Enterprise Abstraction

LibraryFind SRU Example

I've been playing a little with LibraryFind, a free and open source Federated Search.  The project is very active - and seems to have gone a very long way to filling the gaping hole in this area.  Z39.50 support seems well established:  It took just minutes after install to get the application running with several library catalogues - including CISTI's.  However, SRU support is currently restricted to MarcXML, with Dublin Core on the way (I need MODS!). It also does Open Search and OAI-PMH - but I've not played much with those aspects.

Anyone interested in using or demonstrating the SRU functionality may be interested in the following configuration information - as I had a difficult time to get a working example of SRU running... mainly due to the aformentioned lack of support for MODS:

Name: sru_loc
Alt name: Willamette Dspace SRU
Conn type: sru
Host: http://libmedia.willamette.edu/SRW/search/dspace
User:
Pass:
Record schema: marcxml
Definition:  ti=245;ti=130;au=100;au=110;au=700;au=710;callnum=099;callnum=090;callnu
m=086;callnum=050;ass_num=907b7;note=500;pub=260b;date=260c;subject=650;
subject=651;static=856u
Isword: 0
Url:
Mat type: Article
Virtual:
Vendor url: http://libmedia.willamette.edu/
Bib attr:
Proxy: 0
Harvested:
Is parent: 0

Open Library Environment (OLE) Project - Regional Design Workshop

There will be a regional design workshop for the Open Library Environment (OLE) Project held in Ottawa January 14/15 at Library and Archives Canada.  I've been asked to give a short presentation on SOA - and I encourage anybody in range to come and participate.  Or, to participate in a workshop closer to your area if Ottawa isn't viable for you.  It's an exciting project:

"With support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, a multinational group of libraries is developing the design for an Open Library Environment (OLE), an alternative to the current model of an Integrated Library System. The goal is to produce a design document to inform open source library system development efforts, to guide future library system implementations, and to influence current Integrated Library System vendor products."  -- http://oleproject.org

The project is based on a firm SOA footing - and has large multinational support.

The workshop is aimed primarily at research libraries, and will be dealing with "back-end" ILS functionality (not discovery).  Participation is encouraged by people who work with an ILS day-to-day, and also by those with theoretical, technical or administrative interests.  Registration is available for the Ottawa workshop here.

CISTI LibX Edition

I've been fooling with library toolsbars, sidebars, web and widgets for awhile now... and a few months back I'd resigned myself to finally getting around to doing a LibX library toolbar for CISTI.  I'd even gotten a mostly-working version done a few months back.  At the end of last week I decided it was time to finish.  Lo and behold, I go to the LibX site and discover the wonder that is the LibX Edition Builder!  Holy moly, it's just wonderful.  Within 15 minutes I had a working toolbar for CISTI.  Of course the details and testing tool a day or so, but I finally think I've gotten a version decent enough to make live and public. 

This version is intended mainly for staff of the National Research Council - CISTI's parent organization - but I imagine it would still be useful for most CISTI patrons.

Check it out, and let me know what you think:

• CISTI LibX Toolbar @ CISTI Lab - Some info from me, and access to the IE version installer.
• CISTI LibX Edition @ LibX - The main edition site on LibX - Firefox only install.

Automatic XP user logoff

I was getting tired of having to logout other users on my XP machine at home using the task manager.  Essentially, my wife and assorted guests occasionally use the computer.  Often they would remain logged in and running several applications.  This caused me some issues with stability, but more often, with the system performance. 

I sought a simple solution that would allow me to logout other users on the system with just a click of an icon, as opposed to the more time consuming effort required by using task manager.  So a made a little batch file called logoutuser.bat for that purpose. 

-----------------------------
@echo off
rem logoutuser.bat

for /F "tokens=2 skip=1" %%G IN ('qwinsta tammy') DO LOGOFF %%G
for /F "tokens=2 skip=1" %%G IN ('qwinsta guest') DO LOGOFF %%G

------------------------------

qwinsta lists the current system users, I select the most common offenders, and invoke the logoff command providing the users ID as a parameter (as provided by qwinsta).

I'd not found an adequate solution for this issue elsewhere, so I thought I'd just post it.