KY Virtual Library Advisory Committee
Minutes
1:00 p.m., March 31, 2006
Present:
Mike Binder, Anne Chase, Fannie Cox [also for Hannelore Rader], Diane
Culbertson, Charlene Davis [for Jim Nelson], Carol Diedrichs, Holly Hedden [for
Rose Davis], Chela Kaplan, Al Lind, Norma Northern, Lisa Rice, Donna
Travillian, Sheree Williams [for Shelley Burgett], Enid Wohlstein, Laurene
Zaporozhetz
Absent: Shelley Burgett , Rose Davis, Stuart
Johnston
Also present: Tari
Keller
1.
Member Update
Lisa spoke about KPLA planning. Leslie Burger, ALA President Elect, will
be the keynote.
Donna said she was just very busy.
Charlene reported that KDLA’s
Technical Training was currently being deployed. The initiative is supported by the Gates
Foundation. Training will be
available online live, online any time, and in person. No cost to participants.
Sherree had nothing to report.
Holly reported that VLUG is seeking a Chair
Elect to be on the June ballot. In
June, Kentucky SOLINET Users’ Group and VLUG will have a combined
meeting.
Carol reported a new provost is
coming to
Fannie reported that the new wing
opened recently and the robotic retrieval system is live. IT has moved to new offices.
Anne reported the that the
Appalachian College Association is negotiating database contracts, of which
several of the AIKCU colleges and universities will benefit.
Diane mentioned the KSMA Summer
Refresher will be at
Laurene had nothing to share today.
2.
KYVU/VL Update [Lind]
KYVU has begun strategic planning
with a new mission, vision and goals.
We anticipate the Council will approve these in July.
A Blackboard agreement has been
reached to cover four years, even with institutions using different versions,
at a significant cost savings.
KCTCS has been using Angel and WebCT. KCTCS will migrate off those and
currently, plans to have the summer courses in Blackboard. KYVU can drop WebCT but will keep Angel
for our agency partners. KVHS is
looking at Blackboard also.
Tim Chase, the KYVL Senior Reference
Librarian, left us in February. He
will be missed.
3.
SACS Response Update [Lind]
The SACS will be FedX’d
today. There were 25
recommendations, some of which have been completed already and others are in
process. We anticipate a Fall 2006
completion.
4.
Budget Update [Lind]
CPE, KDE and EPSB have been working
together to submit a joint budget request under the name of KEN: the Kentucky Education Network. In the Governor’s
Budget, the first year was set for $5 million and then $15 million the second
year. Also in the budget was a
one-time amount of $8.9 million.
The items were in the House and Senate budgets but we don’t know
if the funding has made it to the final budget.
Other joint budget requests include
Internet2 and a seamless P20 data warehouse, as well as virtual learning
resources, i.e. learning object repository.
For KYVL, in the House, Senate and
Governor’s budgets were $85,000 per fiscal year to restore the courier
service to its original level and then $350,000 in the 2nd year of
the biennium for databases.
For CPE, a $10 million Technology
Bond request exists but there is a list of projects totaling over $120 million
that could qualify. The process on
deciding what is funded has not been decided yet.
The KYVL Senior Reference Librarian
position is on hold till the budget has been finalized later this spring.
5.
Database RFP Status [Wohlstein]
The RFP was issued in March and
closed in mid-April. From the time
it left our office and went to the Office for Material and Procurement Services
at the Finance and Administration Cabinet, the schedule was in the hands of
OMPS. Everyone involved has been
under non-disclosure, even before the release of the RFP.
6.
Integrated Library System Task Force Progress Report [Keller]
Tari provided an update on the ILS
Task Force progress. Two surveys
have been issued – to technical staff and to consortium users. Tari distributed both a progress report
and a current summary of the survey results. Progress Report is attached.
7.
Ex Libris Status
After much debate and work by the
Portal Workgroup members and UK IT staff, we have approval from Ex Libris for
our spec for a Metalib/SFX server.
Tim’s departure from KYVL may well through a kink in the works since
we had planned for him to be our sys admin for the application.
8.
New/Replacement Members
Laurene took over for Lee Van Orsdel
and will finish her term, ending in June.
Lisa’s term as Chair will end in June but her term continues to
June 2008.
We need to select a Vice Chair.
9.
Other News and Discussion
10.
Meeting Adjourned
SURVEY OF
CONSORTIUM ILS SERVER CONFIGURATIONS
PROGRESS REPORT
27 March 2006
The ILS Task Force is a subcommittee of VLAC (Virtual Library Advisory Committee).
Members are:
Elsie Pritchard (
Perry Bratcher (Northern
Tim Chase (KYVL)
Charlene Davis (KDLA)
John Detweiler (KDLA)
Margaret Foote (Eastern
Paul Fuller (KCTCS)
Tari Keller (
Mark Paul (
Enid Wohlstein (KYVL)
The ILS Task Force was asked to evaluate the current dual-server situation as a prelude to fulfilling its charge of seeking a next generation library system. As a first step, we constructed a survey to solicit information on server configurations at other consortiums. The consortiums surveyed were recruited from members of the Voyager-Consortium listserv, Voyager Admin listserv and a number of specific ILS consortiums. Thirteen consortiums responded. We concentrated on contacting other Voyager sites because their needs more closely resemble ours. However, we broadened the scope of the survey to include several non-Voyager sites so that we would have information to aid in determining our future ILS needs.
Of the consortiums responding:
Twice a month throughout the fall and winter the ILS Task
Force met via conference call. In
March we held a face-to-face meeting at CPE offices in
The expanded survey will be used to get additional information from the original group of consortiums, but we will also seek to add more consortiums to the pool. Our original survey reached only those people working at hubsites; with the expanded survey we hope to also survey client institutions. In particular, we would like to know why consortiums moved from multiple to single servers; how single server sites handle disaster recover; how consortiums are funded.
Also as a result of the
Data from the expanded survey and from the two KYVL-Endeavor hubsites will enable the ILS Task Force to make an informed recommendation on the direction of the current server configuration.
THE ORIGINAL SURVEY
Consortiums responding:
Connecticut-Trinity-Wesleyan (CTW) *
Galileo-GIL (
Keystone-PILOT (
LIBRIS (
LOUIS (
MnPALS (Was
OhioLINK
ORCA (
OPALL -
Scottish Endeavor Consortium *
WALDO (
WRLC
* Came from Listserv solicitation. The rest were targeted consortia. Eleven of the eighteen consortia contacted directly responded.
1. If each institution in your consortium has its own Voyager server(s) on-site, please tell us why you decided to have independent servers.
Three consortiums have independent servers for at least some of their institution databases.
Integrated Library System in
use
We focused on contacting Voyager sites because we are in the process of evaluating our current arrangements for hosting our Voyager system. Representative non-Voyager sites were included to provide scope, and to allow us to consider the effect of a different system on our hosting decision.
Connecticut-Trinity-Wesleyan (CTW) Voyager
Galileo-GIL (
Keystone-PILOT (
LIBRIS (
LOUIS (
MnPALS (Was
OhioLINK Innovative Interfaces
ORCA (
OPALL -
Scottish Endeavor Consortium Voyager
WALDO (
WRLC Voyager
a) Where
are your servers located?
With the exception of WALDO, all
respondents reported that their servers were located at universities associated
with a consortium member. WALDO
uses servers located at a LexisNexis server farm in
All but three consortia house all of their servers at a single site. The exceptions were the three consortia that have institutions with independent servers. However, the Scottish Endeavor Consortium consists of two hubs at one physical location. The number of servers used by the consortia varied greatly, depending on the number of institutions in the consortium, the applications supported and the hardware platform.
b) How many institutions are using your servers?
Answers ranged from 2 to 70 institutions per server site, with a median number of 12 institutions per server site.
2. What is the staff size in FTE dedicated to Voyager and related server support for each hub-site?
The average FTE was 3 and the median was 2 FTE, but staff FTE varied greatly depending on the number of institutions in the consortium and the additional services supported. The sites with larger numbers of FTE were also supporting activities like customized reports, digital library management, electronic resource licensing, programming, network management, etc.
The following questions offer information on the staff
workload factors for the consortiums.
3. What
is the server configuration at your hub-site(s)?
Five consortiums reported running single server configurations; seven consortiums have application server/web server configurations; one has three servers for application, web, and databases. OhioLINK is using all three configurations, depending on the institution's needs. Their union database is running on a single server.
4. What
Endeavor applications are in use by your consortium members?
Only two consortia (OPALL and ORCA) are running just the ILS. All others are supporting other applications such as Link Resolver, meta-search engine, digitized collection, Universal Borrower, Citation Server, Interlibrary Loan, media scheduling, etc.
5. Who is responsible for network problems occurring between hub-site and institution?
Answers varied widely and seemed to depend on the individual state (or country). Only OhioLINK seemed to have a staff person responsible for locating the problem sources. The responsibility for fixing the problem is with the source.
6. What
is the relationship of the consortium's hub-site host institution(s) and the
client institutions/libraries whose databases are housed on the servers?
Our purpose in asking this question was to determine the nature of the various formal agreements in place, but some institutions didn’t understand the question. Out of those answering appropriately, four reported formal written agreements and one reported an informal verbal agreement only. Several indicated funding came directly from state education budget, implying that participation may have been mandated.
7. In what ways does your consortium operating structure benefit your institution? Do you see any disadvantages to your consortium operating structure?
Advantages reported: 24 hour support is more affordable; equipment sharing provides savings; fewer staff required; small libraries benefit from additional support; not competing with local IT priorities; higher level of support for all.
Disadvantages reported: arranging dates for upgrades; may be some delay in staff response - compared to local staff; one site’s shared database is difficult to manage. OhioLINK reported that the only disadvantage has been receiving a flat budget the past couple of years.
Platform
Sun/Solaris – 11
IBM/AIX – 2
Unknown - 2 (One is probably Sun/Solaris or a Microsoft server.) OhioLINK may be a mixture of platforms, depending on the institutions.