FCLA Announcement to the ALEPH-NA Listserv
See also separate  FCLLIST Announcement to the State University Libraries

From: Michele Newberry - FCLA
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2004 10:58 AM
To: ALEPH-NA@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: It's an Aleph!

The University of Florida and the Florida Center for Library Automation
wish to announce that, finally, after 2 1/2 years of implementation tasks
preceded by 2 years of RFP writing, evalution and selection, preceded by 2
years of talking about getting a new system (that's a 6 1/2 year gestation
cycle by my calculation - way longer than an elephant's), and 5 weeks of
labor, we have an Aleph up and running.

You can view it at http://uf.aleph.fcla.edu

Particulars:
* 3,110,000 bib records
* version 15.5.1 running on an IBM p690 with AIX 5.1 and Oracle 9.2
* Headings linked to a single copy of the locally-loaded LC and MeSH
authority files which will be shared by all of the universities
* Publication patterns loaded from files graciously contributed by Harvard,
Iowa, MIT, and Boston College
* Course reserves migrated from NOTIS data (course records built from the
CR statements in NOTIS item records)

Thanks to all the UF staff, especially project coordinator Rich Bennett,
who've worked so hard under adverse circumstances given the need to close
both the main and law libraries for construction which required moving the
entire collections and all of the staff of both buildings to temporary
facilities even as we were in the countdown to STP.  Thanks also to the Ex
Libris staff (with particular acknowledgement to Marie Erdman who, to stay
with the metaphor, served as the midwife on this project).  And finally,
thanks to the FCLA staff who've given so much of their time and energy to
make this happen.

The second of this year's set of triplets, will be here soon because
starting this weekend we will begin the extraction of University of North
Florida's NOTIS data and a projected 3 weeks of labor before we'll have
Aleph #2.   The 3rd, University of West Florida, will be July 12.

-- Michele

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Michele Newberry
Assistant Director for Library Services
Florida Center for Library Automation
5830 NW 39th Avenue
Gainesville, FL  32606

352-392-9020
353-392-9185 (fax)
email: fclmin@nersp.nerdc.ufl.edu
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Michele Newberry - FCLA
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 3:26 PM
To: FCLLIST@LISTS.UFL.EDU
Subject: Mea Culpa on It's an Aleph

It has been brought to my ever-diminishing attention that I left out McGill
University as one of the contributors of publication patterns.  I'm so
sorry for not acknowledgingg our good friends to the north who, like many
other Alephees, provided so much advice, guidance, examples, and support.

And I also want to thank John Hein from University of North Florida for
his assistance in aggregating, deduping and refining the pattern file so
that it could be processed so efficiently and effectively.

 -- Michele Newberry
    FCLA