Celia’s Sixth Blog for Library Systems Class- A Week of Changes

I spent a lot of this last week preparing for the February Board of Trustees meeting on Tuesday the 12^th. Thanks to the snow, that meeting had to be postponed after I had everything set up. Because of the postponement some of the checks still had to go out this week and can't wait till next week when we can reschedule the meeting. The checks were for the safe deposit box (or we would have to pay $5 more), the phone bill and salaries. I thought that was all but it so happened that the library is buying a block of service from our computer tech's company. If we buy a 40 hour block we only have to pay $55 an hour instead of $110 and we only have to pay for travel one way. Since they let the computer tech come before the scheduled meeting, the company agreed to take it out of the block anyway, but they would not let him come a second time unless I mailed the check. So I had to get permission by the Board President for getting that check signed by the Board Treasurer before the meeting could take place too. Luckily, the board had talked about and agreed to do this as we are saving so much money so the Board President agreed to this early payment.

So I was able to let the computer tech come on Wednesday. He was able to convince the server to recognize/accept my office computer even though because it is the home version of XP, it can't become part of the domain. Because of this change, I will be able to save all of my records on the server instead of just saving them to a rewritable CD. I appreciate having any kind of saving of data and as many places as possible since I have found that disasters can happen when the system or even parts of the system go down. My office computer is now password protected and if I want to I can block some things from my assistant. That will not be all that easy though since my assistant knows my password.

We discovered while he was working on the computers that the "brand new this fall computer" was operating very, very slowly. He is now looking into it to find out why. We believe that because this computer not well protected because that "fall computer guy" didn't know our network system and something "harmful" was put on it, possibly an extension of MySpace. The computer tech we now have calls himself: the Goodrich Man as in "we can pay him now, or we can pay him later". It is true. He also pointed out that because he knows our system so well he is able to diagnose the system in a fraction of the time of anyone else. He was able to figure out that the new computers from the court do have sound cards they just didn't have drivers to run those drivers. Once the drivers were installed they worked fine. That was proved by some of the patrons later in the day. No more complaining about sound! Yeah!!!!

I did have one glitch after the computer tech left. The receipt printer wouldn't print. The computer tech had added another user named "Staff" for extra protection in case someone unauthorized got behind the desk and started messing with the circulation computer so they couldn't do any real damage. But the automation system would not recognize this user and now the automation system will need to be configured to allow this user. I had to shut the computer down and then restart and sign in as "Administrator" to get the receipt printer to work. This was a fairly easy fix but scared me for a while thinking I was going to have to go back to the post-it-notes. Thank God, I didn't!!!!!!

I didn't have class my Library System class on Thursday, February 14, 2008, but since my schedule is step up for it, the New Albany-Floyd County Wiki Team had a meeting. I was tired from all the changes at the library and feel that I was just not brainstorming well with my fellow members. I had my laptop which I have found invaluable with me so I used it to take the minutes during the meeting. I also tried to record the meeting with a digital voice recorder. The recorder is new so I have to see if it worked. I am supposed to be able to plug it into the computer and make an audio file. I can get it to go to my iTunes library but that is as far as I can get it. I tried to email the file to myself but that took forever so I don't want to block up someone's email. I can make a CD but I can't send that to my fellow team members. I just bought the digital recorder because is thought it was just what I needed for this and my other classes, when the Board Secretary bought one for the library to record board meetings.

I tried to email Dr. Ball from IPFW where we had the meeting and I couldn't. I have not figured out why I can receive my emails there but can't send any. I had to send her the email when I got home. I thought that I was suppose to email Dr. Ball the minutes from the meeting but I have since reread last class's notes and found that they are actually suppose to be posted on the wiki. I have found that when I transfer from Microsoft Word into the wiki the spacing gets changed. I have found that to be really irritating, but I have been trying hard to get it to look good.

Hope your week went better than mine. Check back to see if things go any better…..