Category: Executive Director’s Report

NOBLE staff update

Executive Director's Report, Jobs
I am sorry to share the news that Gabe Jayroe has left his position as NOBLE Member Services Support Associate as of January 1. I know many of you interacted with Gabe over support requests, which he always answered promptly and with good cheer. We wish Gabe the best of luck in his future endeavors.
NOBLE posted the Member Services Support Associate position today. More details are below:
The North of Boston Library Exchange Inc (NOBLE) has a job opening for a full time (37.5 hours per week) Member Services Support Associate.

Join a highly collaborative team to help support the needs of the NOBLE member libraries. NOBLE is an innovative, member-driven nonprofit organization founded to improve library service through automation. Our membership includes 17 public libraries, seven academic libraries, and one special library.

The Member Services Support Associate reports to the Member Services Manager and is a team-oriented individual providing high-quality customer support to NOBLE member library staff and assisting the NOBLE training program.

NOBLE is a hybrid office. After an initial onboarding period, the Member Services Support Associate will have the option to work remotely two days per week. Benefits include medical, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance; employer sponsored 403(b) retirement plan, optional tax-deferred annuity plan, and paid holidays, vacation, sick and personal time.

Please send a cover letter and resume to employment@noblenet.org by Friday, February 6.

View full job description.

E-rate Pilot Program

E-Rate, Executive Director's Report

NOBLE held an informational session on Tuesday, March 18 about an e-rate and filtering pilot program that we are kicking off this spring.

NOBLE members voted in 2001 to decline E-rate Internet funding if it means staying in compliance with the Children’s Internet Protection Act. A key component of the Act is that e-rate recipients must provide a content filter on all library-owned computers, including those used by staff, to block visual depictions that are “harmful to minors.”

NOBLE is implementing a pilot program with two or three libraries to test a filtering solution with the ultimate goal to 1) add a Cybersecurity measure against web sites with malware and 2) realize some cost savings in telecommunications services by supporting filtering at the CIPA level. Filtering technology has seen many changes over the past 20 years and the amount of money NOBLE could save has increased.

The session included presentations from e-rate consultant Aleck Johnson, who provided an overview of the e-rate program and its requirements; librarian Carrie Sherman of the Attleboro Public Library, who talked about her library’s implementation of filtering in preparation for e-rate participation, and NOBLE Systems Manager Martha Driscoll, who demonstrated the SafeDNS filter we are considering trying in pilot libraries.

For those who missed the informational session, the recording is now available.

Slides from Aleck Johnson’s e-rate presentation

Libraries interested in participating in the e-rate pilot should send an email to Kathy at klussier@noblenet.org by Wednesday, March 26.

NOBLE to move to Aspen Discovery System

Aspen, Catalog, Executive Director's Report

NOBLE patrons, students, and users will soon have a new way to access materials in NOBLE libraries and to manage their Evergreen accounts.

NOBLE members voted in January to approve a move to the Aspen Discovery System, which will replace the NOBLE public catalog to provide patron access to NOBLE libraries’ collections. The Evergreen staff client will continue to use the native Evergreen staff catalog.

NOBLE will join three other Massachusetts networks – CW MARS, CLAMS and Minuteman – that have already implemented Aspen. The discovery system will provide a more modern and dynamic entry point to our collections with a speedy search and tools to allow libraries to better highlight their collections.

We are still working out details with our support vendor, including a timeline, but we expect the implementation to happen this spring. We will be offering an introductory Aspen session in our upcoming workshop schedule and will schedule more in-depth workshops once a timeline is set.

In the meantime, if you want to take a peek at how Aspen works for other networks, I encourage you to visit the other Massachusetts Aspen implementations:

Much more information will be forthcoming. Feel free to let us know if you have questions.

Upcoming Evergreen 3.13 Upgrade – January 5

Evergreen, Executive Director's Report

NOBLE is pleased to announce the network is upgrading to Evergreen release 3.13 on Sunday, January 5.

Downtime Information

  • All libraries should expect to be down for the entire day Sunday, January 5. The system should be available by the time staff start working on Monday, January 6.
  • We will add messaging to the public catalog one week prior to the upgrade.
  • During the downtime window, the following will be unavailable:
    • Circulation and other staff functions
    • Web catalog
    • Mobile app
    • Patron self services like placing holds, renewals, signing up for ecards and self-check.
  • Authentication via SIP2 (Overdrive, Hoopla, museum pass, EZproxy etc.) will be available for a large portion of the downtime, but will be down for a brief period.
  • Libraries that are open Sunday can use offline circulation. The training system will also be available to look up call numbers, but the date will be one month old and will not include new titles.
  • When the system is back up on Monday, if staff notice any unusual screens, we first recommend that you clear cache and refresh your screen. The Clear Cache Chrome extension allows you to easily clear cache from the Chrome toolbar. If those steps don’t resolve the issue, please contact NOBLE support. 

Previewing 3.13

NOBLE library staff can log into the training system to get a first-hand look at release 3.13, which we will be using for training and testing the new release. Here’s how to login and set search preferences for the old and new versions of the staff catalog: Logging Into the Training System.

  • Please let us know if there are newer staff who can’t access the training system so we can add their accounts.
  • The training system contains a snapshot of NOBLE data so there are holds, overdue, bills, etc., with all patron information anonymized.
  • Feel free to test things, including adding, editing or removing patron, title or item information. Anything you add or change will be gone the next time we update the snapshot for the training system. Nothing will transfer to the production (live) system.

Recording of the December 17 upgrade session | Slides
Register for January 14 Problems and Questions (P’s and Q’s) session
Register for January 22 Problems and Questions (P’s and Q’s) session

Upcoming Evergreen 3.12 Upgrade – June 11

Evergreen, Executive Director's Report

NOBLE is pleased to announce the network is upgrading to Evergreen release 3.12 overnight on Tuesday, June 11.

Downtime Information

  • The tentative upgrade window is Tuesday June 11 between 9:00 pm and 12:00 am.
  • We will add messaging to the public catalog 1 week prior to the upgrade.
  • This upgrade will be much smaller than our previous one back in January. Because of the timing and reduced actual database downtime, we will not be building a backup authentication server.
  • During the downtime window, the following will be unavailable:
    • Circulation and other staff functions
    • Web catalog
    • Patron self services like placing holds, renewals and signing up for ecards
    • Authentication via SIP2 (Overdrive, selfcheck, Hoopla, museum pass, EZproxy etc.) will be unavailable for a portion of the upgrade window.

Previewing 3.12

NOBLE staff can log into the training system to get a first-hand look at release 3.12, which we will be using for training and testing the new release. Here’s how to login and set search preferences for the old and new versions of the staff catalog: Logging Into the Training System.

  • Please let us know if there are newer staff who can’t access the training system so we can add their accounts.
  • The training system contains a snapshot of NOBLE data so there are holds, overdue, bills, etc., with all patron information anonymized.
  • Feel free to test things, including adding, editing or removing patron, title or item information. Anything you add or change will be gone the next time we update the snapshot for the training system. Nothing will transfer to the production (live) system.

What’s Coming in Release 3.12 And Beyond (presentation)
Evergreen Release 3.12 Upgrade Session (recording)

 

NOBLE Upgrading to Evergreen 3.10 in January

Evergreen, Executive Director's Report

NOBLE is pleased to announce the network will be upgrading to Evergreen release 3.10 in early January. 

The upgrade will begin the night of Saturday, January 6. The system will be down from 6:00 p.m. Saturday until some time Sunday p.m. The system will be up and ready on Monday morning January 8.

Downtime Information

The extended outage for this upgrade is due to several factors:

  • The postgres database will be upgraded from 9.6 to 10. This involves dumping the entire database to a file, installing the new version, and importing the data back into the database. These steps take 4-5 hours each.
  • The operating system will also be updated which means that new application servers will be built.
  • Database scripts that add new features to the database are standard for most upgrades.

What is affected when Evergreen is down:

  • circulation and other staff functions
  • authentication via SIP2 (Overdrive, selfcheck, Hoopla, museum pass, EZproxy etc.)
  • web catalog
  • patron services like placing holds and signing up for ecards

We had a phone call with MOBIUS, our Evergreen hosting provider, about minimizing the effects of the down time and came up with a few solutions:

  • We will have a copy of the database put on a test system about a week before the upgrade. This can be used by staff to search for materials to get call numbers. We will send the URL to this system out the week before the upgrade.
  • Mobius will point the SIP server to the test system. We will pull the recently added patrons and import them so authentication will be available. Early in the upgrade and late in the upgrade the SIP server will need to be taken down, once to point to the test system and again to upgrade it and point it back to production.
  • Self check machines also use SIP and it will be important to not operate those during the down time. You don’t want transactions recorded on the test system.
  • Offline circ will be available to record circulation transactions. It is important to review Michele’s offline checklist prior to the down time.

Previewing 3.10

NOBLE staff can log into the training system to get a first-hand look at release 3.10, which we will be using for training and testing the new release.  Here’s how to login and set search preferences for the old and new versions of the staff catalog: Logging Into the Training System.