SUNY Office of Library and Information Services
Report to SUNY Librarians Association
John Schumacher (john.schumacher@suny.edu)
November 13, 2015
SUNYConnect LMS and Related Activities
• Work is underway planning the Aleph upgrade to v22 for campuses with Aleph installed on the shared server environment at ITEC (currently at v20); While we don't anticipate major changes with Version 22 there are some nice enhancements and fixes. We expect to have the upgrade completed by early 2017. As always, we hope to minimize any downtime. Reasons for the upgrade:
o No further service packs are being developed for v20 (no new functionality or bug fixes)
o Version 20 runs on an end-of-life version of Oracle (no new updates for security and/or functionality being developed)
o Current Aleph servers (both hardware and Operating System) will reach end-of-life in 2017.
Library Systems Request for Information (RFI)
• The Library Systems RFI Review team is composed of members from the SUNY Council of Library Directors Executive Board, OLIS, and representatives from campuses.
• The Team surveyed Library Directors – themes in that survey include:
Interest in levels of data sharing and collaborative services across campuses
Interest in building community based groups in support of implementation and ongoing maintenance
Interest in developing system-wide workflows/processes
Readiness (budget and staff) in taking part in a migration
• The Team is now analyzing this input to provide additional focus for SUNYConnect LMS needs/specifications to assist in getting more streamlined and relevant proposals from the vendors in the future;
• Vendor webinars and/or demonstrations will be scheduled;
• To help the SUNY library community (beyond the members of the RFI Review team) acquire information on developments in library systems, a “Next Gen” Library Systems Information Group has been created in the SUNY Learning Commons. This site contains the RFI vendor responses that have been designated for sharing internally within the larger SUNY community. Please see the announcement about how to access the “Next Gen” Library Systems Information Group that was distributed in early July.
EBSCO Discovery Service
• Please keep the feedback coming on the new Full Text Finder (OpenURL software) as well as on Curriculum Builder (reading list tool) use;
• Some of the SUNY EDS sites can be found here.
Electronic Resources
• A SUNYConnect-wide license for the New England Journal of Medicine (2016) has been established; thanks goes to the 36 SUNYs that have made the license possible for the entire group (per-campus cost is 30% of cost if that campus licensed the journal on their own);
• The next round of “title swapping” in regard to the SUNYConnect ScienceDirect license is underway; additional journals available on ScienceDirect as of 2016 will be made available (including Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic & Neonatal Nursing);
• The university-wide license for the National Fire Protection Association (codes, etc.) has been re-established via non-library/non-OLIS funds;
• Cold call – please contact the OLIS Liaison if you are interested in SBRNet (Sports Business Research Network) .
OLIS News
• The SUNY Office of Library and Information Services is scheduled to move offices in mid-November 2015; contact information will remain the same.
Open SUNY and Related Activities
• Work is currently underway on the “Intermediate and Advanced OER Topics” course adapted by Laura Murray and Karen Gardner-Athey (OLIS) from the open course OER101. The original OER101 course was designed under an IIT Grant by a team of SUNY librarians and faculty. This course will be offered for the first time in January of 2016. Like the introductory course, it is intended for SUNY faculty, instructional designers and librarians.
• SUNY OERs (open educational resources) can now be cataloged in the SUNY Digital Repository (SDR). More information about this is available on the Open SUNY ALS site
News
ProQuest signs agreement to acquire Ex Libris;
SUNYConnect Information / Resources
• For additional information about SUNYConnect, see our updated web site -
http://www.SUNYConnect.suny.edu/• OLIS’ Footprints Service Request System
http://service.sunyconnect.suny.edu/footprints/help.html • OLIS Support Portal
http://wiki.sunyconnect.suny.edu/display/OLIS/Support+Portal • SUNYConnect union catalog
http://search.sunyconnect.suny.edu/ Links (in this document)
http://blog.sunyconnect.suny.edu/2015/09/01/library-systems-whats-next-whats-new/ mailto:sunyeds@ls.suny.edu
http://wiki.sunyconnect.suny.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=21925277 http://www.nejm.org/ http://codesonline.nfpa.org/ http://www.sbrnet.com/Academic-Subscription.aspx https://dspace.sunyconnect.suny.edu/handle/1951/65009http://opensunyals.org/oer_sdr.html.
http://librarytechnology.org/news/pr.pl?id=21043 
