UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD COLLEGES’ ICT COMMITTEE

 

A joint meeting of the Colleges’ ICT Committee and the Committee of College Librarians was held on Tuesday 16th October 2007.  Dr Jo Ashbourn, the Chair of the Colleges’ ICT Committee, chaired the meeting with Liz Martin, Chair of the Committee of College Librarians. The following members were present:

 

 

Name

College

Jo Ashbourn

  (Chair, Colleges’ ICT Committee)

St Cross

Richard Wain

All Souls

Ian Plummer

Balliol

Penelope Bullock

Balliol

Lil Kay

Brasenose

Jonathan Marks

Exeter

Liz Martin         
  (Chair, Committee of College Librarians)

Nuffield

Sarah Lawson

Harris Manchester

John Ireland

Jesus

Christopher Hoskin

Jesus

Margaret Sarosi

Keble

Hamayun Minhas

Kellogg

Mike White

Lincoln

Fiona Piddock

Lincoln

John Veness

Magdalen

Julia Walworth

Merton

James Dore

New

Simon Thomson

Pembroke

Chris Bamber

Somerville

Susan Purver

Somerville

David Smith

St Anne’s

Anne Wilson

St Hilda’s

Alex Wong

St Hugh’s

Matt Jennings

St John’s

Stephen Gower

Wolfson

Fiona Wilkes

Wolfson

Karen James

Worcester

 

In Attendance:

 

Jeremy Worth

ITSS

Tony Brett

OUCS

Fran Jackson (Minutes)

OUCS

David Rischmiller

OUCS

Dave Price

OULS

Erin Raynor

OULS

 

Apologies for Absence:

 

Ian Reid

Exeter

Dave Hart

Oriel/Corpus

 

 

1 INSTALLATION OF NEW LIBRARY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM AND ADMINISTRATOR RIGHTS FOR STAFF

 

Dave Price reported on matters related to this and agreed to answer any questions that might arise.

 

A summary was provided for a few technical issues and the referenced information can be found at: http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/sers/support_itss

 

This webpage link is intended to provide help for IT staff needing to configure systems to access library services and it includes firewall requirements. It will be updated for the new library management system when this is nearer to going live and when there will be far fewer firewall requirements. Information for configuring SunRays as reader workstations in libraries has recently been added to the webpage.

 

2 MANAGEMENT OF LIBRARY PUBLIC PCs AND INCOMPATIBILITY OF WINDOWS XP WITH OLIS AND OxLIP; USE OF SUNRAY LIBRARY WORKSTATIONS

 

Dave Price responded to this item.

 

Problems with OLWEN were reported. This is not meant for XP but is still in use. It is not appropriate that the Library Service should continue to provide shell software as the environments are too varied and OULS does not have the resources to support librarians in colleges.

 

SunRay machines were deployed successfully, but as yet the firewall requirements have not been fully documented.  This will be done and made available to College IT staff. 

 

A question was raised regarding printing and whether it could be simplified.  Dave Price agreed that there was a problem and stated that OULS are working on a new configuration to solve the problem.

 

3 MONITORING OF INTERNET USE IN COLLEGES

 

It was asked whether OUCS monitors internet traffic in colleges.  Tony Brett replied that OUCS does not monitor network traffic at a detailed level but that it does look for patterns of use to identify peer-to-peer network setups, which typically represent unacceptable use of the network.  Chris Bamber stated that each college has its own policy on such monitoring.  John Ireland pointed out that there may be different policies regarding this matter for staff and for students.  He also asked whether any of the College Librarians had any problems they wanted to raise for help with from the College IT members.  Nothing was raised.

 

4 MOUNTING AND GENERAL ACCESS TO e-BOOKS

 

It is expected that mounting e-books will be a growth area over the next few years. Hundreds of thousands of e-books have been imported to OLIS. The e-book catalogue is currently separate from the paper catalogue, but a link is planned. E-books can be viewed with standard plug-ins, for example Adobe Acrobat or webpage turners. Mac support is planned for the future.

 

5 OTHER MATTERS FOR CO-ORDINATION BETWEEN IT AND LIBRARY STAFF

 

It was agreed that a member of OUCS would be invited to the next meeting of the Committee of College Librarians so that input from OUCS would be readily available. A formal invitation will be sent to OUCS by the Committee of College Librarians.

 

6 ANY OTHER BUSINESS

 

There was no other business.

 

7 DATE OF NEXT MEETING

 

Michaelmas Term 2008 – Date TBC.