Core Services Goals for 2004-2005

Goals for the current planning year

Goals for previous years

Overview

In this planning year, activity on the LMS project has already begun to trail off significantly, making time available for work that has been mostly suspended over the last two planning years. Many goals not fully met during this time are still here, reworded slightly to reflect additional thinking or partial progress that was made, or are recast within the scope of larger initiatives.

Most of the high priority work for this year falls into one of two categories: a) coooperatively-planned LIT-wide projects, reflecting a new trend toward collective planning in LIT, or b) improvements in Core Services infrastructure that have been delayed.

Goals are organized below into three areas: New and improved services, Infrastructure, and Workflow/process/organizational.

• New and improved services
• LIT on-call service. Develop more responsive and seamless LIT on-call service.
• Priority: HIGH
• Specifics/timeline:
• October: Convene  LIT admin to review/update goals and proposed plans.
• November-December: Implement necessary phone service; develop staffing schedule and automated telephone rotation; define and document protocol for problem dispatch/notification/follow-up and tracking.
• November-December: Clarify caller responsibilities- e.g problem types handled, response time, reporting procedure and requirements.
• December: Rollout information to staff.
• January: Launch service.
• Institutional Repository. Support the Institutional Repository pilot project.
• Priority: HIGH
• Shibboleth. Collaborate with ITCS to begin to offer Shibboleth origin service for UM.
• Priority: MEDIUM
  
• Infrastructure
• Improvements to storage infrastructure, web server redundancy. Migrate storage to a networked model, then add more web servers as needed to increase performanec under heavy load and to provide redundancy.
• Priority: HIGH
• Specifics/timeline:
• October-December: Purchase and install first storage server and networking hardware for central campus server room.
• January-February: Set up pilot redundant web server model with ETS and/or HTI service.
• March: Conduct tuning and optimization.
• March: Purchase and install second storage server and networking hardware for north campus server room.
• April-June: Migrate existing services to networked model.
• June-August: Purchase and install additional web servers as needed.
• COSIGN. Transition from Lib Auth to COSIGN authentication
• Priority: HIGH
• Specifics/timeline:
• November-December: Install COSIGN and pilot it with selected internal staff resources (involves Steinberg) that handle authorization internally.
• January-March: Rework Lib Auth to use COSIGN authentication.
• January-March: Change local accounts to email format in preparation for migration to COSIGN Friend accounts.
• January-March: Rework application logic as necessary to make portable between Lib Auth and COSIGN (mostly Steinberg)
• March-April: Develop rollout plan in consultation with the appropriate committee.
• April-May: Make final preparations for rollout and cut over.
• Positioning DLPS as a trusted digital repository (TDR). Work toward compliance with emerging standards for TDR best practices, using the OAIS model as a guide.
  
• Priority: HIGH
  
• Specifics:
• Validation and normalization of digital objects. Develop conventions and automation for validating and normalizing digital objects throughout the workflow and at routine intervals to ensure integrity.
• Support improvements in quality control. Support the development of standards for quality control processes and develop automated tools for doing QC work.
• Record-keeping. Support the development of standards for record-keeping and integrate record-keeping operations into existing automation, as appropriate.
• Persistent IDs and name resolution. Support the exploration of persistent identifier schemes and the implementation of one or more schemes for DLPS-hosted material.
• Digital object and metadata encapsulation. Support the exploration of  options for storage of digitally encapsulated objects with their metadata.
• Disaster preparedness. Document the characteristics of our storage environment and backup and recovery strategy.
• Redundant MySQL. Combine production MySQL database services to a central, dedicated, redundant pair of servers.
• Priority: HIGH
  
• Specifics/timeline:
  
• April: Purchase and install servers.
• May-June: Research, activate, and test redundancy.
• June: Develop backup procedures.
• July-August: Migrate databases to new servers.
• DHCP/DNS services. Migrate existing DHCP services to ITCS-provided HindSite service.
  
• Priority: HIGH
  
• Specifics:
• Rollout to the LIT Hatcher private network.
  
• Rollout to the general library networks.
• Develop an authentication and authorization management system.
• Priority: MEDIUM
• Revisit logging practives. Conduct a basic audit of logging practices in LIT systems and work toward better compliance with Library privacy policy.
• Priority: MEDIUM
• Specifics/timeline:
  
• December: Create inventory of systems and degree of compliance.
• January-March: Formulate strategies for coming into compliance.
• Ongoing: Implement strategies, where possible.
• Production server replacements/upgrades. Increasingly formalize the server replacement process, and work to equalize its annual cost and improve its efficiency.
• Priority: MEDIUM
  
• Specifics:
• Develop updated server inventory.
• Complete pending 2003-2004 server upgrades.
• Complete migrations of unsupported RedHat versions.
• Initiate 2004-2005 server upgrades.
• Formalize system administration infrastructure.
• Priority: MEDIUM
• Specifics:
• Define and document the characteristics of the standard environment: what platforms and operating systems are supported, what software packages are installed, which of those are centrally administered, etc.
  
• Explore tools and brainstorm models for centralized system administration.
• Set up system administration resources such as servers, software, etc. as necessary.
• Begin transition of servers to centralized model.
  
• Replace DLXS statistics. Research off-the-shelf solutions to replace the existing usage statistics system to facilitate operation by collection management staff and release of the system via DLXS.
• Priority: MEDIUM
• Centralize LIT backup. Migrate departmental CS and DSS backup services to a larger-scale, centralized backup infrastructure, purchasing or re-using equipment as appropriate, to reduce costs and improve scale.
• Priority: MEDIUM
• Specifics:
• Convene CS and DSS staff to discuss priorities, software options, staffing impact, and other ideas.
• Identify tools and existing resources from which to build a centralized system.
• Begin to build the system and transition servers.
  
• Development server replacements/upgrades. Conduct periodic assessments of development servers and identify areas of need. With input from users, consider a) consolidating services, b) repurposing retired production servers (if still viable), and/or c) purchasing new equipment or upgrades as appropriate. Work to achieve a balance between a robust environment and management overhead.
• Priority: LOW
  
• Security assessment. Conduct an assessment of security practices, document them, and make improvements where necessary.
• Priority: LOW
• Workflow, processes, and organizational work
• LIT work requests and scheduling. Improve communication of work requests across LIT, including scheduling.
• Priority: HIGH
• Specifics/timeline:
• October-November: Research options and make a selection
• December-January: Install and configure the system and develop a basic familiarity with the capability and features
• January-February: Discuss, within LIT admin, the scope of use, common conventions, and training/orientation needs
• March-April: Migrate management of work queue to system
• Clearly articulate LIT services and resources. Develop clear communication methods and products about the many roles of LIT departments within the Library.
• Priority: HIGH
• Specifics/timeline:
  
• October-November: Develop updated Overview of Services & Activities documents for each LIT unit based on those developed in 2000 for the LITPTF.
  
• November: Deliver these documents via the web with publicity in Library Newsletter and LIT managers volunteer departmental meetings.
• January: Reestablish regular Library Technology Updates to be held on a quarterly basis.
• January: LIT Managers volunteer to begin to schedule departmental meetings to describe/promote LIT services and activities.
• November: Improve representation of internally-focused LIT units on Staff website.
• November: Improve representation of DLPS collections and services to external clients on Library’s gateway site.
• Documentation and standardization of processes. Organize and fill gaps in documentation of the current environment and normal operations; use the process of documenting processes as an opportunity to develop and implement stanadards for those processes.
• Priority: MEDIUM
  
• Specifics:
• Develop a comprehensive list of items that need documentation and processes that need checklists, organize this list into a hierarchy, and assign responsibility for sections.
• Devote time each month to writing sections of documentation according to priority.
• Improve coordination of data loading. Establish communications as appropriate to better coordinate demand for data loading.
• Priority: MEDIUM
• Cost model. Continue development of the model for core service costs based on a simple, known variable such as page or image count, to better quantify resources needed in Core Services.
• Priority: LOW
• Technology trends awareness. Pursue a modest number of options such as trade magazine subscriptions or technology conferences to stay abreast of development in relevant technologies.
• Priority: LOW