Endeavor Consortium Work Group
Quarterly meeting
Council on Postsecondary Education,
December 1, 2006, 1:00 p.m.
Present
Shirley Ackerman (KY Hist. Soc.), Dave
Block (UK), Perry Bratcher (NKU), Charlene
Davis (KDLA), John Detwiler (KDLA), Margaret Foote (EKU), Paul Fuller (KCTCS), Alex
Grigg (Lexmark), Margaret Hecker (KSU), Tari Keller (UK), Todd King (EKU), Sheri
Myers (NKU), Michael Stapleton (KCTCS), Kelly Vickery (UK), Enid Wohlstein
(KYVL)
Present via remote
Ilona Burdette (St. Catharine
College), Don
Kim (
Guests
Linda
Voyles, Endeavor Information Systems, Inc.
Brian
Stratman (Endeavor Information Systems, Inc., upgrade engineer)
Meeting called to order at 1:00 p.m.
by Tari Keller, moderator
Voyager Upgrade
Voyager will be
upgraded to the latest release available.
The current version is Voyager 6.1, but 6.2 is
scheduled for release around December 15.
The test server is being
prepared for continuous OPAC. Continuous
OPAC has been identified as a critical component of the upgrade. Recall that Continuous OPAC did not
function as planned during the Voyager 5 upgrade.
Linda Voyles asked
that the two hub administrators submit their continuous OPAC plans to EISI in
advance for testing and review and that a full backup be taken on the test
server. The plans and questions can
be sent to ugrade@endinfosys.com. Refer to KYVL upgrade incident #121958.
Dave Block will
submit the plan for Easlib and Titus Anderson for Westlib. Michael Stapleton will contact Titus to inform
him about this discussion. Linda
Voyles will contact the hub administrators with current link to “Road To”
information on SupportWeb.
The group requested
that staff-side holdings indexes be set up. Recall that this was requested for the
Voyager 5 upgrade, but never delivered.
Brian Stratman confirmed that he will install this for every database on
both hubs. He also confirmed that
he will enable the new headings display separator for everyone. And he will make sure that the training
dbs are up and functional, refreshed to default install, unless there is a
compelling reason not to for any particular site.
Brian Stratman
estimated the upgrade would take three days for Eastlib and three days for
Westlib. Build in a little extra
time. Plan to be down the majority
of the week.
6.1 preview server is available now. This comes in two flavors—one that
is hosted by Endeavor and configurable using the staff clients. The other, called “Test
WebVoyage” by Endeavor and “preview server” by our consortium,
is mounted locally and is useful for preconfiguring WebVoyage. The last time we used this option was
during the 2001.2 upgrade.
6.2 is an extensive
patch: 60+ bug fixes, with clients. Preview server in General Release in
mid-December. Preview server
available around GR date. New script available to bring customizations forward to the
upgraded version.
Endeavor/Ex Libris merger
The acquisition of
Endeavor by Francisco Partners, and its merger into ExLibris was announced five
days ago. Management teams are at
EISI for planning through next week.
They are discussing how to merge the two organizations. They will also determine ongoing product
plans. The new organization will be
known as Ex Libris Group. The Aleph
and Voyager integrated library systems will continue to be supported and enhanced. “Everything is business as
usual” until we hear otherwise.
There will be a merged management team. The two organizations are about the same
size. About half of the combined
business is in
EndUser 2007 will
have a number of Ex Libris team members present. There will be Q & A sessions about themerger,
the new company, and its products.
Product announcements are expected to be made.
Upgrade tech issues
Caution,
low expectations for continuous OPAC.
Disk space usage on Eastlib is at 90%, and the hardware is about seven
years old. Switching from
continuous OPAC back to production depends on successfully and quickly being
able to change the DNS entries.
Questions/concerns about the future
Discussion on what
merger means for consortium. Enid
Wolhstein and members of the KYVL Portal Workgroup met yesterday with Susan
Pastore and Mike Tartaglione of Ex Libris.
A significant part of that meeting discussed Ex Libris’s plan for
moving forward. Questions arose
about the new company’s commitment to Voyager ILS development. The answer was that considering customer
base of Voyager and Aleph it would be unrealistic to merge the two
systems. Both will be developed
through the planned releases (Voyager 7).
The combined development teams will be comparinge the product lines over
the next few weeks to determine what to do with competing and overlapping
products. Next generation
development: Ex Libris envisions a
gradual move toward a next generation library system. Their current Electronic Resource
Management System—Verde—will be designed to incorporate the
functions currently done in acquisitions.
DigiTool—the digital repository management tool—will
incorporate cataloging.
Primo—the new OPAC front-end—is designed as a Web Services
application that can access data in OPACs and other data repositories.
Ex Libris is trying
to make their products compliant with certain industry standards.
Enid Wohlstein called
for assistance in writing a justification for funding a new consortial ILS for
Other business
Enid Wohlstein has confirmation of the
consortium’s Voyager training account. The balance currently stands at about $107,000. Potential to re-purpose the money after
current training invoices are paid.
Next meeting
March 2, 2007, 1:00 p.m.
Send proposed agenda items to Tari
Keller.
Future meetings:
Potential conflict
in June with KVUG/KSUG/NASIG/Solinet/Ex Libris NA user group meetings. The meeting
date normally scheduled in June will be determined at a future time.
The moderator
adjourned the meeting at 2:45 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Michael Stapleton
Systems Librarian