Sage Council Meeting Minutes
For
November 17, 2020
Attendees: Mark Rose (chair), Perry Stokes (Vice-chair), Beth Ross (Sage), Jon Georg (Sage), Marsha Richmond, Mary Mitchell, Dea Nowell, Ryan McGinnis, Rachael Fox, Mary Reser, Denine Rautenstrauch, Ann Zuehlke
Request for additional agenda items– None offered.
Approval of September 2020 minutes – Dea Nowell motioned to approve minutes, Ryan McGinnis seconded. Minutes were approved.
Committee Reports
Cataloging Committee – (John Brockman –chair of Cataloging Committee)
The cataloging committee met on October 5th for its bi-monthly meeting. In this meeting, the committee nominated and approved Celine Vanderlugt from La Grande as the incoming chair for the new year. Beth provided an update on authorities, and then John gave an announcement regarding the recent policy change excluding GMD terms from new RDA records. There was then a discussion regarding WebDewey and some of the challenges/shortcomings of using Dewey Decimal for certain collection materials. The meeting concluded with an examination of the new cataloging revisions approved by the User Council at its last meeting. The CAT1 assessments have been completed and we currently have a candidate well into the process.
Petition for temporary withdrawal from Sage
Elgin High School Library (resource sharing member) asked if they could temporarily withdraw from Sage due to Covid closures and non-use of the system. Records would remain in the system but hidden in the OPAC and the library would not circulate or place holds. After some discussion, a motion was made by Ryan McGinnis to approve the temporary withdrawal, with Denine seconding the motion. All in favor.
Recent system problems
Jon has been investigating the frequency and nature of the service interruptions and determined that it has happened every day since November 6. Based on the logs it looks like a memory allocation and possible VMware issue. Since EOU houses these virtual servers, Jon has contacted them to see what can be done. He is being pro-active in monitoring the load levels and is restarting services most times before it becomes a problem.
Server upgrades
Beth discussed the possibility of server replacement to increase capacity and performance. Jon pulled together a quote for replacement of dbprod.sage.eou.edu (production database server) and db.sage.eou.edu (replication/copy of database) for approximately $9,592 each at the high end with customization. In replacing both database servers we have the ability to use the existing servers for hosting our own application servers and providing a better test server. We are also looking at the possibility of having a third application server to distribute the load more. There is currently 25,000 set aside for server replacement. Since these new servers will last 5 to 10 years there is plenty of time to build the server reserve back up. The dbprod.sage.eou.edu server was purchased in 2013, db.sage.eou.edu was purchased in 2010, and the test server sage.eou.edu was purchased in 2009.
Dea Nowell made a motion that we move ahead with the purchase of replacement servers for dbprod and db. Ryan McGinnis seconded the motion. There were no objections and the motion passed.
Evergreen Upgrade
Beth discussed that, in conjunction with the server upgrade, we could upgrade to 3.6 of the Evergreen software. With the purchase and set up of the new hardware we could be looking at possibly February for the Evergreen upgrade. More information on the upgrade will be given at the January Sage Council meeting and via the listserv.
Additional discussion
Mark Rose asked if there was any other topics of discussion, such as Covid issues. Some libraries have gone back to curbside pickup with an increase in local Covid cases. Others have remained open since numbers of patrons remain small. Some libraries have time limits set for browsing the collection and/or using the computer.
Meeting adjourned