Shibboleth – Digimap – re-registration required

From 31 July, access to the Digimap service will be by University username and password (Shibboleth) only and no longer available via Athens username and password. All existing Digimap registrations will lapse on 31 July, and customers of the service will be required to re-register. (This is a requirement that EDINA has introduced for all its Digimap customer sites).

During the re-registration process, there is an opportunity to associate the new registration with a previously active one. New registrations will, of course, also be accepted.

Links in eSearch to the Digimap service now point to the Shibboleth login screen, so (re)-registrations can be actioned now, ahead of the 31 July switchover. A guide to the revised registration process is available in the LLR Shibboleth wiki. The existing guide to Digimap registration on the main LLR web site will need to be slightly revised to take into account changes in the registration process.

ALEPH – problem with remote search services resolved

The restart of the ALEPH server has cleared the problem that SFX was experiencing in querying the Library Catalogue – so links in SFX to ALEPH have been reinstated and confirmed as working.

Please let eServices know if you experience any further problems.

ALEPH server back in service

ALEPH server has successfully been restarted by IS and all services now appear to be working fine. This means that ALEPH client, self service and Web OPAC should all be working again, but please let eServices know if you’re still experiencing problems.

Problems with ALEPH server

ALEPH server Portia is experiencing a significant number of application and operating system errors. In an effort to resolve this IS need to restart the server, with immediate effect. This means that all ALEPH applications, including self service and Web OPAC will be out of action whilst the restart is taking place. Hopefully this will take about 30 minutes to complete.

A further notice will be sent out when ALEPH server is back in service again,

Problem with remote search services on ALEPH

A technical problem with a ‘look-up’ service on the ALEPH server started to cause problems with SFX requests at around 15:45 this afternoon.

ALEPH stopped responding to ‘look-up’ requests from SFX, based on ISSN and ISBN. The result was first a delay and then a time-out of the SFX service.

To enable the immediate recovery of the SFX service, requests to ALEPH from SFX have been temporarily disabled. A message has been added to the SFX menu indicating that ‘SFX is currently unable to check the library catalogue for this item’ (see screengrab below). This has been done for both the existing and new installations of SFX.

Searches of the Library Catalogue from RefWorks are also affected.

However searches carried out within the Library Catalogue, or via eSearch are working normally.

An update will be provided once a resolution for this technical problem is in place and remote search services restored.

RefWorks – OPAC searches now up to date

A configuration setting which was preventing searches of the Library Catalogue from RefWorks from returning the most recently indexed records has now been corrected. Searches of the OPAC from RefWorks now return records as soon as they are indexed by ALEPH.

ALEPH – problem with remote searches resolved

eServices is investigating the cause of problem which shut down the z3950 server on ALEPH just after 4.30pm yesterday afternoon.

A consequence of the shutdown was that from that time SFX was unable to check the Library Catalogue for holdings information – so SFX menus were reporting that no ISSNs or ISBNs were being matched against print catalogue records. Another consequence of the closure was that searches of the library catalogue from RefWorks were unavailable. (eSearch searches of the catalogue were unaffected.)

The server has now been restarted and both SFX and RefWorks services have been confirmed as connecting to ALEPH successfully.

eServices is now in discussion with both IS and Ex Libris to isolate the cause of this issue.

ejournal and eBook records to be added to ‘live’ ALEPH this week

During the course of this week, changes will be made to ‘live’ ALEPH to enable ejournal and eBooks to be made discoverable through the OPAC. There may be some very short interruptions in the OPAC service (lasting only a few seconds) while these changes are enacted. Initially, changes to the look of the OPAC record display (identical to those trialled in ‘test’ ALEPH) will be replicated in ‘live’ ALEPH, and eBook and ejournal records will then be loaded and indexed.

All SFX delivered ejournals and eBrary eBook records should be available through the ‘live’ OPAC by the end of the week, with records for Taylor & Francis, Knovel and other eBook providers available shortly after. Updates will be provided as the process progresses.

Ex Libris products and Windows Vista compliance

Ex Libris have confirmed that the versions of ALEPH, SFX and eSearch (MetaLib) in production at NTU are fully compliant with the new Windows Vista operating system.