Technology Report for 4/5/17 Technology Committee Meeting

Library-MUFN

  • HPB:SupraNet ran into some ‘in the road’ infrastructure issues that are beyond the scope of just the library. The ball is now in the City’s court to do some ‘in the road’ work. The City hopes to complete this work in Q1, 2017.
  • MSB: SupraNet is in the bid phase of this project.
  • MOO: Both WIN and SupraNet are working on other projects in that area. They anticipate completing ‘outside the building’ work by the end of Q1, 2017.

MUFN (the consortium) is planning on infrastructure changes that willprovideadditional capacity as well as save the consortium some maintenance costs. Behind the scenes work (by both MUFN-affiliated vendors and SCLS) will be required to implement these changes. SCLS will communicate/coordinate with affected libraries as needed.

BadgerNet /TEACH

The next generation BadgerNet service contract has been signed and its impacts on TEACH subsidy funding have been announced. Within the SCLS Network, the TEACH rate for all current BadgerNet lines has been reduced to $100/month as of July 2016. In the future, only the upgraded SCLS HQ line is expected to price out at the $250/month rate. SCLS will be evaluating the impact of this savings on the technology services budget.

Between February 2017 and December 2017, all BadgerNet library sites will have their capacities upgraded, while remaining at the $100/month rate. For many SCLS libraries, this will double or triple their capacity compared to current rates. Some SCLS sites may require the installation of new BadgerNet equipment. SCLS will coordinate upgrade activities with the library and the local telephone company.

There are still many details to be worked out, especially with respect to upgrade scheduling. SCLS will be collecting, collating and sharing information in coming months regarding each library’s path forward.

SCLS learned in mid-November that library site readiness assessments will start to be scheduled by the telcos in December 2016. Depending upon what they find/need, the library may need to remediate certain things at library expense: plywood board, additional electrical circuit, grounding bar, etc…

HQ network capacity expansion and re-architecting

SCLS’ HQ network is undergoing capacity expansion and some re-architecting. This will occur in several phases and will proactively generate the infrastructure necessary to accommodate the additional bandwidth that will be transmitted to SCLS HQ because of the BadgerNet/TEACH project. Each phase of this project will require planned network outages that will occur during off hours. Libraries will be given advanced notification for each planned network outage.

Digitization Project

We have hired Tamara Ramski as our Digitization Assistant to manage the LSTA digitization project. She is creating project plans for the four participating libraries. She will be going on site soon to train libraries in the use of the digitization equipment and the creation of metadata to add to Recollection Wisconsin. We are very excited to have Tamara working with the libraries on this project.

Drupal

Module maintenance, applying security and recommended updates, was done in February.