Winter Break Network Outages

Per this message from Rollins IT, there will be network outages during the winter break. Please note that on 12/22-12/23 off campus access to library databases will likely be affected.

Folks,

We in IT will be utilizing winter break for software upgrades and network improvements. We are expecting to accomplish our work during the first three days (December 21-23). Here is our intent.

On December 21st, Blackboard and Kaltura will be offline all day. This will allow us to upgrade the Oracle database, some of the Blackboard building blocks and perform a Kaltura upgrade and its Blackboard building block.

On December 22nd and 23rd, we will be working on the network. Each day, the on-campus network will be down from 8am to 8pm. This means that campus resources (Banner, Nolij, Argos, Blackboard, Sharepoint) will be offline. Email will be available and the majority of the website will be functional. Phones on campus will also not be functioning, but Campus Safety will be reachable at their normal phone number (407-646-2999).

The Enterprise Computing Group has already approved these dates and times, so we hope this will not be too disruptive to others. As always, if you run into any problems, please call the Help Desk at 407-628-6363 and use the emergency option.

Thanks for your help and patience and enjoy your holiday,

Pat

Patricia A. Schoknecht, PhD
Assistant Vice President/CIO & Business Services

Celebrate Native American Heritage Month

NativeAmericanHeritageMonth

November is Native American Heritage Month.  The Olin Library has a display of books and films available for checkout.  We also have several streaming films available for members of the Rollins community to view.  Click on this link, to see what is available on Kanopy, our streaming video vendor.  If you need further assistance please don’t hesitate to ask a librarian.

Plan Ahead for Winter Break

Some faculty and graduate students look forward to the Winter Break as an opportunity to take some precious time to concentrate on their own research. If you are planning on working during this period and need to use interlibrary loan (ILL) services, or may want to check books out from Olin Library, there are a couple of things you need to be aware of. There will be no access to the general collection on the 3rd and 4th floors and no Olin Library ILL staff working from noon on Friday 12/18/15 until 7:45 a.m. on Monday 1/4/16. This means no books can be checked out and no mediated ILL requests will be placed, no items returned, and no returnable items (like books) processed during this period. Also, while some larger libraries continue ILL service during the winter break, many do not. So that even if you place an unmediated request for an article, for instance, it may not be processed at the lending library. Plan on taking some time during the Thanksgiving break to check out books and place those ILL requests for materials you plan on needing during the winter break. This should give plenty of time for us to receive them in time for you to take them with you over the winter break. If any should have a due date when we are closed, don’t worry – just return them on 1/4 and we will take the flak, pay any fines, etc.

Some readers may remember that we added extra hours as a pilot during winter break of 2014-15. We reviewed the results of that pilot and discussed the issue of whether we needed to be open during winter break with the Library Advisory Council. Their recommendation was that we do not, but that we should give faculty and students plenty of warning so that they could plan ahead.