MeLCat system restored after outage
Michael Mayday
Issue date: 11/19/09 Section: News
MeLCat, an electronic system for the loan of library books, videos and audio, came to a halt last Saturday when the MeLCat Web site went down came down with a bug.
Linda Moore, public sources librarian, said the bug may have entered the MeLCat library exchange system late Friday night, bringing the system down around 8 a.m Saturday.
Moore said the bug lasted until about 9 a.m. Monday. She said the damage to students was minimal thanks in part to the weekend, when library traffic goes down.
"This was the longest time it's gone down, partly because of its timing over the weekend," Moore said.
MeLCat handled 78,999 loans through the month of October.
Three groups are responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the MeLCat system: Innovative Interfaces, Inc., MeLCat staff and the Michigan Department of Information Technology.
III is based out of Berkeley, Calif., and maintains the MeLCat servers, and was off hours for the weekend. However, Moore said as soon as they were contacted with the problem they began working on it.
Deb Biggs Thomas, Michigan e-library coordinator at the library of Michigan said every MeLCat library in Michigan was affected by the bug.
"It was my understanding that there was some server issues that made it go down," Biggs Thomas said. "Thankfully it was on a weekend, which on a grand scale may be less of an issue for some than others."
Senior Igor Stelea, reference desk worker, said a student approached him when the site wouldn't load on her computer.
"I was told to refer her to the Interlibrary Loan," Stelea said.
ILL is a book exchange between libraries across the nation where books are found on the in other libraries that aren't a part of MeLCat.
Moore said the response time of the MeLCat team and III was a big help and kept book requests to a minimum of 42 when it went back online Monday morning. She said the library caught up within the day.
Linda Moore, public sources librarian, said the bug may have entered the MeLCat library exchange system late Friday night, bringing the system down around 8 a.m Saturday.
Moore said the bug lasted until about 9 a.m. Monday. She said the damage to students was minimal thanks in part to the weekend, when library traffic goes down.
"This was the longest time it's gone down, partly because of its timing over the weekend," Moore said.
MeLCat handled 78,999 loans through the month of October.
Three groups are responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the MeLCat system: Innovative Interfaces, Inc., MeLCat staff and the Michigan Department of Information Technology.
III is based out of Berkeley, Calif., and maintains the MeLCat servers, and was off hours for the weekend. However, Moore said as soon as they were contacted with the problem they began working on it.
Deb Biggs Thomas, Michigan e-library coordinator at the library of Michigan said every MeLCat library in Michigan was affected by the bug.
"It was my understanding that there was some server issues that made it go down," Biggs Thomas said. "Thankfully it was on a weekend, which on a grand scale may be less of an issue for some than others."
Senior Igor Stelea, reference desk worker, said a student approached him when the site wouldn't load on her computer.
"I was told to refer her to the Interlibrary Loan," Stelea said.
ILL is a book exchange between libraries across the nation where books are found on the in other libraries that aren't a part of MeLCat.
Moore said the response time of the MeLCat team and III was a big help and kept book requests to a minimum of 42 when it went back online Monday morning. She said the library caught up within the day.
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