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When it comes to things ALEPH, is the glass half full or half empty? This depends upon whom you ask and when you ask them. A large number of SUNYConnect LMS users has created a rich and diverse addition to the ALEPH customer community. SUNYergy is in evidence as challenges and problems are solved. Progress has been made on SUNYConnect-wide initiatives such as the union catalog, universal borrowing, and the version 16 upgrade. But for those most closely involved, the progress has been slow, painful and inadequate.

Since January 2005 OLIS and ITEC have been struggling with issues related to ALEPH v.16, Ex Libris' Upgrade Express software and establishing the software environment for the Group9 implementers. Seemingly, once one issue, bug, undocumented feature, etc. got resolved another reared its ugly head.

As a result, this status report of things ALEPH is a mixed bag. It will not be able to describe all the fits and starts, all the intermediate steps needed to get to our goals with some minimum of blood, sweat and tears. Additionally, many of the outstanding issues inter-relate with the various goals. So, it is hard to predict what the final outcome will be without answers to some of these dependencies. Perhaps last minute updates (prior to publication of this issue of SUNYergy) will paint a clearer picture.

Union Catalog
Progress has been made in regards to the SUNYConnect union catalog. After quite a bit of effort and a number of fits and starts, the union catalog is real (http://union.sunyconnect.suny.edu:8080/F). All SUNYConnect catalogs are represented and processes for weekly updates are either in place or being finalized.

As of October 2005 the SUNYConnect union catalog contains over 11 million records. Many SUNY librarians (in systems, cataloging, selection and acquisitions, etc.) can take pride of ownership in this achievement.

Universal Borrowing
A SUNYConnect-wide union catalog quickly raises the question: can I borrow the item? This, of course, has been the goal of SUNYConnect all along. As mentioned in these pages previously, getting to this universal borrowing feature has not gone as expected. The Ex Libris software for universal borrowing has now, however, been shown to provide the basic functions in a test environment. In the meantime, S.A.C. has been obligated to establish a sub-committee to evaluate SUNY's options to efficiently create such a feature in a production system for more than 50 academic libraries.

That group is evaluating various combinations of Ex Libris, OCLC and other softwares to assist in fulfilling this basic SUNYConnect goal. The sub-committee will send recommendations in this regard to the full council by the end of the year.

Group9
Brockport, Empire, Institute of Technology, Mohawk Valley, Niagara and North Country have all begun the process of implementing the SUNYConnect LMS. Initial meetings have occurred. Data analysis is ongoing. Some of the first test databases have been created. The Group9 sites are implementing ALEPH 500 v.16. OLIS and ITEC have been busy trying to decipher the intricacies of v.16 within the complex SUNYConnect environment. A number of system settings and configurations differ greatly between v.14 and 16 of ALEPH. The goal, of course, is to develop an efficient process for this system work not just for the six Group9 libraries, but for all SUNYConnect libraries currently using v.14. The issues related to these challenges meant that initial Group9 training sessions, conducted by OLIS, had to be postponed. At this point, however, the ALEPH training for some of the Group9 sites is well underway.

Version 16
In August OLIS learned that CUNY had postponed its upgrade to ALEPH v.16. This is related to ongoing problems with the upgrade process and with the Upgrade Express software. As already mentioned, SUNY has spent an inordinate amount of time dealing with a multitude of v.16 upgrade issues. While many of these issues are or have been resolved, this has created delays in the general SUNYConnect upgrade schedule. The process of migrating the 50 campus systems on the shared servers is likely to begin in 2006. The tentative schedule for this work has the migrations completed sometime during the summer of next year. Ex Libris is currently providing demonstrations of the ALEPH v.16 software around New York State. Upcoming sessions are scheduled for:

Hudson Valley Community College (November 29)
Onondaga Community College (November 30)
Genesee Community College (December 1)