Koha >:-(

I am having two problems with this system:

1: When I click to save an imported MARC record I receive an error message that reads, "Can't save this record because the following field aren't filled: *tag 003 subfield 0 control field in tab 0." What is this?

If I click "ok" then Koha moves along as it should (I guess) and saves the record. I then create a barcode and save the record again. This then leads me to my second problem.

2: When I attempt to add my catalogue item to my list the system won't do it and gives me the following message "A record matching barcode 125364589642563214862 has already been added." However, I can't see any items in the list and the count says that there are "0 item(s)." What is going on here? Am I missing some important step like checking a box or setting preferences or something?

Gripe: How come there are no results for any searches of the Koha catalogue...even when you search for items you just added?

The disappearance of Jing

Jing’s little sunshine icon remained at the top, middle part of my screen until just recently when it disappeared. Now when I turn on my computer Jing pops up with a message that encourages me to reinstall it. How Jing ever uninstalled itself I’m sure I have no idea.

Book Recommendation

During our last class we talked a little bit about how people who have advanced degrees and people with good enough degrees (GED) compare when viewed through the lens of our discriminating society.

I would like to suggest the following book. It puts a whole new spin on how to view success.

Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The Story of Success. New York: Little, Brown, and Company.

Port problems

I work for a Pitt entity in a UPMC building. The Internet ports, along with other types of hardware like the phone lines and such, are owned by UPMC. However, in order for the Pitt employees who work in the office to connect to a Pitt server, the ports were mapped to the Pitt VLAN (Virtual Local Area Network). This set up is true for all of the ports in the office except for one, which wasn’t mapped to the Pitt VLAN by the request of the Ethicist who currently occupies the office where this lonely port is located. The Ethicist is moving to an office across the hall. He needs a UPMC port in that office. He’s moving to a smaller office because there are five women and a large grant moving into our office space at the end of next month. The women are Pitt employees. With the exception of the office the Ethicist is vacating the other offices these women will occupy have been vacant for some time.

Mission: to get the UPMC helpdesk and the Pitt helpdesk to communicate with each other to have ports activated (if necessary) and to get a UPMC port mapped to the Pitt VLAN.

My office is a real gray area. It’s a clash of jurisdictions.

(In regards to the Ethicist and his new office…I think it should be pretty easy to ask UPMC to install a port, because at least we won’t have to worry about having to get the two helpdesks to communicate for task.)

A story of a request for a SMTP exception

We have a new printer/copier in our office. It’s a SHARP MX-M283N. It’s very nice. It has a scan-to-email function, which is not set up. I called the printer/copier company to find out how we get this feature set up and our printer/copier representative said that we needed to put in a ticket with CSSD and request and SMTP exception.

SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and we need an exception made in the firewall so that we can email our scans from the copier. Right now the port is a one-way street with information (print jobs) going in and once the exception is made it will be a two-way street with the ability to emails to go out.

In order to complete this request CSSD needed the IP address of the printer/copier and the number of the port. We ran into a problem here because we are a Pitt entity in a UPMC building with Pitt-owned ports. None of the ports are labeled. Therefore, we needed to find the MAC address or Media Access Control address, which also can be called the hardware address or the physical address. You can find the physical address of your computer (if it is running Windows) if you go into the Command Prompt and type “ipconfig /all” and hit return. However, finding the physical address of a printer/copier is a little bit trickier.

The user has to login to the printer/copier as an administrator, follow a chain of menus via the touch screen, and then print a test page, which is actually a configuration report—the MAC address is listed in that report.

Can we scan-to-email now? No, but we should be able to do this when we come into work on Monday 6/28 after the upcoming Change Management period according to CSSD.

Two recent articles on cloud computing

There are two articles in May/June 2010 issue of EDUCAUSE Review Magazine on cloud computing that I think add to last night’s discussion on the subject. The following are links to these articles:

Cloud Computing and the Power to Choose
By Rob Bristow, et al.
"Examples from Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom illustrate both the opportunities and the risks involved in adopting cloud computing and cloud services."

Looking at Clouds from All Sides Now
By Richard N. Katz, et al.
"Higher education and corporate leaders offer their perspectives on the promise and peril that may lie ahead for cloud computing and above-campus services."

EDUCAUSE Review Magazine Volume 45, Number 3, May/June 2010

First impression of Omeka

I added an item in Omeka but it didn’t go into my collection. I thought it would because first I went to collections and then I selected my collection and then I went to “Add an Item.” However, this didn’t exactly work. I added an item but it ended up in no man’s land! Super confusing. Also, is there a way that I can import an item into Omeka and not have to go through the tedious process of having copy and paste the information into the Dublin Core fields. I’ll just work at it until I get my 15 items IN my collection.