2010/02/22-23 mod_auth_ldap and vufind switcher

This week is a short week at the library for me as I head to California on Wednesday, but I got a few things done. First, I helped Jon reconfigure one of the library web servers to use mod_auth_ldap to restrict access to the internal staff web pages. That took a while - first to figure out the apache configs, then to figure out the right A.D. group to restrict access to. It all worked out in the end though - which is a relief after all the work.

I also helped Tony test some new javascript for toggling the library's homepage search-box between aubiecat and VuFind. Bugzilla ticket 34 has more details. Once again we managed to get things working after banging our heads for a while.

Finally, I got some work done migrating my code to use the ivy build system. I want to make our ebscox tool available to EBSCO and other libraries, and moving to IVY will hopefully simplify the code build process. We'll see how it goes.

2010/02/15-17 Scala 2.8

I checked in a small patch to the AuCataloging code for Jack, but otherwise I've spent the last few days porting AuCataloging to the new Scala 2.8 language release. Unfortunately, I ran into a Windows-specific bug in the 2.8 build chain. I finally tracked down the problem, and have a workaround. I submitted this bug ticket to the Scala project. Hopefully I'll be able to finish up the port to 2.8 tomorrow.

2010/02/10-11 ETD and VuFind redux

I patched the AUETD embargo policy statement again today. I think Aaron is almost happy, although he did send me a few more micro complaints.

I went to the Thursday morning Reference department meeting, where the librarians reviewed the current state of our VuFind Catalog. The librarians were surprisingly happy with VuFind. We discussed how we might encourage more patrons to try the VuFind server for search. It appears that patrons ignore the "Try our New Catalog" link on the home page. I'm going to send Tony some javascript to update the search-box on the library's home page to easily toggle between AubieCat and VuFind. Hopefully that will encourage more users to try VuFind.

2010/02/08-09 - finish ebscoX, etd embargo notice

I think Jack is happy with the latest ebscoX build. He's going to try to export the entire Voyager catalog over the next several days, so we'll see if any problems pop up. Bugzilla Ticket 29

I also setup an embargo approval step in the ETD submission wizard. Aaron still isn't happy, so I'll probably tweak that again tomorrow. Bugzilla Ticket 28

2010/02/04 ebsco-export release

After a final patch, I finally delivered version 0 of ebsco-export to Jack. Hopefully he doesn't run into many problems.

Now I need to make some time to go back and finish the littleware-AuCataloging integration. I also want to version up the AuCataloging code to use Scala 2.8 - which finally entered beta last week. The scala move will also allow me to update my IDE to Netbeans 6.8 whose scala plugin requires scala 2.8.

Anyway - the AuCataloging work will have to wait, as I need to give the ETD and IR projects some love next week. I also want to get back to building the virtual machine for testing Evergreen. There's plenty to do! Have a great weekend!

2010/02/03

I checked in an AuCataloging patch that implements regression tests for the ebsco-export tool. The core ebsco-export engine now passes regression tests. I'll slap a UI on ebsco-export tomorrow, and hopefully publish the tool via web-start for Jack to take a look at.

A thread on the Vufind mail list sent me to listen to some screencasts by the Extensible Catalog (xc) developers. It looks to me like XC and VuFind solve similar problems in a similar way. First, both systems have a PHP front end - VuFind builds on a custom Smarty codebase, and XC writes Drupal modules. Second, both systems store their data in MySQL and SOLR. Finally, both systems harvest data from the ILS and other sources. VuFind relies on solrmarc to manage harvesting, while XC developed its own code.

2010/02/01-02

I just checked in code implementing the core Voyager to EBSCO export logic for the ebsco-export tool. I'll test the code tomorrow, then build a Swing UI. If all goes well, then I'll publish ebsco-export on Thursday. I'm running behind!

--- Jack Fitzpatrick 1/25/2010 9:44 AM ---
 Reuben,
As we discussed, will you please work on a script to pull copies of all bib records and holding fields to ship to EBSCO for the EDS project?  I'm thinking along the lines of a monthly update of the whole catalog, that you'd do, and weekly incremental updated that I'll take care of.  Both processes need to compile the same data. So here's how I'm doing the incremental updates. If you would, please write your script to conform with mine. 
Incremental updates for EBSCO EDS:

My initial list is made up of unsuppressed bib records that have at least one holding record.

Start with the raw bib record as found in our catalog. My script checks to make sure that at least one hold record is unsuppressed. If that's not the case then we don't want to send that bib off to EBSCO.

1)Remove any 710s with indicators "02". 

Examples:
710:02: $aMICROFORM INVENTORY PROJECT
710:02:$aQEJP $bPEJ

2)Remove any 773s with indicators "18"

Examples:
773:18: $tqdatabase 
773:18: $a qej http 

3) remove any bib record tags greater than or equal to 856

4) Add the following hold record tags to the end of the bib record: 852, 856, 866, 867, & 868


Thanks,
Jack