Barton Advisory Group

Barton Advisory Group
November 6, 2003

Present: Charlene Follett, Tracy Gabridge, Stephanie Hartman, Kim Maxwell (minutes), Georgiana McReynolds, Christine Moulen, Beth Siers, Rich Wenger

1. Version 16 upgrade
We discussed when we thought it was a good idea to upgrade to version 16, considering the following points:

a. We need another instance of our database so that we have a production server (grammy), a test server on the same version as the production server, and a test server where we can play around with new versions. Since we expect a major upgrade such as this to take some time to complete, it would be very useful to continue to have a test database on the current version where we can still test minor fixes and do development.

b. Version 16 is not yet actually available. It should be out in Winter 2004.

c. There is no real documentation yet from Ex Libris on Version 16. All we have are two power point presentations (no in-depth information).

d. No one has yet upgraded from 14.2 to 16. New customers are coming up on 16, Harvard is going from 15 to 16, and we expect two sites to soon be the first to go from 14.2 to 16. It might be prudent to hear their experiences before we make any predictions about how long our own upgrade might take.

e. We feel it doesn't make sense for MIT to Beta test the Green Box Phase I that will be coming in 16.3, scheduled for release in July 2003. In order to be Beta testers, we'd need 16.2 up and running in a usable state on our test server by then.

Christine will report to Carol and MacKenzie that Barton Advisory Group doesn't see a strong need to rush to upgrade to Version 16 this summer. If they feel it's important for us to be Beta testers, we can reconsider.

2. Suggestions for the NAAUG Program Committee
Beth had sent a brainstormed list of ideas for the topics sessions at NAAUG and asked for our input; she had more ideas listed than there were times available. We gave her our opinions, and she and Tracy will send votes and ideas back to the Program Committee.

3. New Command Interface for running certain Aleph reports/processes
Rich had a handout that succinctly described what he's done, which I've reproduced below. If "m505" means nothing to you, substitute "production server" and that means pretty much the same thing.

Enabling librarians to run restricted Barton processes
11-5-2003

The problem:

There are a number of periodic Barton processes that need to be run under the auspices of user m505. Since m505 has full read/write privileges to all of Barton, logon access to it must necessarily be restricted. In the past this meant that librarians needed to request that someone in Systems run invoice generation, A/R and Bursar billing, and other processes. What is needed is a mechanism for allowing various staff members to initiate specific, authorized processes under the auspices of m505 without giving them logon access to m505.

The solution

There is a facility in Unix that makes this possible. With the proper setup by Systems staff, a specific librarian can be authorized to run specific commands as if they were m505.

The steps for using this are simple and painless:

The librarian logs onto their own Kerberos id on grammy using Host Explorer, which forwards their Kerberos credentials.

On the command line they type or paste a command of this form:
sudo u m505 Barton_script_name <optional arguments>

For example, the command to create invoices is:
sudo u m505 invcreate mmdd

Before the command runs, the librarian will be prompted for their Kerberos password. After the password is entered, the script runs exactly as it would if the librarian were logged on as m505.

If you have any questions about this, or think you have a process that fits this scenario, please contact Rich directly: rwenger@mit.edu

4. Request for new collection, logical base, and call number prefix
Rotch has requested a new collection code for GIS materials. They would also like a logical base for GIS materials, which will be based on the subject heading for GIS, which is "Geographic information systems."

Rotch has also requested a new call number prefix for Plans, which are not the same things as Maps and are in fact in a separate shelving location. Beth is working with Jonah Jenkins at Rotch to see if they want these Plans included in the Maps logical base or not, or whether they need their own logical base.

Next meeting: November 20, 2003