Endeavor Consortium Work Group Minutes

Dave Block, Keith Stevenson, Gary Flanagan, Gerry Williams, Roberta Kirby, Linda Voyles, Tanzi Merritt, Ilona Burdette, Rose Davis, Nelda Sims, Margaret Foote, Todd King, Tyler Goldberg, Elsie Pritchard, Tari Keller, Kelly Vickery, Mark Paul, Paul Fuller, Michael Stapleton, Charlene Davis, John Detwiler, Aleeah McGinnis (via Video conference)

Roberta Kirby volunteered to take the minutes at the next meeting.

Endeavor Update

Michele Arms from Endeavor performed a WebEx demonstration of the Voyager 2001.2 Systems Administration module. Some of the features demonstrated were new options for bulk loads, circulation grace periods for overnight loans, circulation cluster maintenance, improvements to calendar exception entries, stops for fines/fees after patron claim of returned item, operator override groups, etc.

Linda Voyles' update: Solaris 2001.2 is currently in Early Release, and Gold Release will probably be announced next week. An AIX beta site has been identified for 2001.2, and Endeavor hopes to start in April, but no date has been set by the beta testing site. If testing begins in April then it is possible that Voyager 2001.2 AIX version will go into General Release in June. The release after 2001.2 will be the Unicode release. All efforts will concentrate on updating the database to handle Unicode; no new functionality will be seen. Endeavor has converted the Library of Congress data to Unicode 3 times and experts at LC are verifying the accuracy and validity of the conversion. Two to three months of Beta testing for the Solaris Unicode release should begin in April. Unicode release will require the upgrade to Oracle 9i, and Voyager is still assessing whether to include the upgrade to AIX 5 during this release. Linda will let us know when a decision is made. Conversion to the Unicode release must occur from Voyager version 2001.2; i.e., we will not be able to skip a version into the Unicode release, so there is additional incentive for our next upgrade to be into 2001.2. Also, when moving to the Unicode release, all databases on a server will have to upgrade together. Endeavor expects to install the "Fast Search Engine" into Encompass this summer which will provide much faster full-text searching. Endeavor will also be porting Encompass to a Linux server. Endeavor is also planning to integrate the Fast Search Engine into Voyager in the release after Unicode. Fast Search Engine will do away with the need for a keyword index and thus will mean no more keyword regenerations.

KYVL Endeavor Consortium Upgrade Schedule

The KYVL Endeavor Consortium work group has agreed to the following plan. Paul Fuller is checking with the Library Directors of KCTCS to see if he can upgrade the KCTCS databases to 2001.1 on or near May 19. Keith will upgrade WestLib beginning the 1st of August. Dave will begin the EastLib upgrade on August 8. Keith and Dave will assess the possibility of performing the upgrade themselves after testing the process on the test server. To implement continuous OPAC, Dave is investigating a process to provide a more immediate data load into the test server from Eastlib; this will mean tapes will not have to be driven from UK to U of L. All systems will run on continuous OPAC from the test server during their respective upgrades. If 2001.2 AIX has gone gold within a reasonable time before the upgrade dates then we will upgrade to Voyager version 2001.2; otherwise we will upgrade to Voyager version 2001.1.

Service Level Agreement

When Murray State returns the KYVL Endeavor Consortium Service Level Agreement then all parties will have signed the agreement.

Training Budget

Twenty thousand dollars has definitely been designated and is available for training needs in the budget. The remaining money is being clarified by U of L and Endeavor.

KVUG Training Survey

Tyler Goldberg, chair of Kentucky Voyager Users' Group (KVUG), reported on the results of the recently conducted training survey. The greatest areas of need were for Acquisitions, Serial patterns, and Report Writing, but volunteers from Kentucky institutions to provide training were sparse. Tyler will discuss this with the membership during the next KVUG meeting on June 6th, at U of L.

Oracle Security Release

To close a security hole in the Oracle listener all those on Westlib who run custom Access Reports will need to send specific IPs of each computer to Keith. Those on Eastlib need not send IPs. These procedures will need to be maintained until Voyager upgrades to Oracle 9i or until a firewall is installed at U of L.

Announcements

The IP's for WestLib and testlib will be changed sometime in the Spring. Keith will announce the dates on the KYVL list. (Dates have since been announced as 5/16/2003). All Libraries are strongly encouraged to change the IPs listed in their Voyager.ini to their respective domain names of "westlib.kyvl.org" or "eastlib.kyvl.org". Subsequent changes in IP will not directly affect libraries that do so.

Next KYVL ECWG meeting is June 12, 2003.

Respectfully submitted by Kelly Vickery
4/16/03