February Tech Talks

Lise Gazzillo

At the February Tech Talks, the Collections, Preservation, and Digital Scholarship division is teaming up with Library IT to bring you a discussion of HathiTrust.

HathiTrust, which includes the HathiTrust Research Center, is a library partnership providing access and services for the largest collection of digitized books stewarded by a non-profit organization. For more information you can go to: https://www.hathitrust.org.

Save the date and come to the Tech Talks on February 21 to learn how YUL and the Yale community contributes to and benefits from HathiTrust.

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A New Face for Special Collections

Lise Gazzillo

The Special Collections Steering Committee is planning an informative and interactive demonstration of the ArchivesSpace Public Interface on February 23rd, at 2-3:30PM. Please join the ArchivesSpace Public User Interface (AS-PUI) Implementation Project Team and colleagues for the opportunity to hear project updates as well as conduct hands-on searches for yourself.

The event takes place in the newly-reopened, SML Lecture Hall and Memorabilia Room.

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Tech Tips: Spotlight on ZOOM

Lise Gazzillo

Welcome back and Happy New Year! We have a new column, we will be starting this month called “Tech Tips.” In this column we highlight a new feature or user tip for the enterprise-wide solutions Library IT supports. We start this column off with featuring a Zoom tip — How do I Spotlight a Speaker.

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Voyager Update

Lise Gazzillo

Yale University Library completed the upgrade of its Voyager Integrated Library System (ILS) from 8.1 to 10.0 over winter break with great success!

The project team updated over 300 workstations with the Voyager 10 clients. Interlibrary loan services, including Borrow Direct, as well as general circulation and operations were up and running by the 3rd of January- one day after Library staff came back from Winter Recess.

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Voyager Update: Module Testing Results

Lise Gazzillo
As you may know, Yale University Library is upgrading its Voyager Integrated Library System (ILS) from 8.1 to 10.0 this coming month. The upgrade from Voyager 8.1 to 10.0 introduces new features and fixes in all modules and will enable the reevaluation of workflows across units to realize the benefits of the newer software version. A great deal of planning and effort has gone into this upgrade to insure the smooth transition to Voyager 10.0 over the semester break. 
The Voyager ILS comprises three primary modules: acquisitions, cataloging, and circulation. The system also contains a public user interface known as the Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC).  Additionally, there are tools and modules used by specific staff within the library for specific administrative functions, inlcuding system administration and bulk data processing. The Voyager Upgrade team is working to test each module for new features and to confirm uninterrupted workflow.
The Voyager Upgrade site is the place to find out about project announcements and project development.  You can also subscribe to get Voyager updates in your inbox.  There are two new Voyager Upgrade Blog posts. The first post is about Cataloging and Authorities Testing Results by Patricia Thurston, Voyager User Group Chair and Cataloging Testing Group Lead. The post details the collaborative work the Cataloging & Authorities testers did with the Acquisitions Testing Group, to insure our current workflows could continue. They tested the cataloging module under the assumption of keeping current workflows, until after implementation. Voyager 10 has significant enhancements that can be explored later. Read more about results of their work.
The second post is about the Acquisitions Module Testing Results by Diane Napert, Acquisitions Testing Group Lead. The post chronicles the work the Acquisitions Testing Group did to verify current workflows with the acquisitions module. They discovered two bugs and some missing workflow settings in the test version of Voyager 10. Read more about the results of their work.

Please feel free to reach out via email directly to Patricia Thurston, Voyager User Group Chair,  at  patricia.thurston@yale.edu  or  Steelsen Smith, Project Manager for Upgrade, at steelsen.smith@yale.edu with any comments, questions, or concerns.

Highlights from Samvera Connect 2017

Lise Gazzillo

Several of Library IT’s staff attended the Samvera Connect 2017 conference in Chicago, this past November 6-9th.  The conference had nearly 200 attendees from over 90 institutions, representing mostly higher-education institutions but a few corporate, non-profit and government agencies were in attendance as well. The Samvera Connect conference is an opportunity for users of the Samvera framework to come together to share knowledge, collaborate in technical development, and build the Samvera community.

The 2017 Samvera Connect conference offered many new changes — a new name, new tools and a new framework. Starting with the name, Samvera is the new name for Hydra, the open-source framework Yale University Library uses for digital collections discovery, FindIt.

The Stack Is Getting a Makeover 

Currently, Samvera  has 3 major components:

  • the Fedora repository software as the repository layer.
  • Solr indexes, providing quick access to information about an institution’s resources.
  • Blacklight, a Ruby on Rails plugin that sits above Solr and provides faceted searching, browsing and tailored views on objects.

Announced at the conference, coming late spring of 2018, Samvera will be rolling out a new framework and tools. In the new paradigm, institutions will have the ability to implement one or all of the components in the framework to develop a repository.

New Tools:

  • Hyrax: the user interface around common repository features. This tool replaces Blacklight. This tool can be used independent of the other components and gives developers one consistent tool to use to create solutions instead of disparate home-grown ones. Hyrax continues to use Fedora 4 and Solr.
  • Hyku: a complete turn-key repository solution
  • Valkyrie: a new tool that enables multiple backends for storage of files and metadata

Library IT staff conference attendees were:

  • Nadia Boumahdi, Application Programmer
  • Martin Lovell, Application Programmer
  • Tracy MacMath, User Interface Programmer
  • George Ouellette, Digital Collections and Repository Service Manager
  • Kalee Sprague, Senior Systems Librarian for Integrated Access

The consensus among the group was that there will be exciting developments to watch for in the Samvera community over the next year.

ArchivesSpace Public User Interface (PUI) Workgroup

Lise Gazzillo

Yale will be soon upgrading the production ArchivesSpace PUI to version 2.2.0, creating the foundation for the migration from YFAD to the Public User Interface. The ArchivesSpace PUI (public user interface) blog keeps staff informed of the significant work the project team and its work groups are doing.

The blog has two new posts this month. Christy Tomecek, Project Archivist, Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Manuscripts & Archives and Alicia Detelich, archivist at Manuscripts & Archives, are co-leaders of the ArchivesSpace Public User Interface (PUI) implementation project’s Data Cleanup and Enhancements Workgroup. Their post “Cleaning Data to Enhance Access and Standardize User Experience, Part I: Planning and Prioritization” details the planning efforts their work group developed to determine prioritization of tasks.

Chrsity Tomecek authored an additional post, “Movin Around with Reorder Mode in Archives Space 2.2.0″, focusing on a particular feature of the new interface: Reorder Mode. If you want to get a head start on learning how this feature works in version 2.2.0, you can try it out in the test instance of the ArchivesSpace PUI, which has already been upgraded. See Christy’s post for links to the test instance.

For more information about the ArchivesSpace project, visit the YAMS LibGuide or the ArchivesSpace blog.