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SOLS Systems Support - Typical questions
Sample of "typical" systems questions
received and answered. You may also want to look at our
VDX FAQ, and our Clearinghouse of
Technology related information
.
Connectivity
Q: Bell has come to the library and restored phone lines knocked out by
a thunderstorm but we still have no Internet connection. We pinged
207.236.23.1 and the router was returning OK. Could the problem be past
the router?
A: Talked through checking the hub and discovered two blown ports. When
cabling was switched library staff were able to bring up internet service.
Q: Can the library have email account on more than one machine?
A: Must have one primary machine where email is cleared from Bell's
mailserver. But can have other machines where "Leave mail on server" is
ticked so it can be picked up on primary computer.
ILL Practices/Policy
Q: Do we have to keep records if we print out copies from newspaper film
for a patron on our microfilm reader/printer? How about census or vital
statistics?
A: The majority of public libraries in Canada are comprehensively
licensed with Access Copyright.
Meaning, on a yearly basis they pay a tariff per stand alone
photocopying machine that the library possess. In these instances,
copying that is conducted at these free standing machines, which the
library has already paid a tariff for, this, does not have to be logged.
The only instance that records need to be kept is for document
delivery/fee for service copying or interlibrary loan. Document
Delivery/fee for service copying is when a library patron or another
library requests a copy of a holding from either the library itself or
from another lending library; the library can make a copy of the holding
for the patron or another library, at no additional cost other than
direct costs to make the copy. Some libraries may not do fee for
service/document delivery copying, so as long as they have paid their
tariff for their stand alone copier machines, they have nothing to worry
about.
General info on licenses:
http://www.accesscopyright.ca/licenses.asp?a=6
General info on Public Library licenses:
http://www.accesscopyright.ca/licenses.asp?a=17
More details on Public Library copying:
http://www.accesscopyright.ca/licenses.asp?a=114
Q:
Patron is looking for Costa Rican telephone books. Is interlibrary loan
possible?
A: No, telephone books are not for loan. However, your patron may
have some luck with this website for an international telephone
directory with current listings for 184 countries. There are White
and Yellow pages for Costa Rica here.
http://www.infobel.com/teldir/
Q: How does a non-VDX library send requests to SOLS for handling?
A: You may send requests by email, fax or regular mail to staff in our
SOLS office. If you are searching INFO for bibliographic details you can simply
cut and paste the records you find (do not include locations) into an
email and send to
. If you prefer to just type requests
into an email remember to include as much bibliographic detail as you
can (at the very least, author and title).
ILL Statistics
Q: How does VDX count what a library loans?
A: SOLS web site information about VDX generated monthly statistical
reports states that loans are counted under the column labelled
"Responder - Shipped" and is a count of requests this
location processed Shipped in the period covered, regardless of the
service type, such as loan or copy non-returnable."
INFO Database
Q: What must be included in the cataloguing to meet INFO union catalogue
requirements?
A: You can find information about cataloguing requirements for INFO
on our website at
http://www.sols.org/resourcesharing/INFO/db/requiredmarcfields.htm. These elements are used in the deduping
process.
Q: The new CEO wanted to know what they needed to do to make
their collection available for ILL?
A: In order to make your collection available for ILL you submit your
bibliographic records and holdings in MARC format. Your database vendor
should be able to assist you with this process, which can be done in
various ways, including file transferring directly to our vendor,
Reference Press, or submitting your records on tape, CD, etc. SOLS
generally solicits libraries annually to submit their records, usually
over July/August. The files are then processed by our vendor and the
INFO union catalogue is released January/February. If you would like to
be included in the next round of submissions, ask us to add your name to
our INFO e-mail alias list. You will receive an e-mail in June with
information on the timelines and instructions on our website.
List Server Maintenance
Q: My message has been rejected and I got this error: "You are not allowed to post to this mailing list, and your message has
been automatically rejected. If you think that your messages are being
rejected in error, contact the mailing list owner at solsceos-l-owner@lists.library.on.ca."
A: You may have clicked on "Reply to all" in your Lotus Notes which
caused solsceos-l@lists.library.on.ca to be cc'd to your reply. The
SOLSCEOS-L list's purpose is for SOLS staff to make announcements to
it's client CEO's. It's not intended to be a discussion group so no one
else is able to post messages. Consequently the list server sends you an
automated message to that effect.
Q: I would like to find out how to get on a list serve for OPL?
A: SOLS list server hosts many lists. You can subscribe to the ones you
are interested in from this page
http://lists.library.on.ca/mailman/listinfo
Some lists restrict membership and when you subscribe the list moderator
will have to approve your request (i.e. OPLN-L).
Telecom/FTP support
Q: Can you check that the file we FTP’d to the INFO database vendor at
4:45 pm today got there okay? Please let me know if anything else is
required.
A: We see a file OLIS01.ZIP on the FTP server. It's 4,550,981 bytes in
size. The last step is to fill in the Confirmation of Submission Form here:
http://www.sols.org/INFO/DB/2003/INFOSubmissionconf.htm
Q: Can you help us FTP our file to INFO database vendor’s server. We
tried IP and passive transfer and it is not working.
A: Could be a problem between the library’s local ISP and Ref
Press. Had them send their FTP to SOLS FTP server and we FTP'd on to
Reference Press.
VDX Access problems
For an extensive list of VDX problems and solutions, see our
VDX FAQ
Q: Can't get to VDX site.
A: I believe the problem has to do with the non-standard http port that
VDX uses for its web site
http://info.hostedbyfdi.net:8080/
Usually web sites use port 80 for http. Sometimes (but not always) Internet Service Providers restrict
outgoing ports. It sounds to me as though your ISP needs to open it's
firewall for outgoing traffic to port 8080. If they need to restrict
this to certain IP addresses, the VDX servers are using
216.243.233.121 and
216.243.233.124
Q:
After working on two separate workstations one of our staff at the ILLO
department reported that every so often her connection was being
terminated and her active window that she was working on to process her
requests would close. Sometimes this happens a few times during the day.
I have asked her to work on another workstation so that we can find out
if this problem is isolated to her workstation but the problem still
persists! If you have any suggestions or recommendations to resolve this
problem, please e-mail or contact me at the library.
A: Can you tell us if she is doing something particular in VDX when this
happens? Searching targets, shipping, bulk action, etc? Does the whole
browser disappear or does she get a Timeout message? Is she running 2
VDX browser windows simultaneously? There's nothing wrong with doing
that for separate functions but I don't think she can do certain
functions simultaneously (i.e. search requests in 2 windows). The helpdesk log says your ILL staff are using IE 6.0. Would you
verify that the settings in Tools > Internet Options > Privacy tab are
set to Low? Or at least that "hostedbyfdi.net" is set in the web sites
to allow cookies. Also verify this setting Tools > Internet Options > click on
Settings button. Under "Check for newer versions of stored pages" -
"Every visit to the page" should be ticked. Sometimes clearing the cache will clear up a problem. Tools >
Internet Options > click on the "Delete Files" button and also tick the
"Delete all offline content" box before you click OK. It's a good habit
to clear your cache from time to time. When it fills up it can affect
performance and can cause other problems. Make sure she's not using the browser back button to navigate VDX.
Not sure if this would cause it to bomb out but she should be using the
VDX navigation buttons.
VDX Implementation/Systems Administration
Q: We have a new ILLO operator. What information do I need to
send to SOLS?
A: Please let us know the name, telephone, email, and fax contact
information for this person, and let us know if/how this affects your
existing ILLO contact information (e.g. is this replacing an existing
ILLO contact? Is it a new person in addition to an existing ILLO
contact? Has the person changed, but the contact information stays
the same otherwise?). Based on your situation, we may change
various SOLS records (contacts, discussion lists, etc.) and/or may
contact the National Library.
Q: What do we need to do to have the Patron Notification by Email
feature activated in our VDX account?
A: SOLS staff need to notify the VDX vendor so they can clear out old
notifications. They need 48 hours notice to do this. You also need to
inform us of any customizing of wording of the notice. See the template
below for what patrons see if no customizing is done. The %s would be
replaced by the pertinent data (i.e. your library name, the title,
author, etc.) Requester Name and Requester Telephone No means your
library's name and number.
"Interlibrary Loan Pickup Notification"
"Library: %s" Requester Name
"Enquiries: %s" Requester Telephone No"Title: %s" Title
"Title %s" Article Title
"Author: %s" Author
"Author %s" Article Author
"Reference #: %s" ILL no
"This item is due back to the lending library on: %s" Due Date"The item above is now available for pickup. Please call the phone number"
"listed above for any enquiries related to this item. That phone number also"
"indicates which branch is holding the item for you."
Q: I get an error message when I use code OHM in my request rota for
Master University.
A: Thanks for alerting us to this problem. The McMaster record in our
INFO database was not configured to communicate with the RACER server.
We added missing elements in the location record and you will now be
able to add the OHM code to the rota and submit your request.
VDX Usage Procedural
For an extensive list of VDX problems and solutions, see our
VDX FAQ
Viruses
For more information on viruses, see our Clearinghouse of
Technology
related information .
Q: Library got an email warning of virus and if they have jdbgmgr.exe file
on computer to deleted it.
A: This is hoax. Referred her to the Symantec site
www.symantec.com to
check these things before she deletes any file on the say so of an
email. File is not critical but lack may cause problems when browsing
java pages. Symantec page links to Microsoft page for instructions to
recover file.
Q: I recently received an email from Anna and the email contained a
bug-bear virus so I deleted it without opening it. Is it safe to open
mail coming from her?
A: You can find more information on the Bugbear at the McAfee site
http://www.networkassociates.com/us/about/press/corporate/2003/20030605_110019.htm
As it says "The sender address can be spoofed, or forged, and is not a
direct indication of an infected user." It's unlikely the email really
came from the sender in the from field. The worm uses the address book
of the infected machine to spoof the sender and sends itself to every
address on the infected machine. So it's someone that has both your
address and Anna’s address in their book. I would say you can open Anna’s email. The best you can do in the
face of the flood of infected emails we are all getting these days is to
make sure you are running the latest version of your virus protection
software and that the virus signatures are up-to-date.
Q: I received the following message the other day and I did not send any
message to the First Nations list serv. I have checked my computer for
viruses and not found any with today's latest update from Norton.
A: The message originally came from somewhere inside the AOL network and
attempted unsuccessfully to post to the "firstnations" list on our
listserver. It looks like it had some version of the Klez worm that has
been plaguing us in the library world the last few weeks. I can't really
tell who it is originally from. The worm uses "email spoofing" when it
propagates itself out of someone's machine. Someone who likely had your
email in their address book. The worm makes it look as though someone
else sent the infected message. This is from the Symantec site:
Email spoofing - Some variants of this worm use a technique known as
"spoofing." If so, the worm randomly selects an address that it finds on
an infected computer. It uses this address as the "From" address that it
uses when it performs its mass-mailing routine. Numerous cases have been
reported in which users of uninfected computers received complaints that
they sent an infected message to someone else. For example, Linda Anderson is using a computer that is infected with
W32.Klez.E@mm; Linda is not using an antivirus program or does not have
current virus definitions. When W32.Klez.gen@mm performs its emailing
routine, it finds the email address of Harold Logan. It inserts Harold's
email address into the "From" portion of an infected message that it
then sends to Janet Bishop. Janet then contacts Harold and complains
that he sent her an infected message, but when Harold scans his
computer, Norton AntiVirus does not find anything--as would be
expected--because his computer is not infected."
Web server support
Q: We have just had our library web site redesigned and are changing web
site hosts when we mount the new site. Could you please make the changes
noted below in order to allow access to our library's new web site?
Would you like something more formal than this e-mail note?
A: I changed the name server entries and restarted my DNS. It may take
up to 36 hours for this change to propagate throughout the Internet and
everyone can get to the new website. When you have a chance would you
fax or send me a short note on letterhead about this for our records?
Nothing fancy. Pretty much what's in your email.
Q: At one time, libraries had to ask SOLS for permission to use the .library.on.ca
domain name. This was because SOLS had registered this name for all the
libraries
in Ontario. Is this still the case? I believe the procedure has changed,
but I wanted to check.
A: SOLS owns the primary domain "library.on.ca on" behalf of libraries
in Ontario. It is not possible register any subdomain beyond that (i.e. wrl.library.on.ca). Delegations for subdomains under library.on.ca
are done here. For more information, read about how to
apply for administrative control over a 4th
level subdomain under library.on.ca
Z39.50 Targets
Q: What do we have to do to switch our library over to z39.50 searchable
once our new Horizon/Dynix system is up and running?
A: You contact SOLS HelpDesk regarding setting up your library as a
Z39.50 target. We have a web page with more information on this and a
form you can fill out so we can do testing with you. See
http://www.sols.org/resourcesharing/INFO/vdx/becomingz39.50target.htm
Q: If our library becomes z39.50 accessible will there be changes in how
I do ILLO?
A: Your VDX workflow won't be different if you are a target. Instead of
being added to a rota from the INFO database, VDX will look to your
target to add your library to a rota. Targets generally find that they
get requests for newer material as the INFO database gets older but as
more and more libraries become targets this demand gets spread out more
evenly.