message in the ILL system, please check the NHAIS Notes blog to see if a problem is being worked on and if not, please contact the NHAIS Help Desk (271-2141) right away to let us know exactly what you are seeing so we can get it fixed as quickly as possible.

Z39.50 Issues

This morning I discovered that Z39.50 searches of the NHU-PAC were behaving erratically. Some ISBN and title searches work as expected, but some return error messages, even when a matching record is present in the database.

This will be an issue for anyone who uses a Z39.50 connection to search NHU-PAC. It is also an issue for some (though not all, and not in a predictable pattern) searches in the ILL system.

A first round of testing has been completed on this by SirsiDynix and I am waiting to hear from the person the issue has been referred to. An update will be posted as soon as more info is available.

NHU-PAC searches from the Welcome and Advanced Searching tabs are working correctly.

NHU-PAC is back

Tuesday, Feb. 21, 10:10 a.m.: The NHU-PAC problems which cropped up over the weekend appear to be resolved now. Please notify the NHAIS Help Desk at 271-2141 if you observe any further oddities.

Brief NHU-PAC outage 2/21 9:55 a.m.

Tuesday, Feb. 21: There will be a brief interruption of NHU-PAC service starting at 9:55 a.m.

Tuesday morning NHU-PAC update

Tuesday, Feb. 21, 8 a.m.: What's not working:
1) Searches in the ILL program may yield an error message, making it impossible to place new requests
2) Pictures, reviews, and such that are normally seen elsewhere in the NHU-PAC when viewing individual records are not displaying
3) Some users may not be able to connect to the NHU-PAC at all
All these problems may be caused by network changes at the server end and we're having the state IT folks look into that.

Connection Issues Continue

It looks like the NHU-PAC servers are all running as they should, but internet connectivity to them continues to be hit or miss. We put in a ticket with the NH Information Technology office earlier this afternoon, but the problem has not been fixed yet. I wouldn't count on a resolution to this issue--unless it sorts itself out, which internet hiccups sometimes do--over the holiday weekend. We will provide an update as soon as we have any additional information.

Connecting to NHU-PAC

Friday, Feb. 17, 1:40 p.m.: Some users report being unable to connect to the NHU-PAC this afternoon. A test of computers at the State Library finds that some can and some can't connect. In one case, the screen hung at the "Your browser should have redirected you..." message but clicking on the "/ipac20/ipac.jsp?profile=" link brought up the Welcome to NHU-PAC page. We're looking further into this.

ISBN Searching - Take 2

Last week I made some changes to how the ISBN searches in NHU-PAC work. This solved a problem for some people, the inability to find records with 10-digit ISBNs by scanning 13-digit barcodes, but created a different problem for other people.

The new ISBN index that was installed last week is an exact search index and it cannot be combined with any other search element. For example, you cannot search for a title and an ISBN combined using an exact ISBN index. Realistically, most of the time you wouldn't want to do that anyway. The point of using a numeric search is that it is specific and saves typing a bunch of stuff. However, it was brought to my attention that libraries who are working on deleting holdings for weeded items often limit their searches to their own location to narrow their searches to the records they actually hold. This is a good approach, except that with the ISBN index changes made last week it doesn't work.

After some discussion here in NHAIS Services we settled on a compromise between these issues:

• The "ISBN =" search on the "Welcome to NHU-PAC" tab is the new one that will bring back records for a 10 or 13 digit ISBN search, regardless of which ISBN is actually present in the record. Limits are not available on this screen anyway.  
• The "ISBN is" searches on the "Advanced Searching" tab (included on the "Boolean" and "Monographs" subtabs) have been switched back to the indexes that allow limits to be applied.

If you are searching by a 13 digit ISBN, using a barcode scanner or not, on the "Advanced Searching" tab and you don't find a match, you should do another search (title, author, lccn, etc.) to make sure there isn't a matching record that only contains a 10-digit ISBN.  This primarily affects records from before 2007, but a second search for a non-match is never a bad idea.

ISBN Searching

In 2007 the folks who govern such things decided that all International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs) would be 13 digits. This had implications for everyone who deals with books and some aspects of the transition were smoother than others.

One of the issues this raised for NHAIS libraries was that lots of books that had only 10 digit ISBNs assigned to them (published before the full transition to ISBN13) had barcodes on them with the 13-digit number encoded. This meant that if you scanned the barcode on the back of the book in order to search NHU-PAC for it you would not find the matching bib record.

As of this morning that problem has been resolved in NHU-PAC. The "ISBN is" search option, on both the Welcome and Advanced Searching/Boolean tabs, can now retrieve matching records from NHU-PAC for ISBN13 searches, even when the actual bib record contains only the assigned 10-digit ISBN.

This change has no effect on either Z39.50 connections to NHU-PAC or to the ILL system's ISBN search capabilities.

This change should be especially helpful to catalogers doing retrospective conversions. Additionally, if you are fond of excess typing and include the hyphens in your ISBN searches the records will now be found. (But why type extra hyphens?)

Duplicate search results fixed

Friday, Feb. 10, 9:55 a.m.: The problem of some search results being listed twice in the NHU-PAC has been fixed. If you find otherwise, please contact the NHAIS Help Desk at 271-2141 or via e-mail.

Periodic System Interruptions

Friday 9:25 AM - NHU-PAC is currently being worked on.  You may experience periodic system interruptions.

Brief NHU-PAC searching outage Fri 2/10 7:37 am

Friday, February 10: There will be a brief interruption of NHU-PAC searching starting at 7:37 a.m. Searching service should be restored within 5 minutes.

Duplicate search results

Thursday, Feb. 9: NHU-PAC keyword searches continue to yield some duplicate results, with some but not all titles listed twice. This is a display issue; it doesn't mean the bibliographic record or its holdings are actually entered twice in the database.

If you're deleting holdings, you only need to add one instance of the record in question to My List even though you may see your holding listed on two different (but same) search results. If you click the "Add to my list" button for one listing of a particular record, then click the "Add to my list" button for another listing of the same record, you'll get an error message that says "Item may not have been added/removed - contact system administrator." There's no need to let us know about this--just make sure you've got the record you want included in My List.

This morning there were two brief interruptions of NHU-PAC keyword searching while dealing with this problem. Expect more brief (<5 min.) interruptions as work on the duplicate search results continues. While we aim to keep these outages to early in the morning (before 8 o'clock), it may be necessary to interrupt searching later in the day in order to get this fixed. Messages about that will be posted here on the NHAIS Notes blog.

Brief NHU-PAC searching outage 2/9 8:05 am

There will be a brief interruption of NHU-PAC searching starting at 8:05 this morning (Thursday, Feb. 9). Searching should be restored within 5 minutes.

Brief NHU-PAC outage 2/9 7:43 am

There will be a brief interruption of NHU-PAC service starting at 7:43 this morning (Thursday, Feb. 9). Service should be restored within 5 minutes.

February 2012 Van Delivery News

The New Hampshire State Library is closed on Monday, February 20, 2012, in observance of Presidents' Day.

There will be NO Van Delivery on that date.

For a complete list of all of the holidays the State Library is closed, please visit http://www.nh.gov/nhsl/services/librarians/van_delivery/instructions.html (the van delivery instructions) and scroll down to "NO Van Service".

If for any other reason (e.g. bad weather) van service on a particular route(s) does not operate, libraries will be notified via an e-mail message and a post to this blog. If your library does not receive van service on a particular day, please check your e-mail and/or this blog before calling the State Library.

Please remember to properly label each item which you are sending via the Van Delivery Service. This will help ensure these items make it to the correct destination in a timely manner.

If you need a refresher on how items should be marked for the van, please refer to the Van Delivery Service - Instructions, http://www.nh.gov/nhsl/services/librarians/van_delivery/instructions.html, and scroll down to number 3 of the guidelines, "Addressing material to be sent on the van".

To print a current van directory list arranged in alphabetical order by library, please use the PDF version which is available at http://www.nh.gov/nhsl/services/librarians/van_delivery/documents/vandirectory.pdf

You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and print this pdf file. If you do not have it installed on your machine, you may down load it for free from http://www.adobe.co.uk/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Due to the ever increasing load of materials transported by the New Hampshire State Library van delivery system, our vans can reach maximum capacity before the end of a van route, especially following long weekends and holidays. Our drivers can decline to accept materials if they feel they cannot fit them safely on their van. We are also asking libraries to please be aware of volume during times when there is likely to be a problem. You should prioritize your materials to be picked up, in case some items must be left until the next van pick up. That will allow us to immediately transport the most important items as quickly as possible.

If you have any questions you may contact Donna Gilbreth at 271-2060 or Diana DeCota at 271-2206.

Public Library Annual Report 2012 - Survey is Open

On January 19, 2012 Janet Eklund announced:

The online Public Library Annual Report for the year 2011 has been released. The survey URL is: http://collect.btol.com/

USERNAMES and PASSWORDS are the same as in past years. If you have misplaced this information, please call (271-2392) or email me. The deadline for submission is April 6, 2012.

I very much appreciate your efforts in submitting timely and accurate data. Clicking on the BLUE underlined question number will provide a pop-up definition, if you need more information on a question.

Please remember: EVERY response area must have data or you cannot submit. Enter Zero (0) for none or N/A if you don't know or you don't collect the data.

If you have problems submitting your reports, let me know and I am happy to help you complete the process.

NC van cancelled Mon. 2/6

There will be no North Country van route today, Feb. 6th. For a list of libraries, please consult our list at 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

Dewey Webinars on Feb. 7th

Print and web versions of DDC 23 have been updated. Join OCLC for a free, live, 30-minute webinar on Tuesday, 7 February 2012, “DDC 23 Update” The webinar is being offered twice to accomodate audiences in as many time zones as possible.


OCLC Web session:

DDC 23 Update
You’ll hear an update on the print and web versions of DDC 23 and tips on using DDC 23 and WebDewey 2.0, including:

• How to classify works about evolving technologies
• How to classify complex works about groups of people
• How to find updates to DDC 23 and track history of numbers

Enhancements to WebDewey 2.0 include:

• Easy access on all pages to basic information (including updates to DDC 23)
• Information about history of numbers
• New icons to identify built numbers and Manual notes

 If you want to attend one of these sessions, please register:

 

Register: 11:00 – 11:30 am Eastern Time (4:00 pm Greenwich Mean Time), Feb 7, 2012

 

 Register: 3:30 – 4:00 pm Pacific Time (10:30 am Australia Time), Feb 7, 2012

 

ILL Recovery - My two cents

A question has come up on the listservs about dealing with pending requests today (step #1 of my earlier posting). I stand by the task list from before, but realize some more detailed clarification might help.

Based on the listserv discussion, and talking it over with David Harris (who deserves most of the credit for getting the ILL getting fixed), here is our recommendation:

• Use request inquiry to look at "pending" requests made by YOUR library and cancel any of them that you no longer need because you have gotten via email or other arrangement
• Review your incoming requests and mark as "shipped" any requests that you were working on (they are currently in pending status) when the system went down and that you sent to the requesting library. If you do this today they can be tracked from this point on as usual

How to get ILL back on track TODAY

Our ILL server has been resurrected!
Our tests indicate that all data that was there when it went down (Thursday, Jan. 19, a bit before 11:50 a.m.) is still there.
This means that to get everything back on track each ILL library needs to do some catching up. Here's what needs to be done:

STEP #1 - URGENT!
Set to "shipped" all materials you sent to someone based on a NHAIS ILL request you had in hand when things went down. If this is not done today (which is January 19th in the ILL "clock" - tomorrow will be February 3rd) requests from January will go "Unfilled" overnight tonight. After today (Feb 2) the request will go "Unfilled" in the system and will need to be handled as if it were an out-of-system request from this point on. No, there is nothing we can do about this, even if your library is closed on Thursdays.

STEP #2
Set to "Received" any requests for which you got materials from someone based on a NHAIS ILL request, including any that you have already sent back to the lending library. Note: If the item didn't get "shipped" in the system prior to the end of the day on Feb. 2 you will get an error message on this. After today (Feb 2) the request is "Unfilled" in the system and needs to be handled as if it were an out-of-system request from this point on.

STEP #3
Set to "Returned" any requests for which you sent back the borrowed materials for a NHAIS ILL request while the system was down.  Note: As with the "received" step, if the item didn't get "shipped" in the system prior to the end of the day Feb. 2 then you will get an error message on this.


STEP #4
Complete transactions for materials you got back from borrowing libraries while the system was down. It may be best to wait a day or two to do this so that the borrowing library has had a chance to "receive" and "return" the items in the system.
If you find anything amiss in the ILL system -- aside from duplicate search results which we know about -- please contact the NHAIS Help Desk at 271-2141.

ILL update Thursday

Thursday, Feb. 2, 8:35 a.m.: Today NHU-PAC's ILL server will be tested on the network. It's possible that you may be able to reach the ILL login page during the testing. Please do not login and do any transactions until an all-clear message is posted here. Any work you do in the ILL program before then may be lost as the server will be rebooted without warning--possibly several times--during testing.

ILL update

Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2:50 p.m.: We're not out of the woods yet but at last there's some good news to report on the ILL front. Following several frustrating days that saw NHU-PAC's ILL server failing to respond to various tweaks, it's finally powering up properly with some new parts installed. Tomorrow we'll be reviewing its functionality with SirsiDynix to see what else needs to be done to get our automated ILL system back online.