CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
"No new books at Edinburgh libraries due to IT problems"
(8 posts)-
Posted 7 years ago #
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"No new books at Edinburgh libraries due to
IT problemscutbacks."FTFY
Posted 7 years ago # -
"They still cannot enter new books on the new system and put them into the catalogue."
To be fair, who would have anticipated a library IT system would have to be able to add new books?
OK, here's the thing, I spent a handful of years working in IT.
#1: Who are the IT people? Council employees or an outside company? If it's an outside company, how much were they paid?
#2: Did the client (council) specify that the system would need to add books? If not, why not?
#3: If they didn't specify this, why didn't the IT people ask? When you design systems, it's your job as the analyst to find out how those systems will be used.
i.e. You make sure the client gives you everything. And that includes questions like, will items be added to this database?
#4: Given this problem was identified in February, how come it hasn't been fixed? Are IT people saying, "We gave you what you wanted, this is new stuff"?
#5: Why are they creating an IT system in the first place? Think about all the library IT systems in the world. You should pretty much be able to take an existing system and plug it in. (With some tweaking.)
(A quick google search just confirmed this.)
Big picture: Back in my day, I'd knock out programmes like this in a couple of weeks. And that includes thorough testing.
This sort of incompetence is incomprehensible to me. But it seems the norm when the government is involved.
PS My above points aren't based on the idea I was some sort of "IT superman."
I worked in a department of around 30 IT people. 20 of them could have fixed this sort of stuff within 3 weeks.
Posted 7 years ago # -
The one thing we can be sure of is that the Scotsman will have garbled the story beyond recognition.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Funny - they use a standard off-the-shelf program to run the library inventory/lending/etc. It's so standard that the same system is used in at least 4 other local authorities in Scotland...
More likely a lack of training.
Posted 7 years ago # -
It could be a configuration issue. Perhaps someone forgot to give their terminals permission to write to the database.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Whatever the issue was it seems to have been fixed, at least in the children's section. Half the books my children chose this month were new at the start of November.
Posted 7 years ago #
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