- Marie Kennedy is the Serials & Electronic Resources Librarian at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, CA. This blog is about organization, librarianship, and sometimes monkeys and/or bananas.
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perpetual access
Posted in comic, e-resource mgmt, library, license agreements
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Off-campus test from on campus or: How to be in two places at once
When I troubleshoot patron reports of problems accessing electronic resources they will often be off campus, attempting to connect through our proxy server. When I troubleshoot I am often on campus, within the university IP range. One of my first troubleshooting steps is to recreate the problem the patron is having in order to see the error message for conveying to the vendor, but I can’t recreate an off-campus problem while on campus within our IP range; the IP range allows me seamless access to our resources whereas the proxy prompts you to identify yourself as an LMU affiliate by logging in with a username/password. I have to leave campus and go somewhere else (cafe, home) in order to troubleshoot off-campus access issues. This isn’t so convenient for me or the patron, as you might imagine.
I asked around to see how other university librarians had resolved this issue. Here’s how they told me they handle it:
- go off campus to a cafe
- test on 3G network via personal iPhone
- have a really old computer hooked up to a phone line and a modem (works to test off-campus access as well as how well an e-resource works over dialup
- connect work computer and personal home computer through LogMeIn
- if the university uses EZProxy, comment out an IP address so that computer always acts as if it is off campus. That becomes the computer used to test off-campus access.
- subscribe to a paid service, Browsercam, which gives you access via the Web to a server farm of different computer types and browser configurations
I considered all of these options and decided:
- I’ve left campus to test things from home in the past, making sure I’ve got someone in the office I can call to change settings in the administrative end of the databases, if possible. What a drag that is.
- I’ve been testing via my own iPhone, but it is not a great solution if the resource I’m testing isn’t mobile ready
- our campus phones are connected via the Internet, so connecting an old computer to a phone line would link me to the IP address
- my home computer is connected over wireless, and LogMeIn only allows one computer to wake another computer from hibernate status if it is hard wired. This is too bad, really, because it looks like a really nice (free) service.
- we don’t use EZProxy here, but may consider doing this in the future.
- Browsercam seems like the best option for a paid service because you can simulate the exact computer/browser setup that the patron is experiencing.
I’ve put in a request for the library to subscribe to Browsercam. In the meantime, iPhone over 3G is my friend.
Thanks to my pals on friendfeed and twitter for providing these ideas.
If you use something else at your institution to do off-campus troubleshooting from on campus, leave a comment. I’d like to know what other options are out there.
Posted in library, management, twitter
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workflow analysis as an extended reference interview
my library has a wiki where library staff can report problems with databases or other technical issues; it’s my job to respond to and resolve the problems. i’d seen enough wiki entries that went something like this: “patron called to say he can’t access databases from home. swears he’s a current student” to know that we needed to establish a troubleshooting workflow for this issue. from the wiki entry i can’t tell what our staff did to troubleshoot the problem or how to get in touch with the patron to do any follow-up.
i started a conversation via email with our head of access and the systems librarian because i knew they were somehow involved in checking whether a patron is active in our system. i asked how they usually heard about issues like this and what they usually did when they got reports. while i waited for a response i interviewed some of our reference librarians to find out how they usually get reports of access problems and how they responded to the patron, wrote down what they said, probed for more information on certain points. i read the whole scenario back to them at that point and noted any further comments that they made. i got an email response from both the head of access and the systems librarian and they reported how they were involved in the process and what information they needed to troubleshoot.
from this wealth of responses i put together a workflow that addressed the salient points from the perspective of our head of access, systems librarian, and reference librarians. in the workflow i assigned certain steps to particular roles, so that it was clear what information they need to gather and to whom they need to direct that data. i sent the workflow to them via email and requested feedback. based on that feedback i asked a couple follow-up questions and tweaked the workflow. at the last iteration everyone involved agreed that the new workflow would serve us all well. at the end of the process we now have a troubleshooting workflow that everyone understands and is holistic rather than silo-ish.
as i reflected over the approach i used to gather information for this workflow it occurred to me that i had done an extended reference interview with each of the participants. with them i was able to diagnose the problem, probe for more information, clarify, provide a possible solution, and confirm. the last step will be as we use the workflow and evaluate if there are any further tweaks that need to be made.
here’s a link to a simple description of the steps of a reference interview on liswiki: http://liswiki.org/wiki/Reference_interview
here’s the workflow we’ve settled on as our first attempt:
Posted in library
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the pointy tip of a pencil
i prefer old fashioned pencils. i like the feel of the wood and the weight of the pencil, which is lost with the mechanical versions. for general office use i prefer the 2b grade, which is a plain old, standard pencil. there’s a nice image on wikipedia that demonstrates the grading and classification of pencils: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pencil.
so. i like a regular old pencil, but it has to have a SHARP point. i get grumpy when they’re dull; what’s more depressing than pulling a pencil out of the pencil holder to discover the sharp is worn down to a nub? well, lots of things are more depressing, actually, but i’ve got this sharp point problem licked. here’s how:
- sharpen a bunch of pencils
- insert into cup on desk with the pointy tips facing up
- after using one, return to cup with now dull tip facing down
- when there are no more pencils with pointy tips facing up, it’s time to sharpen all of them
this way i am guaranteed to always choose a pencil with a sharp point. woohoo!
Posted in organization tips, writing
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StatSoft Electronic Statistics Textbook
The Research Methods and Analytics group on Linkedin mentioned the free online text, StatSoft Electronic Statistics Textbook, as a good introduction to an array of stats topics. Bookmark it, it’s a good resource! There’s also a printed version, if you’re more comfortable using a paper copy.
Posted in OA
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The Marmoset Song
direct link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oiLfTnrC40
Dan Reboussin, you rock!
Posted in monkeys/bananas, titter, video
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