SUNYConnect Advisory Council
Minutes
Present: Walter
Asonevich, Mary Beth Bell, Carey Hatch, Lynne King, Cerise Oberman, Dave
Ritchie, Rick Winant, Connie Perrin (Staff)
Excused: John
Homburger, Walter Lukhaup, Steven Roberts, Nancy Van Deusen, Maureen Zajkowski,
Don Boyce
MEETING OF
Since there were no minutes
submitted for the meeting of
Those present on 12/14 in
MEETING OF
Review of Agenda
A discussion pertaining to
the SUNYAUG Ad Hoc Committee was added to the agenda at Dave’s request.
UUP Grant
Carey said the proposal is
ready for submission. If approved, the
money would be used mainly for travel and some equipment.
Syndetics
Carey said he will be working
on SAC’s endorsement of the recharge proposal.
Following some discussion, the
members approved the following motion:
On motion made by Cerise Oberman,
seconded by Rick Winant and carried, Carey Hatch will proceed with the
development of the 2007-08 library recharge ,splitting
the on-going cost in a 50-50 split between
campuses and SUNYConnect. There will be additional discussion with SCLD.
ILLiad
The group discussed ways in
which to handle the licensing and hosting fees for ILLiad. The possibility of enabling all the community
colleges to participate was seen as a major concern.
On motion made by Lynne King, seconded
by Cerise Oberman and carried, the
Carey said he will prepare an
overview of his three year plan explaining SUNYConnect’s commitment to fund for
a full year and the timelines (beginning with 06-07 or 07-08 for sites not yet
using ILLiad).
Financial Plan
Carey briefly explained his
financial plan spreadsheet and where the expenses are going. He said he will share more data with SAC in
the near future. Many of SUNYConnect’s
financial issues were addressed during other discussions at this meeting.
Opposing Viewpoints
Carey described an offer from
Gale which would result in significant savings to SUNY for Opposing
Viewpoints. Approaching this offer in a
fair manner to all campuses was recognized by SAC as an important concern. The members decided that the best approach
would be a study of usage statistics and costs.
Carey agreed to work on this.
Borrowing Task Force Recommendations
Carey said the Borrowing Task
Force submitted two recommendations to SAC before the end of 2006 as agreed
upon. The group will be meeting again on
1/16 in
Aleph Update
Maureen’s Aleph update is
below.
Service Packs
·
service packs are
provided by Ex Libris to address bugs and provide updates; no service packs
were installed during the v16 campus implementations or upgrades to maintain
all servers and campuses at the same service pack release for consistency
·
service pack 1851
was installed on Mohawk at the end of November for testing
·
updates to Aleph
have been reviewed
·
final work is
being done on automating updates as much as possible across campuses
o
the majority of
the changes are at the system level rather than the campus level, though manual
updates are needed
o
manual updates -
80 html files (impacting webopac) have been updated with new coding; the number
of html files that need to be updated per campus depends on the amount of local
campus customization; OLIS will be updating the webopac html files as much as
possible (as in the v14 to v16 upgrade, some customizations could not be
maintained because the new coding did not support the older
customization).
o
other manual
updates - anticipated to be minimal for the campuses
·
the updates
across the campuses, and a process for the first service pack installation has
been developed
·
it is expected
that 14 weeks will be required to install the service pack on 56 campuses
across 3 servers; this initial timetable is conservative to ensure that the
service pack updates are installed correctly with minimal impact on the
campuses
·
the start date
will be discussed at the next OLIS/ITEC bi-weekly call
·
information
about the process and what is expected of campuses will be announced to the
SUNY libraries once the dates are finalized
·
OLIS and ITEC
will be evaluating ways to try and streamline the process. Ex Libris will be included in these
discussions.
Version 18 upgrade
Ex Libris has not provided
any timeframe for when the preferred shared systems architecture will be ready
for v18. Consequently, OLIS and ITEC
have started initial discussions on what it might take to upgrade to v18 in our
current server environment. No timeframes have yet been proposed for upgrading
to v18 (either in our current environment or with the Ex Libris proposed
model.)
Aleph support
challenges
Ongoing support of Aleph
requires the re-thinking the Aleph support environment. The OLIS has begun work on the
following:
·
articulate the
parameters for the service levels and types of Aleph support the SUNY community
can expect from OLIS and ITEC
·
move toward a more standard WebOPAC environment based on
the Ex Libris defined Aleph functionality; since OLIS cannot sustain
significant support for customization, we will need to determine what can be
customized without impacting basic functionality so that new or enhanced
developments can be applied automatically over multiple campuses.
·
determine the
feasibility of moving to the Ex Libris proposed architecture for large shared
systems
·
evaluate the
feasibility and sustainability offering Aleph managed services across a greater
number of campuses and the amount of OLIS staff and skill levels needed to
support managed services
·
determine the
OLIS staff and skill levels needed for continuing with some level of continued
Aleph support at the campus level
·
determining training
needs and more effective and efficient ways of delivery
·
ongoing
assessment of services
Footprints
Footprints is used as an
internal tracking tool for OLIS and ITEC to manage the Aleph and SFX support
requests that are received from the campuses.
It is also used to manage the internal OLIS and ITEC communication
regarding SFX, Dspace and Aleph server support of the operating systems, Oracle
databases, Aleph patch and service patch installations, Aleph upgrades, and
system administration. Since it was not
implemented as a vetted knowledge base, there is significant sensitive
information in Footprints such as Unix and GUI campus
logons, patron data, and system administration level configuration information
The OLIS has been working on
a redesign of the SUNYConnect portal pages that will include an SFTP site that
can be maintained more easily by OLIS staff and that will provide access to a
broader range of content including OLIS created training and support
documents. A new version of Footprints
will also be implemented in the next few months. This will provide an opportunity to determine
ways that information in Footprints might be more accessible. The OLIS will be creating a survey for the
SUNY library community to solicit feedback on their information needs.
SAC
Task Force on Aleph Shared Services
·
o
finalized Phase 1 Deliverables - recommendations
to SAC provided in
separate document
o
began review of the Ex Libris proposed architecture for large shared
systems
·
Aleph managed services pilot
o
Purchase is in Managed Services as of December 7
o
sites visits are set for the last week of January 2007 and the first week
of February 2007 for
Union
Catalog
ILLiad
Rick said
that he was in contact with Dana Dietz about the consistency of the ILLiad
pricing. SAC agreed that no further
action is necessary at the present.
Lynne
reported on Kathy Miller’s survey regarding the 3 Rs’ role and interest in
collaborating with SUNY on ILLiad.
Further discussions are not anticipated for the time being.
Digital Library Options
The
following decisions were agreed upon by SAC:
U-wide Program Planning
The
group helped Rick identify several issues which he will present at the U-wide
Program Planning meeting scheduled in
Old Business
NYSHEI
Carey
reported that SUNY has renewed its membership with NYSHEI for the current
fiscal year. Jason Kramer has been
selected as the new Executive Director.
New Business
SUNYAUG Ad Hoc Reports Committee
Dave
discussed a proposal from the SUNYAUG Ad Hoc Reports Committee pertaining to
the use of Footprints and what materials should be made available to all SUNY
Footprints users. Members talked about
the Aleph support that OLIS is capable of delivering. Carey said this is not a SAC issue. He said he will survey the community at the
operational level to look at this from a policy-wide perspective.
ITEC and SLN
Carey
said ITEC is talking with SLN about setting up an environment similar to a
commercial hosting service. Members felt
that this is worth pursuing.
The next
meeting is scheduled for
Respectfully
submitted,
Nancy
Van Deusen, Secretary
Draft
prepared by Connie Perrin (Staff)