Speedbumps on the recovery road

 Well, there was scheduled maintenance this morning to be done by the vendor for POLARIS remotely since our ILS is now on their remote cloud.  But the work is taking longer than projected and has temporarily disabled our LEAP access to Polaris.  Can still technically login to the Polaris client for a remote session but for now Polaris is not communicating with ShareIt (as one would expect) so I can't receive the dummy request I got from the courier today to conduct additional testing on the receive functionality before full fledged borrowing resumes.

So....just kinda twiddling my thumbs again on a casual Friday.  It's College Colors day so I'm wearing a maroon TAMU tee shirt to work today.  Gig 'em, Aggies.  Y'know for as much as I love baseball jerseys as outerwear, it's kinda remarkable I don't own a TAMU Baseball Jersey, considering how much I loved Aggie Baseball when I was a student there.  I should probably get one.  I don't like that you can't personalize one, though.  You can only pick existing players & numbers, you can't supply like your own last name & class year, which is what I want.

Long holiday weekend, hoping the shit is all ready for next Tuesday but guessing it probably won't be.

I can't do patron validation either if Polaris & ShareIt are still unable to communicate with each other.

Luckily I told my over-eager patrons who asked that ILL might not return exactly on 2 Sept 2025, only that it will be "some time after that".

Library Re-Launch & functionality testing

 So my library is on the verge of re-launching our services after taking since late February to recover from a vicious ransomware attack that left us completely crippled.

I have quietly resumed lending functions, sending out books to other libraries, but only those requests I can physically get my hand on in the main branch building.  Stuff from the branches will have to wait until full system restoration after Labor Day when holds will be reactivated in full.

I also did some test requests for material from other libraries on my own staff library card and one finally arrived today.  I confirmed I was able to receive the item, which generated the expected automated hold, which in turn enabled me to run the special report in POLARIS to enable me to print one of our custom book straps.  I was then able to return the item to the lender on the ShareIt platform and erase the hold from my account.  In other words, the borrowing function seems to be working normally and we are ready for the ILL request form to "go live" after Labor Day along with all other library services that are coming back online after that date.

I'm psyched to have my days be non-stop busy busy busy for awhile.

Did NOT go to ALA

 So  just brief update to note I wound up NOT going to ALA; not enough ILL content and just couldn't justify to myself spending 6 whole nights in downtown Philadelphia....I'd rather save that money and go to more anime conventions!

Speaking of Anime, here is a link to my new (old) anime blog I'm being forced by Typepad's immanent shutdown to migrate over to WordPress instead.