Title:Progress Continues in Move to Ex Libris Aleph

THE SWITCH TO OUR NEW INTEGRATED LIBRARY SYSTEM IS SCHEDULED FOR OCTOBER 8.

In our April issue of News & Notes from Walther Library, we reported on our upcoming move to a new integrated library system, Ex Libris Aleph. At the time we wrote that article, we were expecting to be “up and running” with the new system by the beginning of the fall quarter. That schedule has slipped (as the schedule for implementation of new computer systems often does), but we are now expectantly looking toward a switch on October 8. Progress during the last two months has been very positive, and it is quite likely we will be able to stick to this date.

As we move to the new system, you will not notice many visible changes. In fact, you will probably at first notice a slight decrease in our ability to serve you as well as we have in the past. This is caused by the necessary changes in how we operate, and the need to learn a new system. We hope, however, to get through the transition as quickly as possible, and to be in a better position than we have ever been to serve your needs.

You can certainly expect some decrease in our helpfulness during the first week of October. This will be the week when our data is transferred from our old system to the new system. We will continue as in the past to check material in and out, but we will not have any access to the computer records, so we will not be able to tell you whether an item you are looking for has been checked out or not. It will probably take us a few days after our scheduled switch on October 8 to make sure that all our transactions done during the “break” in computer services have been transferred to the new system.

One thing you will not have to worry about: we have set up our current system so no books are due during the transition period, so you won’t have to worry about having books due that we haven’t told you about, and for which we can’t print notices.

Soon after October 8, however, we should rapidly get back to the point of serving you quickly and efficiently, as we have in the past. Because of the flexibility of Aleph, we expect to customize our use of the new system to serve you even better than in the past.

Up until the beginning of December, however, you will still not notice any visible changes. The OPAC you use will still be the one you are familiar with in the Web interface we call Web2.

On December 3, during the convocation hour, we are planning to unveil our new Web OPAC, and demonstrate some of the new features that will be quite useful to you in your use of the library. If you read again the article in the April newsletter, you will find some of the capabilities of the new OPAC listed.

One exciting change that we thought would not be available until later will be a part of the new Web OPAC when we introduce it in December. That change is our introduction of SFX (which is not an abbreviation for anything) to link a number of our electronic resources. SFX allows the computer to pull together information from various databases, and present it to you seamlessly. For example, if you were searching in the ATLA Religion Database, and found a book of essays which interested you, you could find out if the book was in Walther Library by using SFX to check our holdings in the national bibliographic database, OCLC WorldCat. For an idea of what is possible with SFX, you might want to take a look at several sample links provided on the SFX page at: http://www.sfxit.com/trysfx/index.html

This is only the beginning of what we may be able to provide you in the next several years. This vision of pulling together the many resources that you have access to through Walther Library is one that the library director, Robert Roethemeyer, has had for several years. Watch it start coming to life this fall!

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