Migration Wrap-Up

First- thanks to everyone for making this process go exceedingly smoothly! The process was completed on time by SirsiDynix and the quality control appears to have been excellent. System downtime was kept to the bare minimum and full service was restored without any problems. They did a great job in making sure that patrons were able to continually access as much information as possible during the downtime.

Library staff and directors, volunteers, and all also did their part to make the transition smooth. Not only did all of the libraries successfully set themselves up for the migration in a timely fashion by preparing their computers for offline mode and making sure their staff were up-to-date on the available procedures and service restrictions, but library staff across the system were highly observant and made sure that we were made aware of potential glitches and issues that had been overlooked, and we were able to communicate these issues to SirsiDynix for timely resolution.

The final things to be dealt with from DDL are being concluded now and over the weekend:

• Email notices may have been glitchy over the last two days and SirsiDynix are working to make sure this does not affect that service going forward.


• Holds that were placed by patrons during the time the system was taken down and before we noticed the place holds button was still live are being re-placed in the new server. There may be a handful that we are not successfully able to replace and we hope that this doesn’t inconvenience your staff or patrons too badly.


• Some libraries reported that their offline default due date had not updated since the Dynix system migration. The vast majority were caught and corrected at the time, and any that snuck through have been updated.


• Patron renewals placed in the OPAC during downtime have been migrated to their live records. Fines that were incurred on these items for this time have been cancelled. Some items had been returned and checked out again by new patrons and have been renewed without their knowledge. Please have a free hand with over-rides in these cases as they arise in-person.


• Offline transactions that were not able to be synchronized with patron records have been extracted and listed, and will be corrected by hand at DDL. This may take a few days and patrons may notice that items they have checked out are not on their records, or staff may notice patrons returning items that are not checked out to them. The default explanation for the next week in this type of situations will be clear, I think.


• Academics and state agencies may have connectivity problems due to more complex IT and security environments. These are being worked on and we will work on formulating a procedure for future upgrades to make sure that ‘outside’ IT staff are brought into the loop throughout the planning process.

Thanks again and have a great weekend! Let me know about any opinions you have about the process and ideas for improvements. Post in the comments or send me an email.