Re: [CODE4LIB] Back-of-house software

[Mike Smorul]

I'll put up a vote for redmine. We use it w/ a few commercial plugins from
redminecrm (helpdesk, crm, and ticket-checklists) to handle most of our
internal procedures and process documentation. Specifically its positioned
to handle the following:

* Internal infrastructure changelogs (tickets) and documentation (wiki)
* Helpdesk response
* Order tracking.
* Internal/organization wiki.
* Individual project progress, documentation and issue tracking.

One feature we make heavy use of is nesting projects to allows us to both
segment work and still see an overview of what's going on w/in a department.

There are a few things we don't use it for:
* code browsing - handled by github or an internal gitlab server
* office document storage - handled internally via file-share or sharepoint
* public project websites - either main drupal or ghpages

On Wed, May 11, 2016 at 9:46 AM, Erin White  wrote:

> Following this thread closely to see what y'all use.
>
> We evaluated our institution's IT support desk software and found the
> interface pretty hostile to problem-submitters. Instead we've stuck with
> our own in-house problem reporting system that has a much simpler user
> interface. It meets many business needs but doesn't integrate with our
> other systems (documentation, etc.) and our software development workflow.
> So we have some things we could be doing much better.
>
> --
> Erin White
> Web Systems Librarian, VCU Libraries
> (804) 827-3552 | erwh...@vcu.edu | www.library.vcu.edu
>
> On Wed, May 11, 2016 at 3:48 AM, Ben Companjen  >
> wrote:
>
> > Hi Stuart,
> >
> > First thought (or what should have been my first thought): what
> problem(s)
> > are you trying to solve?
> > I sometime wish I had software that is better geared for service
> > management (including incident management, CRM and documentation), but in
> > our small organisation with three main services it has already been
> helpful
> > to structure the information differently and get it together in
> well-known
> > places. For the Dataverse service that I'm managing we use Google
> > Drive/Docs, ownCloud and JIRA.
> >
> > Incident and service request management is the most important
> > process/business function that I think would benefit from software
> support.
> > Emails, tasks and notes in various places aren't enough anymore to keep
> > track of problems and questions. JIRA helps a little, but not all
> requests
> > relate to software problems and I don't want to use it for every
> > simple-to-answer question.
> >
> > Have you asked your institution's IT service desk for suggestions? They
> > might be able to support when you choose the same software. Our IT uses
> RT
> > and seems happy with it. I'm hoping to get a queue for Dataverse-related
> > requests in their system.
> >
> > Hope this helps.
> >
> > Ben
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 10-05-16 23:42, "Code for Libraries on behalf of Stuart A. Yeates" <
> > CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU on behalf of syea...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > >I’m looking for recommendations for software to run our much of our
> > >academic library back-of-house business-as-usual work. Things like
> > incident
> > >management, CRM, documentation management, etc across three tiers of
> > >support.
> > >
> > >We’re looking for something more structured than a mediawiki wiki (which
> > >we’ve got) and probably less structured than full-blown ITIL. We’re
> happy
> > >with open source or proprietary,  self-hosted or cloud solution, but
> we’re
> > >not happy to pay the kinds of money that Alemba (formerly VMWare) are
> > >asking for vFire Core (formerly VMware Service Manager).
> > >
> > >We have library management system (ALMA), a discovery system (PRIMO), a
> > >website (httpd, drupal), a proxy (EZproxy) and a copyright management
> > >system (Talis Aspire). Our institution provides us with user management,
> > >physical access management, VM host, email and physical infrastructure.
> > >
> > >Thoughts?
> > >
> > >--
> > >...let us be heard from red core to black sky
> >
>

Re: [CODE4LIB] livestream suggestion

[Mike Smorul]

Adobe Connect's academic pricing isn't too prohibitive on a per-host
session.

If you're looking at just straight streaming and don't mind codeing red5 is
a pretty decent flash streaming server.


Ustream and their more commercial Watershed offering is pretty nice and the
production software makes it pretty easy to switch between sources
(desktop, webcam, etc). The service charges per attendee minute, so if you
expect a lot of traffic, this may start to get pricy. You do have the
advantage us reusing their CDN though.

If you have the bandwidth and expect a lot of traffic, Wowza has a nice
on-site server that can host a fairly decent number of connections.


On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 9:57 AM, Toby Greenwalt
theanalogdiv...@gmail.comwrote:

 Nate -

 Have you tried a Google Hangout? You can stream live to Youtube, and
 audience members require zero extra software to watch/participate. We used
 it last night for the OITP digital literacy program, and it worked pretty
 well for us.

 Toby


 On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 8:45 AM, Nate Hill nathanielh...@gmail.com
 wrote:

  Can anyone suggest the most wonderful high quality ad-free live streaming
  service I could use at my library?
  Happy to pay some $ for a subscription, but only for the most bestest.
  Thanks
  N
 
  --
  Nate Hill
  nathanielh...@gmail.com
  http://4thfloor.chattlibrary.org/
  http://www.natehill.net
 

Re: [CODE4LIB] Web archiving and WARC

[Mike Smorul]

Hi,
 We've been working on a tool to help manage warc files after you have
piles of them. It supports basic searching and content browsing. We've done
some testing up to ~10Tb of warc files and it's still fairly responsive.

https://wiki.umiacs.umd.edu/adapt/index.php/WarcManager

-Mike

On Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 11:46 PM, Erik Hetzner erik.hetz...@ucop.eduwrote:

 At Wed, 23 Nov 2011 18:30:02 -0500,
 Edward M. Corrado wrote:
 
  Hello All,
 
  I need to harvest a few Web sites in order to preserve them. I'd
  really like to preserve them using the WARC file format [1] since it
  is a standard for digital preservation. I looked at I looked at Web
  Curator Tool (WCT) and Heritrix and they seem to be good at what they
  do but are built to work on a much larger scale then what I'd like to
  do -- and that comes with a cost of increased complexity. Tools like
  wget are simple to use and can easily be scripted to accomplish my
  limited task, except the standard wget and similar tools I am familiar
  with do not support WARC. Also, I haven't been able to find a tool
  that can convert zipped files created with wget to WARC.
 
  I did find a version of wget with warc support built in [1] from the
  Archive Team so that may be my solution, but compile software with
  dirty written into the name of the zip file is maybe not the best
  longterm solution. Does anyone know of any other simples tool to
  create a WARC file (either from harvesting or converting a wget or
  similar mirror/archive)?

 Hi Edward,

 The WCT uses Heritrix behind the scenes. Basically Heritrix or
 wget+warc are your only two solutions, unless you convert to WARC from
 something else. And I have never seen another crawler that gathers the
 information that needs to do into the WARC file.

 Heritrix isn’t that bad to get up  running. The more tricky issue is
 what to do with the WARC files once you have them.

 best, Erik

 Sent from my free software system http://fsf.org/.

[CODE4LIB] Research Programmer Position

[Mike Smorul]

Summary:

The UMIACS ADAPT Project is looking for a Java programmer to assist in
a number of open source digital preservation efforts. This programmer
will initially work in a small group to help develop and extend
several Tomcat/MySQL based web applications. Due to the small size of
the research group, applicants must be able to work independently and
will be expected to set their own schedule and identify deliverables
within the context of current projects. Applicants will work with
external collaborators to ensure the software meets the needs of the
broader digital preservation community. Minimal travel of one to two
times a year will be required.

Daily Activity:

The developer's will focus on building a new web application in
collaboration with the Lab's researchers and faculty. In any given
week the developer will be expected to spend:
● at least 20 hours of software development and testing.
● at least 5 hours working with outside collaborators to identify
necessary additions and identify software bugs.
● at least 3 hours a week attending conference calls and group meetings.

Required Skills:
● Experienced in Java 1.6+
● Bachelors degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering or
equivalent work experience.
● Familiar with java persistence or similar ORM technologies
● Experienced in developing database backed Servlet or RESTful web services.
● Experienced developing and deploying applications on Tomcat server
installations running on linux.

Excellent candidates should have the additional experience.
● Familiar with developing command-line python utilities.
● Experienced in developing applications in a CI environment
● Minimal Systems Administration experience in a Linux environment.
This position is a demanding professional position that will expose
applicants to a wide variety of technologies. Applicants must show a
desire to continually explore new technologies and work with others to
identify new challenges in digital preservation.

About ADAPT
The adapt project is a research group housed within the University of
Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies. The group has worked
with numerous partners including the Library of Congress and U.S.
National Archives to develop several technologies to assist in long
term digital preservation at scale. For more information and a list of
projects currently supported by the ADAPT project, please visit
http://adapt.umiacs.umd.edu

Applying
If you are interested, please contact Mike Smorul directly by emailing
the following information to msmo...@umiacs.umd.edu
- Your CV
- Three references.
- A portfolio which includes either pointers to web applications you
contributed or descriptions of applications you assisted in developing
and your role during development
- Your salary requirements

Re: [CODE4LIB] Programmer Orientation to Library/Lib Sci

[Mike Smorul]

Some lessons from my own introduction coming from an IT/Comp-Sci
background years ago.

Focus more on the why and use-cases rather than the technology. From a
programming perspective much of the technology isn't terribly
difficult and is well known at a basic level. How it's used, why
certain choices were made is the most important information to convey.
If you hired a programmer for a specific task, don't focus on
dictating technology, they should tell you what is current, but rather
what you need and want from the application. Helping them understand
how the data is accessed by your end-users if probably the most
valuable information you can convey.

Be prepared to answer questions and frustrations with library
standards that aren't really machine actionable. One older example is
METS, while it is XML, there is very little you can do to infer higher
a higher level of organization without extensive best practice
description or profiles.

-Mike

On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 9:57 PM, P Williams
williams.tricia.l...@gmail.com wrote:
 Introduction to this community and related conferences really helped my
 introduction to libraryland and its vernacular.

 Regards,
 Tricia

 On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 10:04 AM, Laura Smart laura.j.sm...@gmail.comwrote:

 Hi folks -

 What do you include in orientation when you hire a programmer
 (excellent, experienced, of course), who isn't familiar with
 library-land?  MARC is a given, ditto the ILS, plus e-resource
 management back end (OpenURL parsers, proxies and the like).  From
 those of you who came into libraries for other industries:  what do
 you wish you knew about libraries, library/info science, and library
 operations when you began? I'm especially interested in anything which
 gave you an ah-ha! moment when you were working with library data --
 the implicit things which didn't make sense until you knew why those
 crazy librarians did things the way they did.   Also - which resources
 were particularly valuable to you as you gained familiarity with your
 new environment?

 Your insight is deeply appreciated,

 Laura J. Smart
 Metadata Services Manager, Caltech Library
 la...@library.caltech.edu/laura.j.sm...@gmail.com