SPRI library

A recent challenge facing us at SPRI (Scott Polar Research Institute) was the transfer of the entire library IT infrastructure from one network to another. While a number of aspects of the move (once the processes were worked out) were relatively straightforward, there were a few tricky aspects as well. Most of this centred around the library’s cataloguing system, Muscat a DOS (yes that’s right) program dating back to the early 1990’s. The program lived on a networked share and the database itself was on another. The plan was to leave well enough alone and move the whole thing over as it stood…
 
The library consists of 5 staff members and 8 bibliographers that used Muscat on a day to day basis. This also required careful organisation and two days were booked three weeks in advance so to cause as little inconvenience as possible to the Muscat users both during and after the move. In addition to the Muscat shares, all user accounts were moved to the new network as were two other file shares and two networked printers. All 9 staff PCs were rinsed and replaced with 64 bit Windows 7.
What made this whole project do-able, was two tools we use on a routine basis; pxe and wpkg.  Pxe  runs unattended system installs while wpkg installs applications – again unattended, but also remotely (if need be).  Very handy!  Still a very busy two days but on the next day, all staff were able to login to the new system and view/edit Muscat records.
 
The final phase is to rinse and replace 5 catalogue kiosk computers in the library and it is anticipated that this will be completed around the end of next week.