University Library Reference

Hi all,

Barbara and I met with Lynn Mayer today about the ITS Student Consultants. Here is the latest:
ITS has hired 20 students who will work interchangeably in ULIB, Science and LC 27(the helpdesk). If there are multiple consultants available LI-137 will also be staffed.

Consultants will undergo a 2 day training beginning Thursday August 23. On Friday they will have an orientation to the libraries and our services. Consultants should be able to provide assistance with software provided by ITS (see list here http://www.albany.edu/its/software_userrooms_classrooms.htm). For departmental or faculty provided software available on the ITS image, users need to go back to the department or the faculty member. There is NO assistance with these packages from ITS. Consultants will be able to do basic hardware troubleshooting (checking cables and plugs) and printer troubleshooting (dealing with paper jams). They will also receive training on wireless access, Blackboard/WebCT, Office 2007 and VISTA. They will not be expected to answer questions on reference/research or library policies. They should be able to provide directions to locations in the libraries and refer folks to reference or circulation.

Consultant hours in ULIB will be as follows:
Mon – Thurs 11am-11pm (same for Science)
Friday 11am-7pm (Science 11am-5pm)

Saturday 10am-6pm (Science 12:00pm-6:00pm)

Sunday 12pm-8pm (same for Science)

Consultants will be working during LibraryPalooza and their regular schedule will start the first day of classes. I will provide more information as available. Please let me know if you have questions.

Cathy

Posted by Jane Kessler at 12:06 PM | Permalink

Please see J.McLaughlin for more information.

Posted by Jean McLaughlin at 05:17 PM | Permalink

Protocol for Reporting After Hours Information Technology Services (ITS) Service Interruptions
August 23, 2007

ITS is responsible for many core enterprise services that are available on a 24x7 basis. Below is the protocol for reporting outages to those services after normal business hours. This protocol is in place between 5 p.m. and 8:30 a.m. Monday-Thursday, after 5:00 p.m. Friday, all day Saturday, Sunday, and all NYS holidays.

Dissemination of this document is to the University Libraries Library Systems Department. It is not intended for general distribution to faculty, staff and students.

While some servers that provide mission critical IT services are set to automatically alert the appropriate ITS personnel (Exchange, IAS, DHCP) and others are monitored on an ad hoc basis, there will be instances when it will be necessary to alert ITS of a failure of enterprise wide services outside of normal business hours. When a major service outage is discovered, it is expected that the technology support personnel will assess the symptoms of the problem to identify as accurately as possible the service(s) affected, the severity of the outage on the service and the possible impact of the outage on the general user population. It is expected that the following protocol will not be invoked unless the severity is high and/or the outage affects a high percentage of the user population.

After the appropriate triaging has been done, all reports of outages of critical ITS services during non-business hours should be directed to the Plant Customer Service Center (CSC) 442-3480. When contact is made with CSC, identification of the problem should indicate which service(s) are affected. The list of mission critical ITS services covered by this protocol is available below.

CSC will then route the call to the appropriate ITS personnel, based upon the identification of the problem as described by the local technology support personnel. Since CSC staff are not information technology professionals, the routing process will be more effective if the tag words listed for each service are used when reporting the problem. CSC simply routes the call based on which service has been identified as experiencing a major outage. It does not provide diagnostic or triage assistance in these matters.

Please note that ITS does not have personnel on call and relies on the good will and conscientiousness of employees to respond after hours. As a result, the response to emergencies, while usually timely, is nonetheless based on a best effort basis.

In a general campus emergency the protocol outlined above will not be needed. ITS will respond as prescribed in the Campus Emergency Plan and ITS Service Interruption Plan. Under these plans, emergencies that will invoke an ITS response include: (1) Health and safety issues or (2) Significant loss of mission critical IT services to a wide segment of the University user population. Health and safety issue emergencies should be reported to UPD which in turn will notify ITS personnel if needed. In the event of a major campus emergency, the protocol for the Campus Emergency Plan will be put in place.

List of mission critical ITS services covered by this protocol:

I. Data network outage: a building or the entire campus does not have network or Internet access. This does not include residence halls, see IX below.

Keywords: Internet is completely down in our building, the whole campus.

II. Campus telephone service – no phone service in a building or the entire campus.

Keywords: Telephones do not work at all on campus or in a building.

III. Mail services: Unix or Exchange mail outage.

Keywords: problems (with) Exchange, Webmail. sending and/or receiving email, Outlook Web Access (OWA).

IV. Information Commons problems: failure of all of the IC workstations in a Library building; failure of the Uniprint service (public access printing) in a Library building.

Keywords: Uniprint, Printing is down, All the PCs are down

V. IAS: Integrated Administrative System (PeopleSoft, IAS) and/or MyUAlbany outage

Keywords: problems (with) Integrated Administrative System, IAS, MyUAlbany, PeopleSoft, Student Records, Student Administration System

VI. Webserver: failure of main University web server (www.albany.edu).

Keywords: UAlbany web server, UAlbany home page, www.albany.edu

VII. WebCT/Blackboard (Course management system) outage.

Keywords: problems (with) on line course system, Blackboard, WebCT, Course Management System, CE6, Blackboard Learning System, BLS

VIII. Internet Access in the Residence Halls

Keywords: problems (with) Accessing the Interne in the Residence Halls (includes wireless). Problems with ResNet. Problems with Apogee.
Students should be told to call Apogee directly at 1-866-478-8861 to report the problem

Note the following exception:

For the Library electronic online catalog system problems.
The Library Systems Dept. is the initial contact point, not the Plant CSC. In the event of server problems the Library Systems Dept will contact ITS Systems Management and Operations directly.

Posted by Jane Kessler at 09:43 AM | Permalink

All,

Food and drink in the UA Libraries have been long standing, escalating problems. In May I asked Karen Brown to form a task force to develop a list of recommended long and short term actions aimed at controlling – not banning – food and drink in the libraries. The Task Force consisting of Karen, Laurie Constable, Edmee Hernandez, Christopher Masella, Candy Merbler and Katie Mullen submitted a report to me in late June. LPG reviewed the report and agreed to implement many of its recommendations ASAP and to continue to consider others. Many thanks to the Task Force members and to Karen for her leadership!

Based on the Task Force’s recommendations we have revised the Libraries’ food and drink policy from one that prohibited food entirely to one that permits food and drink consumption in designated areas. Here is the new policy:

The consumption of non-alcoholic beverages in covered containers is permitted in the University at Albany Libraries except in areas where “No Beverages Allowed” signs are posted. The consumption of snack-size food is permitted only in designated areas. Full meals, food deliveries, food parties and group meals are prohibited.

This policy is now posted in the University Library and will be posted in the Science and Dewey Libraries before the semester begins on Monday.

The designated area for food in the University Libraries is the first floor group study area. In Science, two areas have been designated: the Barnes and Noble Room on the Garden Level, and the study area just past the entrance to the 2nd floor. There is no area in Dewey Library because of the building configuration and because the problem of food and drink consumption is considerably less in that library.

Here are some suggestions for how to approach an individual who is violating this policy:

“We permit food consumption in the [ area(s) appropriate to the particular library]. Please take your food to that area or outside the building, or put it away. Thank you.”

“We permit beverages in the library only if the containers are covered. Please cover yours or finish drinking it outside. Thank you.”

“We do not permit beverages in this area of the library, please move to [the nearest beverage-permitted area] until you finish it. Thank you.”

If you encounter an individual who refuses to comply with your request you can ask for his ID and indicate to the individual that unless he complies, you may make a judicial referral.

We hope that staff will assist with controlling food/beverage and encourage library users to utilize designated areas for food consumption.

Thanks, Mary

Mary F. Casserly, Ph.D.

Posted by Jane Kessler at 04:08 PM | Permalink

Hi all – Karina reminds me that the S drive is available to users of the information commons….and indeed, the station I logged onto had it right there!

More information on the S Drive http://www.albany.edu/its/using_your_s_drive.htm

Carol

Posted by Jane Kessler at 02:29 PM | Permalink

For any technical issue that occurs in the Library when “Tech Help” (a student consultant) is not present, the person experiencing the problem can submit a Help Request (www.albany.edu/its/help). We have signage that is placed on the “Tech Help” desk when a consultant is not on duty in LI-137 and LE-152 that explains how to contact the ITS HelpDesk. We’ll also have this signage in LI-103 when the new desk arrives.

When a Librarian discovers a technical problem occurring with a computer supported by ITS, the Librarian can submit a Help Request. We will need to know the location (i.e. LI-103, LE-152) and the computer’s name (label is on tower) along with a description of the problem (i.e. error message, what occurred, involved student’s name/netid, when problem occurred if the Help Request isn’t being submitted immediately, etc.)

During regular University business hours, Mon – Fri 8:30am – 5:00pm, an end-user or Librarian have the option of calling the HelpDesk office (LC27) 442-3700 to report a problem.

Posted by Jane Kessler at 03:44 PM | Permalink

Yesterday while I was one the desk a grad student told me that graduate students can print up to 100 pages a week free in the GSO office in the Campus Center.

This is what I found on the GSO site:
"Students are limited to copying and printing a total of 100 pages per week. You must sign up with the Office Manager to receive your personal, individual code for access to the copier. No copying of books will be allowed."

The student I spoke to yesterday said there are two computers and the grad student is only allowed around 10 minutes if there are others waiting, so the student should know ahead of time what they want to print--don't expect to do research at the computer.

karina

Posted by Jane Kessler at 03:52 PM | Permalink

I was at a meeting this morning where a possible student password issue was pointed out. It doesn’t affect any of our computers since we don’t have Vista, but it might affect students arriving with their own computers.

For this problem to arise, the following two things must be true:

1. The computer is running Windows Vista
AND
2. The student is using Internet Explorer 7

If these things are true, a student who clicks on the button to reset their password will get a message that Internet Explorer cannot load the page.

This is due to the way Vista and IE7 handle some type of security issue, and can be solved by doing the following:

1. In IE7, click Tools->Internet Options->Advanced
2. Scroll down to ‘Security’ and UNCHECK ‘Use TLS 1.0’

According to my sources, this should solve the problem.

Posted by GB at 02:16 PM | Permalink