[oak perl] Oakland Public Library electronic catalog still has issues(? ... !)

[Kester Allen]

For what it's worth, the Berkeley Library system is much faster, and
they let Oakland residents get cards -- the South Branch is just over
at Russell & MLK, near Ashby BART.

Happy librarying!

On 7/21/06, Michael Paoli <Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> Hmmmm, perhaps so, ... it seems adequately responsive at present.
>
> Something missing from "failing gracefully" in the design? - like
> the database/system/catalog isn't available now, please try again
> a while later.
>
> Quoting Kester Allen <kester at gmail.com>:
>
> > Hi Michael--
> >
> > I think you had the misfortune to attempt a search during some sort of
> > database or network outage on the library's system-- I use the Oakland
> > library site a few times a week, and although it is very slow, I can't
> > remember the last time I got an actual timeout.  The overall
> > experience is a lot like using AOL over dialup :) but it usually
> > works, eventually.  I'd give your search another try.
> >
> > Another nice thing about the Oakland library is that you can request
> > books from anywhere in the system to be delivered and held for you at
> > your local branch.  I'm currently working my way through the Patrick
> > O'Brian Aubrey/Machurin novels through them :)
> >
> > --Kester
> >
> >
> > On 7/21/06, Michael Paoli <Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> > > I think this was brought up at our last meeting.
> > > I did hear mention on the news some week(s) ago about them doing an
> > > upgrade - they weren't specific, but they did mention upgrading to
> > > "broadband".
> > >
> > > They've got a "Network Upgrade Completed" link on their main page:
> > > http://oaklandlibrary.org/PR/pr070506networkupgrade.html
> > > Looks like they've still got other major changes they've got targeted
> > > to complete by the end of the year.
> > >
> > > Well, ... I figure between 4 and 5 A.M. on a weekday probably isn't a
> > > peak usage period for them, ... but when I try to search - either
> > > their basic title search, or exact title, looking for
> > > Computer-Related Risks
> > > in both cases it eventually times out and gives me an error
> > > indicating that the search timed out, ... and in both
> > > cases the timeout period is longer than I could open a physical card
> > > catalog drawer and find out whether or not that particular title was
> > > in the catalog or not.  Their "Power Search", where I can give it more
> > > restrictive criteria (title word(s) risks AND author neumann) also
> > > likewise eventually times out.
> > >
> > > Back in, I think it was mid to late 1980s, if I recall correctly,
> > > they had direct public dial-up access to their catalog system -
> > > strictly text (terminal emulation) based, ... but at least that
> > > worked.
> > >
> > > It seems there must still be something pretty nastily wrong with
> > > their system or how it was put together or (not) maintained to have
> > > behavior that's this poor, if this is a typical example.
> > >
> > > Hopefully it will be "all better" by the end of the year.
> > >
> > > The Berkeley and San Francisco and San Jose public library catalogs
> > > are quite on-line searchable and respond in quick order, as is the
> > > University of California system-wide catalog system (and the first two
> > > don't have that title, but the latter two do).
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> > >
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> >
>
>
>