K-State Libraries: Digital Initiatives

E-Journals key matches removed

I removed the key matches (about ten) from the Libraries' interface for the search appliance today that pointed to the e-journals page. There were about a dozen or so of these, which would toss up a link to a category on the e-journals site when a given subject word matched, e.g.- literature or accounting. They ceased working properly a while back when we went to the new version of the A-Z list, which I just noticed and no one had reported. I don't think these links will be all that missed, and I'm convinced there's a better way to do this which I'll explore if demand for the links ever resurfaces.

In their place, I added two key matches (for journal and journals) that link to the main page of the A-Z list.

Stats: Audrey Q1 2007

This is a first run at providing stats for Audrey. I didn't get terribly fancy, just used its innate ability to display a report in HTML, stripped it of the Google header, footer, and sidebar junk, and let it fly. It doesn't require much interpretation, I think, since it's pretty straightforward stuff.

Audrey stats

Curious what people are using the search appliance to find? Check this out. I am sad to see that despite making it clear what it does and doesn't search there are people putting in queries that clearly indicate that they're looking for articles. Hey, at least they're coming to our site to try this!

TypePad sidebar documentation

Made the following changes today to TypePad:

• Created a Site Search typelist, which searches all library Webservers. Currently only found on the DID blog (to test it), but I will add it to all of the public blogs as the day goes on.
• Created a Search Search Cuts typelist, which searches the Short Cuts content on both ada and TypePad. Copied the XSLT stylesheet k-state_libraries and created a new front end called short_cuts using this stylesheet. The only difference is in the displayed header--I removed the link to the general site search and renamed the search results page.
• Edited the sidebar content for Short Cuts. It belongs to the category of blogs that cannot be controlled via a central template.
• For blogs geared toward an external audience, I put the following content in the left sidebar: Library Links, K-State Links, Site Search. The blogs in this category are The Dean's Seen, New Resources, Service Status, Talking in the Library, and News & Events.

3/15 Meeting Notes

Attended by Allen, Askey, Devlin, Ekart, Maringanti, North, White

• Search Appliance
  • Probably will arrive by March 31st, so we need to know about UPS purchases now.  Dave W. will check with Julie about responding to Dale's earlier message to libtech.
• OPAC
  • Creating a virtual host for staff version of OPAC, with 60 minute timeout.  Should be a big help to catalogers and the ref desk.  Address will be staffcat.lib.ksu.edu.
  • Harish suggested a static "front page" for the OPAC to potentially drop the wait time for session loading.  We're going to wait and see how the response time is from the new servers before making a decision.
• Meridian
  • Installation can be completed Monday after the switch.  Marjorie will contact Endeavor to arrange.
• Servers
  • PHP  is ready on Grace.  Yongli has Grain Milling project, Sara Kearns has Assignment Calculator from U. Minnesota.
  • Harish volunteered to do mySQL admin.
  • Last meeting before server switch, so we reviewed the plan.  At 10:30 on Saturday, 3/25, dewey will be brought down.  m1 will be unmounted and remounted to Cosmos.  Dave W. says 20 minutes, but we have a 4 hour window. 
  • Pulsar is working, and can be tested.
  • www2 addresses become catalog.lib.ksu.edu alias, with DNS change on 3/25.
  • We won't make any more changes to horizon before the switch, Marjorie will copy over the few files Dale has modified since the original copy date.
  • Still OK to do preview server changes through Friday 3/24.
  • Staff will be notified this week by Michael about getting new .ini file for Voyager clients from the DID blog. Michael will work directly with 2 special cases.
  • We need a security certificate for the new servers.

3/8 Meeting Notes

Attended by Allen, Askey, Devlin, Ekart, Maringanti, North, White

• EZProxy
  • Admin rights will go to Dale once the switch is made to Ada
  • Pre-proxy "broke" free journals since they weren't on the proxy list.  Fixed, but there are others out there that need to be added to the list.
• Servers
  • Pulsar is nearly ready, just needs apache
  • Copies of our current website are on Ada and Grace for testing
  • Switch to new servers on March 25th will break Voyager clients unless the .ini file is modified.  Michael will email staff2 with instructions on how and when to modify the file, and will also come in on Sunday (3/26) to make sure things are working in Circulation.
  • It may be possible to use an alias in the .ini file (voyager.lib.ksu.edu) so this type of change won't be necessary in the future - Marjorie will look into this
  • We may purchase another server for an SFX test environment.  Discussed using mirrored drives rather than purchasing SAN card/space.
  • Once server switch is complete, we can proceed with Meridian directory setup - if we do that now, we'll just have to do it again in a couple weeks.
• Search Appliance
  • Could be here in early April, just waiting on pro-forma vote and funding to arrive
  • Dale will email libtech to set up racking
  • Current UPSs are close to maxed out, we could use some surplus funding to purchase another.  Dave W. will check on costs.
• OPAC
  
  • We're looking at java script from UCLA's library to modify WebVoyage and make the OPAC better