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MPOW OCLC Web Scale

Web Scale launch delay

In our original timeline, we were supposed to have a soft-launch of our OCLC Web Scale Management system tomorrow, August 20, where we went live with Check in/Check out functionality. We are very, very, very close…but it’s unlikely that we will actually launch tomorrow. Here’s the short list of issues we are still working through:

  • Currently, the locations in our Worldcat Local instance aren’t accurate. This should, literally, be fixed tonight. But we’ll need some time to spot check to make sure they came through accurately.
  • Ditto with the Local Holdings on our Serials…they are starting to show up today, but we will need a bit of time to check some of them.
  • The loan rules for circulation went live today as well, but moving into circulating, even dual with our old catalog, without the chance to really run them through their paces makes my Access department want to strangle me.
  • There is one issue on the backend having to do with reporting that we have to have a solution for in order to satisfy our state auditors. Said solution is, we think, there…but not demonstrated. The state will hunt us down if we don’t demonstrate before going live.

Our data (bib, holding, patron, circulation) has been successfully pulled and imported into WMS. We’re missing a small handful of records that we’re still hunting down OCLC Numbers for…but we’re talking about 2000 or so records out of 600K+. We have pushed more data into the system than anyone else, and it is still responding very well…the performance is impressive, given that it’s operating over the web.

All in all…we are very, very close. So close that it pains me deeply to think about NOT going live on schedule. But schedules are flexible, and if we slip by a week, I’m not going to cry failure. So we implement a complete ILS transfer in 7 weeks instead of 6 weeks…no bigs.

TL;DR: We’re a little behind. But we’re almost there. We are still completely on target for a full live launch on Aug 30th, and we will almost certainly have the public catalog up and running well before that (technically it’s running now, but with some UI issues). I still expect us to start the limited-live before that as well for circulation…but it won’t be tomorrow.

By griffey

Jason Griffey is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at NISO, where he works to identify new areas of the information ecosystem where standards expertise is useful and needed. Prior to joining NISO in 2019, Jason ran his own technology consulting company for libraries, has been both an Affiliate at metaLAB and a Fellow and Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and was an academic librarian in roles ranging from reference and instruction to Head of IT at the University of TN at Chattanooga.

Jason has written extensively on technology and libraries, including multiple books and a series of full-periodical issues on technology topics, most recently AI & Machine Learning in Libraries and Library Spaces and Smart Buildings: Technology, Metrics, and Iterative Design from 2018. His newest book, co-authored with Jeffery Pomerantz, will be published by MIT Press in 2024.

He has spoken internationally on topics such as artificial intelligence & machine learning, the future of technology and libraries, decentralization and the Blockchain, privacy, copyright, and intellectual property. A full list of his publications and presentations can be found on his CV.
He is one of eight winners of the Knight Foundation News Challenge for Libraries for the Measure the Future project (http://measurethefuture.net), an open hardware project designed to provide actionable use metrics for library spaces. He is also the creator and director of The LibraryBox Project (http://librarybox.us), an open source portable digital file distribution system.

Jason can be stalked obsessively online, and spends his free time with his daughter Eliza, reading, obsessing over gadgets, and preparing for the inevitable zombie uprising.

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