Category: Enterprise Systems and Services

LIT and partners Tech Talk | Wednesday July 20th 2016

Jenn Nolte

On Wednesday July 20th, from 3pm-4pm in Bass L01, join Library IT and partners in our monthly discussion of tech-related projects around the Library and beyond.

Our agenda includes:

  • Avalon for Music Library (Cindy Greenspun and Jonathan Manton)
  • Desktop video conferencing pilot (Beatrice Richardson)
  • Quicksearch enhancements, integrations, upgrades (Kalee Sprague)
  • LIT service overview documentation (Ray Frohlich)

For those who cannot join us in person, the session will be streamed via Adobe Connect:

http://greet.yale.edu/littechtalk/ [sign in as a guest]

Slides and recordings of the Tech Talk sessions will be archived in https://yale.box.com/LITTechTalkArchives 

See you there!

Service Disruptions: Special Collections management, Findit sign on and more

Jenn Nolte

UPDATE: The service disruptions, which ended up being campus-wide, have been resolved. Thank you for your patience as Library IT and Yale ITS worked to diagnose and resolve these issues!

 

We are experiencing some disruptions related to authentication in the following services:

Special Collections at Yale (Beinecke and MSSA Aeon queues)
FindIt (Digital Collections search)
BorrowDirect sign-on
ILLiad (Interlibrary Loan)
Campuspress (Yale blogging platform)
Box
E-resource authentication pages

Other applications that may be using the Shibboleth authentication service

Library IT is aware of the issue and is looking into the cause. We will keep you updated on the status of these services and let you know when they are restored.

 

Until then, Library IT staff will also provide status updates to this list as necessary.  You can also monitor status availability in real time here:

 

 

Thank you for your patience. If you have any questions or concerns, please let us know.

 

-Library IT Staff

 

http://library.yale.edu/lit

Emerging Technologies Discussion : Programming without Coding using IFTTT and Zapier

Jenn Nolte

This Friday May 27th, join Cindy Greenspun, Tara Kennedy and Jenn Nolte in Bass L01 from 1:30pm-2:30pm for a short presentation on professional and personal uses of IFTTT (If This Then That) and Zapier to automate and optimize productivity without using a single line of code.

The presenters will share examples of their uses of IFTTT and Zapier in their work, and then shift into an open discussion of how other workflows in the Library could potentially benefit from using these services.

Some example uses:

log an email into a spreadsheet

send any picture tagged with #yalelibrary on Facebook to Flickr

Streaming available at https://greet.yale.edu/emergingtech/ 

The presentation and discussion will be recorded and archived here:

https://yale.box.com/v/emergingtech

A chat option will be available for those participating remotely.

See you there!

Service interruption for several library systems – possibly network related

Jenn Nolte

UPDATE:

You may have seen an email from Len Peters just now, reporting that the campus network issues are resolved. Library IT can confirm that some Library services are still experiencing a disruption. This includes but is not necessarily limited to Orbis and Findit. Now that email is working more reliably, we will notify Yulib with updates as we receive them.

 

A note: when campus email services are disrupted, Library IT will continue to communicate service updates on our blog (campuspress.yale.edu/libraryitnews), our Twitter account (@yalelibraryIT) and in some instances, with a notice on the library front door (library.yale.edu). Please check these places for updates if email is not working or slow.

 

You can also check systems statuses at the Library here: http://status.library.yale.edu/

 

and at central ITS here: http://its.yale.edu/system-status

 

Thank you for your patience and for reporting all the outages!

 

ORIGINAL POST:

Several Yale Library services, as well as some campus-wide services, have been interrupted since yesterday afternoon. ITS is investigating these issues. It is possible that campus network problems may be the root cause.

Some of the affected services include but are not limited to:

  • email, including mailman listservs and alias emails
  • Voyager/Orbis
  • Findit

Library IT is actively monitoring this situation and will supply updates as we receive them. ITS has informed Library IT that a Yale alert will go out about these issues shortly. Please check this site, as well as the LIT Twitter account (@yalelibraryIT) for more updates. There will also be a notice posted to the front door.

Thank you for your patience as ITS works to resolve this issue.

Service interruption for BorrowDirect, Sharepoint and more

Jenn Nolte

UPDATED:

Library IT is pleased to report that BorrowDirect access is returning for users on and off campus, but the change may take effect over several hours. Please let us know if you encounter any issues with BorrowDirect tonight or over the weekend. Additional updates:

•         SharePoint (collaborate.library.yale.edu) will be unavailable over the weekend. Library IT will update again on Monday with more information on SharePoint. A big thank you goes out to our SharePoint stakeholders who got in touch with us; your input was extremely helpful. At this time, Library staff do not need to take any actions with SharePoint.

•         LIT will address other smaller systems and services living on this server after SharePoint has been restored properly.

Please let us know if you have questions or concerns- we again thank you for your patience as we resolve this issue.

To report problems or ask a question about this or any of our other services, please fill out a problem report, or send email to libraryit@yale.edu.

UPDATED:

Thank you very much for your continued patience as we work to address the issues regarding resources.library.yale.edu and collaborate.library.yale.edu.

Library IT has assessed the impact to library services and systems and come up with a plan to maintain or restore those services after this server goes offline:

1)    BorrowDirect:
Our first priority is to maintain access to Borrow Direct.

2)    SharePoint:
Following that, we are working to ensure continued access to SharePoint. Cindy Greenspun will be reaching out to major SharePoint stakeholders; please get in touch with her ASAP if your department uses SharePoint as a part of its daily work.

3)    LIT will address other smaller systems and services living on this server after these two major services are restored properly.

Once again, if a service or system you use is accessible through a URL that starts with http://resources.library.yale.edu or http://collaborate.library.yale.edu, it is safe to assume it will be unavailable. Please email libraryit@yale.edu to confirm if you are unsure.

ORIGINAL POST:

There has recently been a security issue on one of our servers (resources.library.yale.edu) that will result in Central ITS taking it offline sometime today. This means that the following two major services will be unavailable:

BorrowDirect (resources.library.yale.edu/cas/borrowdirect.aspx)

Sharepoint (collaborate.library.yale.edu)

Additionally, many smaller services and systems hosted on resources.library.yale.edu will also be unavailable. If a service or system you use is accessible through a URL that starts with http://resources.library.yale.edu, it is safe to assume it will be unavailable. Please email libraryit@yale.edu to confirm if you are unsure.

 

We do not yet have an estimate on when services will be restored. Library IT will follow up with an estimate as soon as possible.

 

Library IT Tech Talk scheduled for Wednesday March 16th

Jenn Nolte

The LIT Tech talk for March starts Wednesday from 3-4:15pm in Bass L01.

The agenda is a follows:

  • Spotlight on LIT staff: Workstation & Technology Services 
  • Sgi DMF Project (Bob Rice)
  • Electronic Resources at YUL (Angela Sidman)
  • III integration with Quicksearch (Yue Ji)

For those who cannot join us in person, the session will be streamed via Adobe Connect here:

http://greet.yale.edu/littechtalk/ [sign in as a guest]

Slides and recordings of the Tech Talk sessions will be archived here:

https://yale.box.com/LITTechTalkArchives

Questions, comments, or suggestions for future topics should be sent to Jenn Nolte (jennifer.nolte@yale.edu).

Service Outage this Saturday 2/20

Jenn Nolte

There will be a service outage this Saturday February 20th at 10am for approximately 2 hours. This outage is necessary to do perform routine maintenance on one of our servers. During the outage, the following services will be affected:

 

 

BorrowDirect (resources.library.yale.edu/cas/borrowdirect.aspx)

Ductus  (resources.library.yale.edu/ductus/)

VRC Finding Aids (resources.library.yale.edu/VRCFindingAids/)

The World War I Experience    (resources.library.yale.edu/WWI/)

YUL Staff Directory (resources.library.yale.edu/StaffDirectory/)

 

Library IT will send another reminder on Saturday morning at 9am. We will also send an “all clear” when the services have been restored successfully.

 

To report problems or ask a question about this or any of our other services, please fill out a problem report, or send email to libraryit@yale.edu.

 

Thanks as always, for your patience and cooperation!

Ex Libris news

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Early October, ProQuest has announced that they’ve entered an agreement to acquire Ex Libris.  Among some of the products offered by Ex Libris, is Voyager, the library management system currently in use by YUL.  For more information about ProQuest’s acquisition of ExLibris, please visit: http://goo.gl/hJVlnM.

Through Ex Libris, there are several working groups and committees that endeavor to better serve their customers, such as organizing local and annual conferences, serving on committees or product working groups.  Recently, an opportunity to serve as Chair Elect of the Voyager (Joint Eluna-IgeLU) Product Working Group (VPWG), has been extended to Cindy Greenspun of Enterprise Systems & Services, LIT.  In this role, the Chair convenes monthly meetings with the VPWG members, coordinates and liaises with Ex Libris product management on development and enhancements of the Voyager product and communicates news or developments with Voyager users.  If you’d like more information about this group, feel free to reach out to Cindy at cindy.greenspun@yale.edu or visit: http://el-una.org/product-groups/voyager/voyager-product-group-leaders/

 

November 17th: LIT Tech Talk, SearchFest!

Jenn Nolte

Library IT is pleased to host two events for library staff on November 17th, 2015. Read on for more information!

November LIT Tech Talk:

The Tech Talk for November will be held at 11am on Tuesday November 17th in Bass L01.

Continuing to follow up on a request for more information on who does what in LIT, this month we will turn the spotlight on the Digital Library & Programming Group.

The tentative agenda is:

  • Spotlight on LIT staff: Digital Library & Programming
  • Digital Collections Search and Discovery at Yale Library

SearchFest:

The last SearchFest! session before Quicksearch’s public debut on the Library front door in January will be held on November 17th at 12:30pm in Bass L06.

The goals of SearchFest!:

  • test out existing Orbis or Morris search strategies in our new unified discovery interface, Quicksearch.
  • demonstrate the features and functionality that are unique to Quicksearch
  • review the timeline for Quicksearch’s transition to production in January 2016
  • answer any questions from staff about how to use Quicksearch in either instruction or daily work

As with the first SearchFest!, there will also be pizza served at the beginning of each session.

To register for the November 17th session, click here – 8 spots left!

weak Diffie-Hellman key

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In the past month or so, Library IT received several reports from users who have received an error message about a weak Diffie-Hellman key when attempting to get to various websites.  As a temporary solution at the time, it was suggested to use an alternate browser.   Bob Rice investigated this more closely and has implemented a fix so this error message shouldn’t surface for us again.

If you’re curious about what it is, a quick summary is the Diffie-Hellman key is a fairly basic tool used in cryptography based off of modular arithmetic.  It allows for the development of a secure key based on two weak keys supplied by either side of an exchange and is used to secure a variety of Internet services.  For those who are really interested in learning more about modern cryptography, feel free to view this informational video:  https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-science/cryptography/modern-crypt/v/diffie-hellman-key-exchange-part-2.

For comments or questions, write to any of us in LIT, or to libraryit@yale.edu.