Ezproxy was designed to provide off-campus access to databases and other restricted electronic resources to which a library has subscribed from one supplier, and does it very well. We also use Ezproxy to provide free internet access on-campus to these resources which normally should bypass Ezproxy altogether and this works pretty well. The problem has occurred when we try to integrate Ezproxy into open access Web 2.0 resources like Libguides which link to many related resources. Ezproxy requires each service to be specified.

With Libguides this has become unmanageable on the student installed machines which use Webgate to authenticate. Each time Library IT fixes a problem another link is added that breaks, and as with all Web 2.0 environments users as well as Library staff will also be able to add links as comments etc. LibGuides links are also being added to Moodle and other services that we cannot control. We have discussed other options with ICTS such as using Internet Enabler instead of Webgate or firewall changes, but that creates worse problems for students

Libguides is openly available both on and off campus. Ezproxy has been added to Libguides only to try to pay for the internet charges. All students will be getting some free internet quota from the university which last year met the needs of 75% of the undergraduate students. Students are now used to paying for internet services and putting money on their Canterbury Card. Libguides will also work faster without Ezproxy.

We did not integrate AskLive into Ezproxy when we moved to Meebo for similar reasons, and have had no complaints.

The Library has had a policy of making our major electronic databases free to users, as is the print, by absorbing the internet costs. This is no longer technically possible to do reliably with our off campus web 2.0 applications on student workstations.

I will be recommending to LLT that from now on users will need to pay the internet charges for products such as Libguides, AskLive, other library catalogues and similar applications. Library databases will continue to go through Ezproxy.

I know some staff feel quite strongly about this. Comments most welcome, preferably before LLT. Cheers, Anne

ICTS is running late with their information for students

1. Undergraduates will get the 200Mb free traffic per semester, the same as last year. ICTS hope it will be done on Monday

2. Postgraduates will get 2GB/mth free internet again hopefully on Monday

3. ICTS will be offering plans in 2 stages. Next month to students and external users then later to departments. This is optional. More information should be on the ICTS website soon, I will put a comment on when it is available.

Cheers, Anne

LLT has approved the following recommendations to convert Camelot to a Wiki.

1. The Camelot website is replaced by a wiki progressively over the next 12 months
2. Documents are either converted to wiki pages or the link refers to the original document on the appropriate drive. Duplicate documents should not be stored in the wiki as attachments.
3. Counterculture for Library staff news will remain unchanged.
4. A guide to wiki contributions be created (in the wiki)

If you have ideas on which areas of Camelot should be converted first, please add them as a comment or email Library IT. It will be easier if we can concentrate on particular areas rather than convert on a file by file basis. For example Library IT would like to work on our section of the “How to” area including IT Help as it will be faster to update in a wiki. New projects should have a wiki area. There may be other high use areas that would be good to convert first.

Camelot has 7,058 files in 829 directories, but only 477 files have been updated in the last year and around 1,000 files accessed, so it can be trimmed significantly.

Advantages of moving to the university wiki
• Any library staff member can edit a page without needing Dreamweaver or html knowledge
• Editing pages is much faster than using Dreamweaver
• Often Camelot files duplicate documents unnecessarily on Library drives and can get out-of-date
• Many files on Camelot are old and/or outdated so a cleanup will be very useful
• While in general there should be open access in Camelot for Library staff to edit files, some areas such as SOPs or the LLT area could be limited to particular staff to view or edit
• Library staff can become comfortable with a collaborative Web 2.0 open access environment in a controlled area.
• Library staff will become familiar with the same wiki software used across the university including students in Moodle
• The University retains ownership and control of the data unlike external wikis such as PBWiki currently used by the Engineering Library where there could be potential security or privacy issues with the content.
• Collaborative wiki spaces on Camelot will be very useful for projects
• The wiki has much better searching and tagging capabilities
• Ability to track changes, see history/how content has evolved
• Ability to access Camelot remotely

Disadvantages
• Library staff will need to login to Camelot via the wiki
• There will be some confusion during the conversion period, particularly for searching, but this can be minimised in a number of ways including prioritising which areas will be converted.

Comments most welcome. Cheers, Anne

ICTS intend to drop their student A4 black and white printing costs to 7c soon. When they implement this, the Library will also drop the cost of both printing and photocopying from 9c and 10c to 7c at the same time. Now that the charging for photocopying is on a per page basis the costs are very similar to printing and a single price is easier to explain to students. Colour copying and Copy Centre charges will not change. The costs of printing have dropped due to the Ricoh deal and the increase in duplex printing which reduces the paper costs, but in any case we have no option but to follow ICTS charging in order to maintain efficient services to students.

I intend to take a proposal to the next LLT on 17th Feb that we convert Camelot to a wiki after I got a positive response from the Wiki session on Wednesday to the idea. The draft proposal is in Q:anne\wiki and Camelot.doc. Feel free to edit the document but please use change tracking (this would be easier in a wiki). Otherwise feel free to add comments here. Cheers, Anne

There have been a number of ongoing intermittent problems with database access. The latest one was with Libguides and there have also been some problems with Factiva. We have raised these issues many times wtih ICTS. Last week we got the following reply:

“Our ISP, SNAP, has found that their link from Global Gateway (one of 3 or 4 possible pipes to the world outside of New Zealand) was oversubscribed and giving bad performance. They have requested an upgrade of the speed of this link which is to be done by the 22nd of January.”

I hope that the situation has now improved. Please continue to report problems to Library IT as soon after they happen as possible as we will continue to monitor the situation.

Thanks, Anne

ICTS are having ongoing problems with the new accounts system. Any student that goes into a negative balance will have to contact the IT Helpdesk to get this fixed. Adding money to Diebold will not automatically fix the problem. Please tell any student who cant login to contact the IT Helpdesk, including the afterhours support, to get this fixed. This will be available the standard suport hours including 8.00am-9.00pm Saturday-Sunday. Further information will come out from ICTS shortly. Anne

Library IT are planning to upgrade Horizon to 7.42 and HIP to 3.10 in the second or third week in January. The actual date will depend on a number of things including the budget rollover. As we were a beta site for this upgrade we have already done a lot of testing, but we will be doing a final test upgrade with the release version of the software this week and doing some additional testing before we upgrade. If you would like to help with testing, please contact Donna. This upgrade is quite minor but it fixes a large number of bugs so we want to get it done before term starts at the College of Education. Cheers, Anne

Our three main servers have now been moved to the new data facility at Colelge of Education. All services should now be working. If you find problems Saturday morning please report them first to Library IT by phone. If there is no-one here then contact the Central Library at 1pm who will get Library IT.

Thanks, Anne

This is a reminder that the L: drive will disappear on 1 Dec 2008. All files need to be removed before that time. On that day any existing files will be copied to DVD and deleted. If there are any concerns please talk to Carole or Catherine. Catherine will move the Camelot files.
Anne