News from February, 2009

February 2, 2009 -- The Summer Reading Program Kick-off will be held at SELCO on Thursday, February 26 at 9:30-12:30.  The 2009 theme is Be Creative @ Your Library.  To sign up, please visit the SELCO training page by clicking here.  If you are interested in purchasing items for the Be Creative @ Your Library program, visit http://www.highsmith.com/cslp/.  Hope to see you there!

02-03-2009,  9:10PM  --  The reindexing process for the iPac has completed successfully.  The iPac catalog is now operational and searching all records.

All other SELCO systems appear to be stable at this time.  Thank you again for your patience.

02-03-2009, 03:44 PM -- All systems are now up and running normally with the exception of the iPac public catalog.  It looks like we're going to have to reindex; that server is touchy and the abrupt loss of power scrambled its database.  It will probably take a few hours to get it up again.

As MetaFrame and Horizon are both up, you may relogin and resume normal operations.  Please contact the Help Desk with any PC Reliance files you need processed.

Pharos sites will need to restart their signup servers and should be good after that.

We are continuing to check systems but this information is correct as far as we know.

Thank you for your patience.

02-03-2009, 3:24 PM -- Addendum:  I've just been informed that we need to reboot some Horizon services.  Any connections created now will stop working in just a few moments.  Please refrain from restarting Horizon until I send an update to this page.  It should take just a few minutes.

Original news item:

02-03-2009, 03:20 PM -- About 45 minutes ago, we suffered a power event here at the SELCO office.  It was not a power failure; rather one of our server racks lost power due to a faulty surge protector.  This rack, housing our MetaFrame servers is connected to both of the power phases that serve the Server Room.  This redundant connection ensures that the rack stays running smoothly in the event of a loss of power.  That system worked at first but, as the load on the remaining phase became more overwhelming, a circuit breaker blew.  This caused us to lose more systems.

The problem has been fixed and power is now flowing normally through both phases to all of our systems.  We are in the process of restarting everything.  The web and email servers were first, as evidenced by this message.  The MetaFrame farm is next.

Horizon was not affected but, without MetaFrame to deliver it was unavailable.  Once MetaFrame is back up, therefore, you should have access to Horizon pretty quickly.  You will need to relogin to your Automation Portal and start Horizon again.  If you receive an error message that Horizon is already running, just contact us and we'll restart your session.

Further information will be sent out as we have it.

February 4, 2009 -- The Smart Investing @ your library program, Becoming a More Confident Investor, scheduled for Thursday, February 5 at the Preston Public Library has been postponed to February 10, 2009 at 7:00pm, dut to the presenter's illness.  For more information and the complete schedule of programs, please vist our website at http://smartinvesting.selco.info. 

Februrary 4, 2009 -- The meeting materials for the SELCO Advisory Committee meeting on Februrary 10, 2009 have been posted on the SELCO Advisory Committee's Meeting Materials page.

February 5, 2009 -- The 2009 finalists for the Minnesota Book Award just announced! 

Chosen January 31, by 24 judges from around the state, four titles in eight categories were selected as finalists from a long list of potential nominees, all written by Minnesota authors.  The categories include:

February 5, 2009 -- A page for the AquaBrowser Implementation Project has been added to Online Library Services.  This page will contain links to information and documents pertaining to all aspects of the project, including progress reports.

February 10, 2009, 01:18 PM -- SELCO office phones are functioning again. We thank you for your patience.

February 10, 2009, 12:44 PM -- The SELCO Office phone system is currently down.  SELCO staff attempted to bring the phone system back up without success.  Donovan has contacted Reliance which is our telephone service provider to see about bringing the phone system back up ASAP.  I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.  As soon as the phones are back up again another message will be coming out

February 10, 2009 -- Frances Veit has been announced as the new children's librarian at Buckham Memorial Library in Faribault.  She started her new position at the library on Monday, February 9.  Welcome, Frances!

February 12, 2009 -- The meeting materials for the Joint ILS Operations and Technology Policy Committee has been posted to the SELCO website.

February 12, 2009, 03:15 PM

Due to a problem with our phone system if you need to call the SELCO Help Desk after 7:00 p.m. tonight you will need to call this number (507) 951-5269.  IMPORTANT:  If you try calling the SELCO Help Desk number you will not get an answer and will not be able to leave a message.  Tomorrow Friday February 13, 2009 during the normal 7:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. time frame you will be able to call the regular SELCO Help Desk number.  Starting on Saturday morning and continuing through Monday you will need to call the (507) 951-5269 number.  Again if you try calling the normal SELCO Help Desk number you will not get an answer and will not be able to leave a message.  We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your patience and understanding.  If you have any questions please let us know.

February 12, 2009, 08:10 AM

The SELCO Automation Portal is again available. Please try to log into the Citix Metaframe at this time so you can access Horizon. You should not need to restart your workstation. Thank you again for your patience.

February 12, 2009, 7:30 AM

Good morning. During systems checks this morning, it was discovered that the SELCO Automation Portal, the Citrix Metaframe login site that connects you to Horizon, is not connecting. SELCO staff are working on this and as soon as we have information, it will be posted on the SELCO webpage and another email will go out. Thank you for your patience.

February 13, 2009 -- In observance of President's Day, the SELCO office will be closed on Monday, February 16^th.  On-call Automation Support will be available that day from 8am-5pm (507) 951-5269.  We are still experiencing problems with our phone system so you will not get an answer if you call the normal SELCO Help Desk number.

There will be NO delivery service on Monday.  A regular Monday delivery will take place on Tuesday that week.

February 17, 2009 -- Coffee & Conversation will host a public forum featuring a roundtable discussion with private and public sector community leaders on the timely topic of the budget.  The event, co-sponsored by community organizations, will be held at John Marshall High School, on Saturday, February 21 from 9:00-11:00 am.  The event is free and open to the any interested resident.

February 19, 2008 -- Just a reminder!  There is still time to sign up for the Summer Reading Program Kick-off.  The workshop will be held at SELCO on Thursday, February 26, 9:30-12:30.  To sign up, please visit the SELCO training page by clicking here.  Hope to see you there!

February 20, 2009 -- As cities and counties, and their libraries, continue the mammoth task of sorting out budget challenges and service possibilities, library maintenance of effort or MOE enters into the discussion. Current state law does not allow a city or county that does not meet library maintenance of effort to continue benefiting from regional library services. But what are the specifics of the law? What SELCO services might be in jeopardy? Two resources are available to assist local leaders in their deliberations.

SELCO Member Benefits  (PDF 151KB)
Minnesota Department of Education, State Library Services Statement on Library Maintenance of Effort  (PDF 117KB)
For more information on library maintenance of effort, feel free to contact Ann Hutton, SELCO Executive Director.

February 23, 2009  10:18 AM --  The issue with web mail has been resolved.  The process to clear up the issue took a bit longer than anticipated, but all users are able to log into webmail successfully.  Although users were unable to log in to their mailbox, incoming email was not affected by this issue.

If you have any further issues with you SELCO email, please contact the SELCO helpdesk.  Thank you again for your patience.

February 23, 2009 08:25 AM -- We have identified the problem and are in the process of fixing it.  We estimate that normal web functionality will be restored in approximately one hour.

February 23, 2009, 08:10 AM  -- We are currently having trouble with our exchange email server.  The problem appears to be with our web mail interface, while this does make our email appear to be not working, email is still flowing in the background.  We have identified the problem and are working on it, there will be more news on this to follow.

February 25, 2009 -- Due to the looming winter storms coming our way, "Riding out the current financial storm," the Smart Investing @ your library program scheduled for tomorrow February 26 at 7:00 PM at Caledonia Public Library has been rescheduled for Tuesday, March 10 at 7:00PM.  We apologize for any inconvience this cause.

February 25, 2009 -- The Summer Reading Program Kick-off on Thursday, February 26 has been rescheduled due to the possibility of severe weather and traveling concerns.  The new kick-off date is Friday, March 27th at SELCO, 1-4 p.m.

February 25, 2009 --  Video for the ILS Operations Committee meeting from Thursday, 2/19/09 has been published and is available to viewing.  Check out the SELCO Librarian blog post about it for more information and the links for the video.

Februrary 25, 2009 --  The first library program from the Smart Investing @ your library grant is now available online.  Find out more about it on its SELCO Librarian blog post.

February 26, 2009 -- State Economist Tom Stinson and State Demographer Tom Gillaspy will be the featured speakers at the upcoming Coffee and Conversation.  This event is free and open to the public on Friday, March 13, 2009 from 12:00 Noon - 1:30 p.m. Attendees have the option to purchase lunch at $15 per person.  Reservations for lunch can be made by contacting the Rochester Citizens Coalition.

February 26, 2009 -- There is still time to sign up for Warren Graham's presentation on library safety!  Graham will be presenting at the Paradise Center for the Arts- Bahl Family Auditorium in Faribault on Monday, March 9th, 11:30-4:30 p.m.  Car-pooling from the SELCO office will be available, so if you are interested in a ride, please contact Mollie Pherson at mpherson@selco.info.  Lunch will be provided.  To register for this program, please click here.

February 26, 2009 -- We have completed our email server upgrade to Exchange 2007.  All went smoothly last evening.

As a part of the email server upgrade, we now have a new interface in the web-based SELCO email system.  This new version of webmail enables many of the functions of Outlook, including Outlook-style calendaring if you are using Internet Explorer as your Web Browser.

Although we are confident this upgrade has went well, if you're having problems accessing your SELCO email today, please call the SELCO helpdesk.

February 27, 2009 -- Materials for the upcoming SELS Advisory Committee Meeting are available on the Committee's Meeting Materials page.  The next meeting of the SELS Advisory Committee is March 4, 2009, at 4:00 PM in the Avila Room at the SELCO office building.

February 27, 2009  --  The packet for the Aquabrowser Working Group meeting is now available on the website. Meeting Materials can be found here.  This meeting is from 9:30 - 11:30 a.m. on March 5th, at the SELCO building.