Nota – lota – summA- LEPH: Newsletter #10, August 14, 2005
Nota – lota – summA- LEPH: Newsletter #10, August 14, 2005
Sorry for the title – it’s got to be my worst one yet.
First up – the winner of “Where Dylan’s Not” was Joan Simpson of the Law Library. She won a highly useful Library of Congress limited edition (only 10 million made!) ruler. Congrats Joan, I know many are jealous. By the way the answer was photo number 4 (though some swear that in a way he was in that picture .)
Second – I hope you all had or are having or will be having a good vacation – because its getting down to the crunch. Four and half months to STP!
Data Testing
Second Data Load
OPAC Customization
No real project update. It’s mostly covered by the contents below. I will say that we are still on track for the January go live. Things seem to be going weel. Sorry for the badd typin. ITS hrd to do with criossed fingers.
Data Testing
Circulation and Cat/OPAC testing is completed for the first load. You can see the results of the testing on the DMT page ( / ) under Conversion Error Reports. The vast majority of the issues have been addressed by ExL and ourselves and resolved in preparation for the second load. We will continue working on the remaining issues in the coming weeks.
Acquisitions, you may remember, didn’t get access to their data until 2 weeks after the Circ and Cat stuff so they will be finishing up their testing this coming week. Once they submit their report, we will begin resolving those issues.
The Novanet Express team has been very busy testing every single permutation of types of patrons, requesting all types of book and photocopies for delivery to all locations. Needless to say, there are thousands of combinations. The good news is that for the most part NE seems to work as we would like it to. The team will present their report this coming week for and we’ll start working on those issues.
Both of the reports (NE and ACQ) will be available on the DMT page when they are released.
Second Data Load
As I mentioned during the Road Show in April (was it that long ago?), the second data load will give us the opportunity to fine tune the extraction and conversion in preparation for the final load in December before we Switch to Production (STP) in January. The second data load will begin on September 2. Before this can start we not only need to finish the testing and resolve the issues, but we also must extract all our data once again. This gives us an opportunity to ask Convergent to extract some data elements that we either forgot or didn’t know we needed in the first extract. We also need to update any conversion maps (this material type in GEAC equals this in ALEPH) and conversion specification documents (put this data element from the extract here in ALEPH) to reflect what we know now. This will have to be finished by August 26, in order to give Scott at Convergent time to change his extract programs and for Ex Libris to change their conversion routines. It’s actually not as much work as I expected. We did pretty well in our first load (DUCK! – here comes a lightening bolt!).
With the introductory Blueprint and Foundation training under their belts, the Training Coordination Team and the designated module trainers are well underway planning and constructing the staff training for all of us that will take place during October and November. You can keep up on their activities by visiting the links on the TCT page ( / ) under Training Teams. If you’d like to practice on ALEPH before the training in October, follow the instructions on the Staff Training page ( / ).
OPAC Customization
Some of the OPAC Customization Team will receive introductory training from ExL this Thursday. In preparation for this they have met to begin work on designing templates for the various web pages in the OPAC. There is some pressure to have a working version ready by mid-October. Not only so that we may use it during training, but also to allow our user community a chance to see what they are getting in January and to allow our public service staff time to prepare for instruction in January.
Second Data Load
Notice and Report Customization
That’s it from me. Sorry, no contest this time around. Got to run. The Japanese Armed Forces are just about to unleash their super-weapon in an effort to stop Godzilla, but the mysterious asteroid that crashed earlier seems to be a spaceship .
Busy, busy, busy.
Thanks