Kia ora koutou,

Facilities management will be conducting their annual generator test on Saturday 21st of January from 7am to 9am. This means that there will be an electrical outage across most of Ilam campus during this time. Among the affected buildings listed are Puaka JH Central Library (including the undercroft), Macmillan Brown Library and the Library Warehouse. EPS is not listed so it may not be affected.

The outage is happening outside of our opening hours, so our systems should not be affected. However, the advice from Digital Services is to log off your computers and shut down IT equipment on Friday night.

Some devices may need to be restarted at the next opening time. Please see the Intranet post here for full details.

Ngā mihi,

Bronwyn

(on behalf of the Library Systems Team)

Tēnā koutou,

For the past few months, the Library Systems team, in conjunction with the VuFind working group, have been developing and enhancing our new OPAC, VuFind. VuFind is essentially a replacement for our current OPAC, Horizon Information Portal (HIP), which is reaching its end-of-life phase and is now considered a legacy system.

Whilst our version of VuFind is still under development, it is now at a point where we can begin using and promoting it as UC Library’s OPAC replacement.

https://libcat.canterbury.ac.nz/

The planned public go-live date is the 8th of February, when all links to HIP in our various systems including links in Summon/Multisearch, will be replaced with links to VuFind by ExLibris. All UC staff and students will then be directed to the new catalogue from that point onwards. We will also be working through updating links on the website, in LibGuides and in LEARN.

From this point onwards, up until the go-live date, ALL library staff should now be using VuFind instead of HIP. This is important for load testing and as a transition phase for staff to familiarise themselves with the new OPAC’s functionality.

Please note that any saved lists in HIP will not be migrated to the new OPAC, therefore if you would like to keep your saved lists, we recommend that you keep a copy of your lists or email them to yourselves from HIP.

For the time-being, HIP will still be working and kept running alongside VuFind during the implementation phase. Therefore, if you do come across any major functionality issues in VuFind, HIP can still be used as a backup. Please let the Systems Team know of any problems you encounter. We have a list of known issues and planned enhancements which we will be working through over the coming months.

If you have any questions or concerns, please get in touch.

Bronwyn
(on behalf of the Library Systems Team)

Kia ora koutou,

There are some ongoing issues with access to the Passport (Euromonitor) database in Firefox and Edge browsers (Chrome appears to be fine). The following error results.

We are working with Digital Services to resolve the issue, however unfortunately, it will not be a quick fix. There is a reliable workaround – Using Chrome should be ok or using a private/incognito browser window also seems to work. Please advise staff and students to use these methods for the time being until we can put a permanent solution in place.

Thanks for your patience.

Bronwyn

(on behalf of the Library Systems team)

To my dear UC family (sorry for the emotional drivel that follows but I think you know me so well and you’re used to it by now!)

Well, another incredibly difficult decision made – though happily, under vastly different circumstances to last time! I only just got back home to UC and I have been like a pig in mud being back here! Despite all the crazy commuting, house-selling challenges and moving exhaustion, I’ve loved every second of being back! This truly is my dream job – I’m not just saying that – it’s actually true! Despite the occasional gripes and frustrations we all have from time to time, I think we all know that UC library is special. We are so lucky to work in a place with such a wonderful, supportive culture. I know I will never find a job and a bunch of colleagues/friends like this again and it’s not something I would ever give up lightly…

As many of you might be aware, I have recently become engaged to my Finnish partner, Jussi. It’s a very big deal for a 36-year old self-declared crazy cat lady spinster who had given up on all that stuff! It was always the intention that he would be moving here – he knows how much my job and this place mean to me and, working in IT, you would think it would have been a smooth path ahead with NZ immigration. However, this has certainly not been the case. It would still take many months and possibly years of job applications, sponsorship applications, trips back and forth, grappling with the visa points system and so on. However for me to go to Finland, it is infinitely more simple and much faster. Therefore, we have decided that this is the only way forward for us. I will be going back to Finland on the 8th of February. Jussi and I will be getting married in Tampere on the 10th of March and I will be staying on whilst my Finnish residency visa is processed.

It honestly pains me more than I can describe having got my dream job back and then having to give it up again so soon. I’m also so very aware of the inconvience all this has caused my wonderful, amazing team, who were so incredibly kind to invite me back into the team. It’s incredibly disappointing in all regards to have me leave so soon and I’m so sorry for everything 🙁 If there’s one thing in life I have learned, it’s that very few people in this world can have everything. To have one great thing in life, often means sacrificing another and I wish I didn’t have to choose in this way. Having my dream job was one goal in life, but there are things outside of work which I have not yet achieved and I feel this is my last and only opportunity to do so. I hope you won’t blame me or judge me harshly for the choice I have made.

My time at UC has meant so much more to me than being just a job and I will miss you all so much. I’m warning you right now, I can’t talk about any of this without bursting into tears, so you are forewarned to not ask me questions or mention it to me unless you actually want to have a blubbering idiot in the room – and nobody wants that!

Please, please, please keep in touch! I will always have such a connection with this place. It will always be home, even if I am on the other side of the world!

Hugs to you all xx

Bronwyn

**UPDATE: The issue has been resolved. If you do get an error message when trying to access, clear your browser cache and that should fix it.**

Kia ora koutou,

Kia ora koutou,

Many of you will be aware that I am leaving NZ to go back across the ditch and my last day of work is this Friday. It was an extremely difficult decision to make. I’m honestly quite devastated to be leaving UC and NZ but I think it will be good for me to be back in Perth for a while with my family. Plus I do plan on coming back – it’s just a matter of when! I have deliberately kept it quiet and I have chosen to not have a leaving function, simply because I’m just so gutted about leaving UC and all the wonderful friends I have made here. I don’t think I could handle saying goodbye and nobody wants to spend a morning tea with someone who’s just going to be crying and miserable the whole time!…Really you don’t…My other weird rationale for not having a leaving thing is that this way, I can trick my brain into thinking that I’m not really leaving! It will seem like I’m just going on a very long holiday and I can hopefully come back one day! 🙂

I want to thank everyone at UC and especially the Resource Discovery team for making me feel so welcome and for putting up with me for so long! I also want to thank Brian, Helen and Anne for making so many accommodations for me, particularly with my music study. I’m so very grateful to have been given the chance to work in my ideal job(s) AND follow my other passion at the same time! Seriously, how many people get to do that? We are all truly lucky to work in such a positive working environment and I will miss it terribly. I might even start to miss Minisis if enough time passes!! 🙂

I will be starting my new job as Learning Resource Services Network Cataloguing Librarian at the Western Australian Department of Training and Workforce Development (I’m going to have to practice that!!) on the 1st of July, so if you want to say hi, please get in touch with me there or on Facebook. If you ever find yourself in Perth, give me a shout – I would love to catch up with you!

As it’s not really goodbye, but only goodbye for the time being…mā te wā!

Ngā mihi nui and much aroha,

Bron

Kia ora koutou,

Some of you may already know that in my spare time, I sing a bit (or try to learn at least!), in addition to having some skill on the cowbell (for all those who haven’t heard about my “interesting” musical(?) contribution to the UC School of Music’s performance of John Zorn’s ‘Cobra’ at the Musical Guerrilla Games yesterday – trust me, you really missed out!). Part of my Bachelor of Music study is the requirement to perform in several concerts per year.

I will be performing in a more “traditional” concert of classical music next Tuesday (2nd October) at The Piano (sorry no cowbell or animal noises this time!). The concert series is called “Outstanding young musicians”, which I had a good chuckle at… (the young part…and the outstanding part…?…hehe…). Along with two of my fellow singing students and a violin student, I’ll be performing some French Mélodies by Reynaldo Hahn and some German Lieder by Robert Schumann, accompanied by Iola Shelley on piano.

I know it’s a Tuesday…and it’s a lunchtime…and there’s a small entry fee…and it’s in the city…BUT I would be so grateful to see some friendly faces in the audience – there’s nothing worse than giving your all in a performance to an empty auditorium!

The details are on Eventfinda – hope to see some of you there!

Ngā mihi nui,

Bronwyn