ILLiad upgraded on May 20th

The ILLiad server was upgraded on May 20th after discussions with ILL.  The timing of the upgrade was moved up in order to allow ILL (Central ILL, Law, and Biomed), the ILS Implementation team, and LTDS to work on integration with Alma.  The upgrade went well and most clients were updated without any incident (right mouse click on the icon an select run as administrator).  LTDS has received a couple of issue reports since the upgrade.  The initial issue with sending out notifications has been corrected.  We are still investigating an issue when attempting to view library information in the OCLC Holdings tab.  We hope to have this resolved shortly.

Please contact LTDS if you have any questions or concerns.

Zip File Importer for Islandora Now Available

Step by step instructions are now available for ingesting ZIP files into Vanderbilt’s Digital Collections, the central access point for the Vanderbilt Libraries’ digitized special collections.  Instructions can be found here. https://ltds.library.vanderbilt.edu/library-staff-pages/islandora-ingest/ You must be logged in to access the link.

Additional updates and changes are in store for Digital Collections in the coming weeks and months. Stay tuned!

Post conference report for ELUNA 2018

Ex Libris User group North America (ELUNA) 2018 conference was held at Spokane, WA during May 1st to May 5th, 2018.  here are some takeaways from me.

General Impression: 

The conference was well organized,  in addition to a nice conference program booklet, all presentation slides are made available to attendee in Sched; it was well attended, this is the first time more than 1000+ people attended the conference.  It is a friendly and enthusiastic community, no matter whom you met, whether they are in the process of migration, a newly migrated customers, or an experienced users, everyone is willing to help, to share tips and tricks, to provide suggestions, and to voice concerns.

Useful and amazing sessions I attended during the conferences: 

Exlibris product updates:

  • Primo VE: see the benefits of streamlining Primo and Alma
  • Extending your library with the Alma Open Platform:  Developer API

How things are done at other libraries:

  • New Book Showcases via Primo / University of Manitoba
  • Implementing new books location and a new items list / Univ. of Minnesota Duluth
  • Alma integration: connecting other systems / Williams College
  • SpringShare suite integration

Technical tips and tricks:

  • Alma Fulfillment configurations
  • Target messages using Alma letters and notifications / Oregon State University
  • Intermediate analytics and reports functions and examples

Networking:

  • Julie, Calida, Erin and I met Travis from ETSU, to learn about how ETSU manages digital databases and E- resources in Alma, and generate and maintain libguides database A-Z list using Alma records.
  • Our Alma implementation team met with Rice Alma implementation team, exchange ideas on migrating to Alma from SirsiDynix Symphony
  • Bluegrass user group and Tennessee Alma users met at Eluna

Links to conference documents: 

Presentation slides for customer presentations will be posted to the ELUNA Document Repository as soon as is possible. Likewise, Ex Libris will be posting slidedecks from its staff presentations to the Knowledge Center soon.

Make Yourself Heard! Use A Microphone

Please remember that when we are taping an event in the Community Room your voice will not be recorded if you do not speak into a microphone. We currently do not have a microphone that picks up sound for the whole room.

It is a good practice to use a microphone during an event whether or not it is being recorded to make sure that all attending can hear what is going on, making sure to hold the microphone near (but not too near) your mouth when speaking. It is also best when taking questions or comments from an audience member who does not have a microphone, to repeat what they have said before responding.

Using Lastpass for improved password security

It’s that time of year for me — VUIT is sending me an email every day saying it’s time to change my e-password. Thankfully, I have a great tool to help manage my passwords and make them more secure — and you can, too!

Lastpass is a free and easy-to-use password management tool that runs right in your browser. It is encrypted and secure — Lastpass is not able to access your passwords. (Learn more about how it works.)

The most secure passwords are unique, long, random-character strings that are not found in the dictionary. Most of us haven’t mastered the memorization of a zillion random-character strings. Thankfully, Lastpass has! It will store all of your passwords in a secure vault that is only accessible on your local machine. When you visit a site that requires a login, Lastpass will fill in your credentials automatically. You can even set it to go a step further and log you in as soon as you land on the page. Magic! And when you create a new account on a site, Lastpass will offer to generate a secure password for you. It will then save your new password in your password vault.

There are some other nice features too:

  • Form fills: Shop online much? Save your credit card information in your vault and have it auto-fill at checkout on any shopping site. Apologies in advance to your wallet.
  • Secure notes: This is a place to securely store and access other information you might need easy access to, such as social security numbers or passwords for things that aren’t websites (software, Windows, etc.).
  • Sharing: You can securely share passwords with other Lastpass users. This is great for households who share a login for things like utilities and Netflix. Never send passwords via email!
  • Security challenge: This feature analyzes the security of your vault and offers recommendations on how to improve your overall security, such as not reusing passwords and creating stronger passwords to replace weak ones.
  • Export: You can easily export your passwords at any time. This is useful not only if you plan to stop using Lastpass in the future, but also if you want to print out all of your passwords and store them with your other important financial documents, such as your will.

So stop reusing that same old password, and give Lastpass a try!

Audio-Visual Resources in the Community Room

Video recording and streaming is now available in the Community Room for your meeting or event.

The podium is height-adjustable with a lamp, microphone, computer with USB monitor, and HDMI and VGA video connections for use with laptops. Adapters are available for VGA to Mac video and HDMI to USB-C. A connection can also be made wirelessly using AirStream. Wireless laser pointers/clickers are available by request.

Also on the podium is a touchscreen control for the projector, video camera, audio levels, light settings, and retractable video screen and window shades. A duplicate touchscreen control is located in the AV closet at the back of the room.

Besides the podium microphone, the Community Room has three wireless handheld microphones and two wireless lapel microphones available, along with a floor stand and three table stands. Up to four wireless microphones can be used at one time.

What are they talking about?

Are you hearing discussions about Alma and Primo and think that people are speaking a completely new language? Well, they are! But help in understanding it is just a click away.

ExLibris has an excellent glossary on their Knowledge Center site here:

Alma Glossary

You can go to a particular term and see a definition and then click on links at the end to see more detailed information.

Give it a try! Look up “Fulfillment”, “Community Zone” or “Metadata editor”. Or get really crazy and look up “Selective package”!

Bookmark the link to the glossary and have fun learning the new language!

2017 Library Checkouts Overview

In Year 2017, the library checked out 124,570 items to faculty, graduate students, undergrads, and Vanderbilt community, that’s 341 items a day!

Most checked out titles 

The most checked-out individual titles in 2017 are:

  • HD30.22 .F76 2016, in Management Library, Managerial economics : a problem solving approach,  checked out 151 times during the year.
  • Come really close is ‘QD415 .V65 2016’ in science library, Fundamentals of biochemistry : life at the molecular level  checked out 148 times;
  • Third one is ‘QD253.2 .K55 2015’, also in science library, Organic chemistry, checked out 111 times during the year.
  • Fourth one: HD58.6 .N45 2015′, in management library, Negotiation : readings, exercises and cases, checked out 55 times

Did you know juvenile fictions (LC classification of PZ7)  and early childhood education books are popular collections to be checked out among students and faculty?

In juvenile fiction category, the top popular titles are:

  • PZ7 .P448558 Ral 1995:  Rainbow Fish to the rescue!
  • PZ7 .R1814 Bal 2011: A ball for Daisy
  • PZ7 .K28132 Far 2002: Farfallina & Marcel
  • PZ7 .L32073 My 2016: My sister Rosa
  • PZ7 .W65535 Th 2007: There is a bird on your head!
  • PZ7 .R3476235 Tow 2016: Towers falling

DVDs from Blair School of Music recital recordings are most checked-out DVDs. Besides the musical DVDs, the top popular video DVDs are:

  • DVD 7049: Dangerous living : coming out in the developing world
  • DVD 6527: Star Wars, episode VII, the force awakens (Motion picture)
  • DVD 6644: God’s not dead (Motion picture)
  • DVD 6809: Au revoir les enfants (Motion picture)
  • DVD 3116: Memento [videorecording]

Here is a list of popular topics for students from each school:

  • For Divinity students, they enjoyed reading titles on Art and Religion(BR115) and Asian American Religion (BR563). 
  • For Music students, they checked out lots of scores for Songs with Piano (M1620). 
  • Peabody students read and checked out titles in Early childhood education (LB1139.5).
  • For Management students, Managerial economy (HD30.22) is the major topic of their checked out items.
  • Students walked into Central library are most likely to checkout DVDs, or titles on African American history (E185.615).
  • Students use Science library the most, will check out periodicals and titles on Biochemistry.

Did you know in year 2017, our library users are most likely to check out books published in between 2013 and 2016?

The pattern is specially true for Science library users and Management library users:

But for music library users tends to checkout scores either quite new (2017) or published at the beginning of 21st century.

When checkouts happened?

For most libraries,  more students came to library in between 2pm to 5pm to checkout items; but law students and faculty use the library more often in the morning than in the afternoon, the peak checkout hour for law library was 10am.

Checked out hours for Law library users:

Did you know the most popular checkout day of the week is Tuesday? This is true to all libraries.

Did you know 1/9 and 1/10 are the busiest checkout day of 2017 for Central Library? Total 375 and 338 items were checked out respectively from Central library.   The most busy day for each library are listed here:

  • 2/23: Peabody
  • 8/4: Law
  • 8/13: Management
  • 8/30: Science
  • 11/16: Music library
  • 12/5: Divinity

The system wide busiest checkout dates were:   01/09,  01/10, 11/6, 11/28,  3/13, 1/11, 10/17, 10/30,10/24, 3/21, 3/27. On each of those dates, above 500 items were checked out throughout the library system.

Want to find out more on library usage patterns, interesting facts and numbers?  Submit an inform, we at LTDS will find out an answer for you.