[BEFORE CLASS, UN-CONFIGURE NETSCAPE FOR TELNET & TN3270]

[DON’T KNOW HOW TO UN-CONFIGURE ON A MAC, could change it, if not delete it]

[HANDOUT USER SUPPORT DOCUMENT]

[HANDOUT FLOWCHART]

[ENCOURAGE QUESTIONS]

Library Gateway User Support

[HAD USE TRAINING, NOW USER SUPPORT]

[DESCRIBE OUTLINE OF WORKSHOP]

[BACKGROUND]

[TECHNICAL SUPPORT STRUCTURE]

[TROUBLESHOOTING]

[SAMPLE PROBLEMS]

Background

• Premise

The service desks in the library, mainly the reference desks, are the primary points of contact for Gateway users who have questions or problems with the Gateway or the services and resources it delivers.

 • The Gateway user can contact any reference desk in-person, via phone or email.

[IN-PERSON]

Gateway users will approach the desk in-person to ask Gateway-related questions. These questions may result from using a computer in the library or from using the Gateway from a computer located in their home, office or laboratory.

[PHONE]

[SHOW LIB DIRECTORY, FOUND IN THE FOOTER OF MOST PAGES]

The user community will also contact reference staff via phone. There are a variety of ways patrons can get a reference desk phone number, including the library directory in the Gateway.

[EMAIL]

[SHOW BOTH FORMS, BUT DON'T GO INTO DETAIL, MORE LATER]

Increasingly, Gateway users are contacting reference desks using email. Patrons may already know their favorite reference desk’s email address and will direct their questions to that reference desk. Emailing questions to a reference desk is made quite easy by the email forms that are found in the footer of most Gateway pages. Both "Reference Question?" and "Problem Connecting?" will send messages to the reference desk of the patron’s choosing. The intent is for any kind of reference question to be directed to the "Reference Question?" form. If the question or problem seems like a technical problem, we hope the patron will choose "Problem Connecting?". The "Problem Connecting?" form prompts the user for information that may assist in answering the question more quickly.

• The nature of the questions will vary.

• Reference Questions

Many of the questions will be "typical" reference questions. The patron may ask for a very specific fact. The question may be very general and open-ended. In either case the question may or may not be related to the Gateway. Examples of Gateway-related reference question are:

"What database can I use to find current journal articles on global warming?"

"How can I get a copy of the ‘Voting Rights Act of 1965’?"

"What is the truncation symbol in Social Sciences Citation Index?"

"What percentage of US children live below the poverty level?"

We should remember that some reference questions will be answerable with Gateway information resources, but some will still be best answered by print or other information resources.

The information resources in the Gateway have been selected by collection development staff across all units of the library. These resources are equally accessible by all library patrons and staff. This creates the likelihood of a patron sitting in a science library using a humanities resource. Reference staff in that science library may not be familiar with the interface or the content of that humanities database, yet the patron may expect assistance from the library staff where he is using it. There are database searching guides in Gateway Help for many of the individual resources where we can seek assistance, but we need to continue to refer questions to libraries that have the subject expertise.

In some cases reference staff will be assisting a patron but may not know the best resource to use or may not remember some details of how to search a particular database. In an effort to share our collective expertise, IRPC-L can be used to post reference questions that we need assistance with. Send the question to IRPC-L@cornell.edu, begin the subject line with REFQ: and following it with the subject of the question. This will allow IRPC-L subscribers to distinguish between IRPC-related information being distributed and reference questions in need of assistance. IRPC-L subscribers can then share their expertise through the list, but the original poster of the message retains "ownership" of the question and gets back to the patron.

IRPC will continue to work on future ways of using technology to assist reference staff with answering and referring questions.

• Comments about the Gateway

"Comments about the Gateway" is another form accessible from the bottom of most Gateway pages allows users or staff to send comments or suggestions about the Gateway to the library staff who are designing and maintaining the Gateway. The form can be used or a message may be sent to the listserv directly: LIBGATEWAY-L@cornell.edu.

[SHOW COMMENTS FORM]

Comments appropriate to send include how well you like or dislike the Gateway or some feature of it. Also send a comment if you have a suggestion on how to improve it.

• Technical Questions

Some of the Gateway-related questions will be technical in nature. There are many different kinds of technical questions and problems that will come up. The source of the technical problem will not always be apparent.

Sample problems and questions include: "I can’t connect to LEXIS-NEXIS?"

"When connecting to MLA Bibliography my Net ID and password are not accepted?"

"How can I access the Gateway during my sabbatical visit to Japan?"

"When trying to connect, I get the error message: ‘application not found’"

The rest of this document/training will focus primarily on technical questions, how to understand the nature of the questions and how to resolve them.

 

Technical Support Structure

• A good reference interview is integral to answering any reference question, including those of a technical nature.

Reference staff spend more time asking questions than answering questions. It is no different when trying to answer Gateway-related technical questions.

In order to solve the technical questions, it is important to learn about the patron’s local technical environment in addition to understanding the question as initially stated.

• When the patron is in the library, you can observe their computer and see what they are doing. Your course of action will be based on your own observations, but you may still need to ask some questions.

• When the patron is calling, many questions may be necessary to ascertain the nature of the problem. You will need to ask the patron to describe what happened or to check certain settings on their computer. Since you can’t see their computer, you will need to ask them to do the looking for you.

• When the patron has emailed, many questions may be necessary to ascertain the nature of the question as well, but email isn’t interactive. It is more difficult to ask multiple and follow-up questions when communicating via email. Therefore, it is important to get as much information as possible in each email communication, in order to expedite the problem solving process.

If the patron used the "Problem Connecting?" form, you may have received enough information about the problem to answer the question. If that form was not used, follow-up by asking some of these questions:

[SHOW PROBLEM CONNECTING FORM AND EXPLAIN]

What is the operating system of your computer? Mac? Windows 95? Windows 3.x?

[SHOW WHERE TO LOOK FOR OPERATING SYSTEM INFO]

[USE TRANSPARENCY FOR ‘OTHER’ PLATFORM]

What kind of Internet connection do you have?

What resource are you having problems with?

Has it worked in the past?

What error messages did you receive?

How can we contact you?

You can use the "Problem Connecting?" form, which is accessible from the bottom of most Gateway pages, to help know what questions to ask. You could even fill out the form while talking with the patron on the phone and then print or email the question to your own reference desk. You could then use that information to help you follow-up on the question.

Remember, you are collecting information that may be useful to answering the question, even if you may not be the one to finally answer the question.

• Attempt to answer a technical question whenever possible before referring it.

You will know the answers to many questions from your own experience using the Gateway and as a result of this training session.

[EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW THIS!!!]

[SHOW 3 PARTS OF HELP, GIVE OVERVIEW, ALLOW TO BROWSE A BIT]

[WILL RETURN TO THIS LATER IN TRAINING]

If you do not already know the answer, try to answer the question using the Gateway Help. These pages have a wealth of information that will assist anyone, staff or library users, in answering many questions. In particular, note the Help on "SideCar", "Configuring Applications in Netscape" and the "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQs). Whether it is a problem with SideCar or you are trying to configure Netscape, Gateway Help is the place to start when solving a Gateway problem. The question you have been asked has probably been asked before, so check Help to see if a FAQ has been provided.

If you can’t determine an answer from the Gateway Help, check with colleagues in your unit to see if anyone else knows. You are likely to get an answer when utilizing the collective knowledge of your immediate colleagues.

• Send the technical question to LIBIT-L, if you can not answer it.

LIBIT-L is a listserv subscribed to by experts within CUL who can answer the question. These experts are from information technology, technical services, public services, collection development and other departments in the library. They are available to resolve the questions too difficult or too uncommon for desk staff to be expected to answer. This is similar to referring a regular reference question to someone with more knowledge. LIBIT-L will be monitored 8:00am-5:00pm, Monday through Friday. One of the experts will make sure each question gets answered by someone. Response time will vary. Sometimes the answer will come back in minutes, but there will be a response at most within 24 hours during weekdays. If you do not have access to email at your reference desk, you could use Netscape mail or you may have to wait and send the message when you return to your desk.

[READ THROUGH IN WORKSHOP]

• Call, if the technical question you can’t answer is an emergency or is urgent.

Sometimes the impact of the problem is large, as when the Gateway is not responding and you get the error message "MySQL not responding" or "Internal Server Error". These errors affect all potential Gateway users and is considered an emergency. If you get the message or if the impact is affecting multiple computers, get in touch with someone immediately by calling.

If an immediate response is important, you can also place a phone call. Sometimes a problem’s impact may not be broad, but the impact may be high for one person or one library. For example, if a faculty member contacts the reference desk with a technical problem that needs to be resolved immediately because she is traveling to Bolivia the next morning, please feel free to call.

Do not call if, for example, the problem seems to be affecting only one computer in the library or if there is no urgency in resolving the problem. Send such a problem to LIBIT-L.

[READ THROUGH IN WORKSHOP]

[SUMMARIZE REFERRAL OF QUESTIONS, USING FLOWCHART]

[LIBIT-L FOR NON-EMERGENCIES]

[255-1381 FOR DAYTIME EMERGENCIES]

[255-5406 FOR AFTER HOURS EMERGENCIES]

[INCLUDES NOTIS QUESTIONS, BUT OK TO CONTACT LTD OR CIT AS IN PAST]

[ALLOW UP TO 30 MINUTES TO THIS POINT]

 

Troubleshooting

• Technical Environment of the Library Gateway

Our focus is on the Library Web-based Gateway, but the Mann Telnet Gateway is still in fairly wide use. It is used in some libraries that do not have Web-capable computers. It is also used by some remote users who find their network connection speed too slow for Web use. Some use it out of habit and could be encouraged to switch to the Library Gateway.

All the titles in the Telnet Gateway are also in the Library Gateway, plus the Library Gateway has many more. In particular, many new resources are Web-based only and therefore can not be made available through the Telnet Gateway.

The Telnet Gateway is accessible by Telnetting to <albert.mannlib.cornell.edu> and logging in as <gateway>. Remote use requires a personal account, which is set up by Mann Library and is independent from a Cornell Net ID. Problems associated with the Telnet Gateway can be referred to LIBIT-L or 255-1381, just as you would a Library Gateway question.

The balance of this document is referring to the Library Web-based Gateway.

• Web Browsers

For library users to access the Gateway information, they need to be using a Web browser. A number of versions of Netscape are in use in our user community, but we have found that Netscape 3.0 is the most widely used on campus and is the most trouble-free when accessing the Gateway. The version of Netscape can be determined in the Mac by selecting the pull-down Apple menu in the upper left-hand corner and choosing "About Netscape". On a Windows 95 computer, select the "Help" pull-down menu and choose "About Netscape".

[SHOW HOW TO IDENTIFY VERSION OF NETSCAPE]

[SHOW TRANSPARENCY FOR ‘OTHER’ PLATFORM]

• Web Servers

Multiple computers contain the Web pages that make up the Gateway. Each of the computers has Web server software installed that makes the Web pages accessible to library users. There are links between the pages that pull them all together so that it appears to be all one environment.

[SHOW STATIC VS. DYNAMIC PAGES]

• Web Pages

Much of the content of the Gateway is delivered to the user in the form of Web pages. Many of these pages are created and maintained by library staff in a manual way. Each Web page is composed, written in HTML and placed on a Web server for public access. Some of the pages are dynamically created by programs produced by library staff. For example, when searching the Networked Resources part of the Gateway, the Web page that comes back with the search results is produced "on the fly". Selected pages within Networked Resources are static pages. The "Greatest Hits" list is not created "on the fly". When you are actually using a networked resource that is Web-based, that information is usually coming from a non-Cornell computer. In that case, someone other than library staff has produced the Web pages.

• Networked Resources Database

The Networked Resources part of the Gateway is essentially an online catalog of the electronic resources the library has made available over the campus network to the Cornell community. This catalog is maintained in a My Structured Query Language (MySQL) database. Catalogers create records of the networked resources in NOTIS and then migrate them to the MySQL database and add some supplemental information. That database is then accessible in a variety of ways from the Networked Resources page of the Gateway. Lists of information resources can be browsed by subject, alphabetical by title or by "Greatest Hits". A Web form also allows a search by keyword. Whether browsing or searching, the results can be refined by selecting a resource type. The results are displayed as a list of resource titles and brief descriptions, each with a link that makes a connection to the resource itself.

• Helper Applications

Many of the networked resources are Web-based, so a Web browser is all that is needed to connect to and use the resource. In some cases, the information resources are in a different format and require an additional application or program to view or use them. These additional programs are sometimes called helper applications. Netscape (or your browser of choice) needs to be configured to automatically launch the appropriate Helper Application when encountering a non-Web resource in the Gateway. Within Cornell libraries, public access computers already have the helper applications installed and Netscape is configured properly. Users may have some difficulty on their personal computers.

The following list of helper applications represents those needed for viewing Library Gateway resources. Other helper applications may be needed for general Web surfing, but support is not provided by the Library. Non-Library technical problems can be referred to the CIT Help Desk.

[HAVE THEIR BROWSERS UN-CONFIGURED FOR TELNET & TN3270]

Telnet & TN3270

A number of the information resources require the user’s computer to act like a remote terminal in order to access the server and therefore the information resource. There are two major categories of terminal emulation programs, those that emulate a VT100 (or similar) terminal and those that emulate an IBM 3270 terminal. There are applications for each type of terminal emulation for both Macs and PCs. TCP3270 for the PC and dataComet for the Mac are currently distributed to the Cornell community via Bear Access free of charge by CIT. Others are available for free or for a fee. For further information, go to "What is Telnet?" within the FAQs of Gateway Help.

[POINT OUT TELNET EXPLANATION, BUT DON’T SHOW]

[HAVE STUDENTS TRY TO CONNECT TO A TELNET & TN3270 RESOURCE]

If a computer is unable to connect to a selected Gateway resource and returns an error message of: "application not found" or "unable to find application", this is a Netscape configuration problem.

[SHOW ‘CONFIGURING APPLICATIONS IN NETSCAPE’ LINK]

Acrobat Reader

Some resources available via the Gateway are PDF (Portable Document File) documents. These require the Adobe Acrobat viewer to display. This viewer is available at no cost from the Adobe Web site. Instructions for downloading and configuring  Acrobat Reader for Netscape can be found in Gateway Help under "Configuring applications in Netscape".

[DEMONSTRATE DOWNLOADING OF ACROBAT (if time) FROM ABOVE LINK, BUT HAVE ALREADY DOWNLOADED AS WELL, IN CASE THERE IS A NETWORK PROBLEM]

[CONFIGURE NETSCAPE FOR ACROBAT]

[SHOW BASIC NAVIGATION BRIEFLY]

When the document is displayed, navigation from page to page is possible in a number of ways. Note the right and left arrow buttons at the top. You can also use the scroll bar on the right. The "go to" option allows you to select a specific page number and jump to it.

Acrobat Reader is already installed on library public access machines. If remote users have problems setting up or using Acrobat, please feel free to forward the question to LIBIT-L.

Excel

Some information resources, most notably many of the USDA data files, are in a spreadsheet format, usually with a .wk1 or .xls extension. There are a number of spreadsheet programs that will display these files, including LOTUS 1-2-3 and Excel. The most common in Cornell libraries is Excel. It is available for both the Mac and the PC. There is also an Excel Viewer available for Windows 95 computers. A viewer allows data to be displayed and printed, but not manipulated. The PC Excel Viewer is free and can be downloaded from Gateway Help. If the full application is needed, Excel or another spreadsheet program must be purchased and is not freely available to the campus community.

[SHOW HELP, BUT DON’T GO INTO DETAILS OR DEMONSTRATE]

Netscape must also be configured properly so it will automatically launch a spreadsheet program or viewer. Instructions for this can be found in Gateway Help under "Configuring applications in Netscape". Library public access computers are already set up properly.

• SideCar and Kerberos

Authentication is often managed by checking for legitimate Cornell Net IDs. Kerberos and SideCar are two pieces of software that facilitate that process. The user’s computer must have SideCar installed, and Kerberos will be automatically installed with it. Having Kerberos installed and running does not automatically give a user access. It just facilitates the process of checking the user’s Cornell Net ID.

[SHOW GATEWAY HELP FOR SIDECAR]

[SHOW HOW TO START SIDECAR]

[SHOW HOW TO IDENTIFY IF SIDECAR IS RUNNING]

[SHOW TRANSPARENCY OF ‘OTHER’ PLATFORM]

When using Bear Access, SideCar is automatically downloaded and installed. If you are not using Bear Access, it is recommended that you do, at least to obtain SideCar. Go to Gateway Help for links to CIT for downloading and installing Bear Access. Start SideCar just as you would start any application. You can determine if SideCar is running the same way you would check to see if any application is running. On a Windows 95 computer, SideCar might be hidden even though it is running. Launch it again to make sure.

• Authentication

The Library Gateway is available for use by anyone with World Wide Web access. Browsing all the Gateway Web pages is not restricted in any way. Use of certain networked resources is limited to current Cornell faculty, staff and students. There are three primary ways to manage that restriction; IP number, Cornell Net ID and Cornell ID.

[DON’T NEED TO BE AN EXPERT. NEED TO KNOW ABOUT AUTHENTICATION]

Authentication is managed primarily by IP. All on-campus use of the Gateway allows unrestricted use of all resources. Cornell facilities that are located off-campus are generally given access comparable to being on-campus. Geneva Experiment Station and Cornell in Washington are such examples.

Net ID authentication is used only for controlling access to restricted databases when the user is coming from a non-Cornell IP, ie. a non-Cornell location.

In some cases the only method of authentication of users possible for a particular resource is by IP. In such cases, off-campus use of those specific resources is not permitted even by current Cornell students, staff and faculty members.

Authentication methods are driven by database vendor requirements and technical feasibility. There will continue to be substantial variability until industry expectations and technical standards become more uniform.  A guide to authentication methods for Gateway databases is available on the CUL staff web page.

Sample Problems

[GO THROUGH FIRST 2 PROBLEMS, USING GATEWAY HELP]

1) A patron working in the library calls you over to her machine. There is

a message that says "MySQL Server Down". What do you do now?

2) Mr. Farmer in Podunk, Iowa, emails the reference desk wondering why he

cannot use the Agricola database. He has SideCar running. What questions

would you ask him?

[ALLOW THEM TO TRY SOLVING THE REST ON THEIR OWN]

[REVIEW ONE AT A TIME IF TIME ALLOWS]

3) The phone rings at the reference desk. A professor who is going on

sabbatical in Timbuktu wants to know if she can use the Campus Gateway from

there. Can she? How?

4) A patron emails the reference desk frantic because when he tries to use

a networked resource he is getting an "Application Not Found" message. What

is the solution?

5) A patron calls the reference desk complaining that none of the resources

work anymore. You discover that she recently installed Netscape 4.x. What

is the possible problem?

6) You help a student select a database and when he clicks on the database

title the message "Connection refused by foreign host" appears. Why is the

student being refused access?

7) You are attempting to use a database to answer a phoned in email

question. When you select the database that you need to use, the message

"Internal Server Error" appears. What do you do now?

8) Someone using BIOSIS is attempting to display her search results but her

machine keeps crashing. She has done the same search 3 times and it has

crashed each time. What is wrong?

[GIVE OUT WRITTEN ANSWERS]

[WRAP-UP]

[REVIEW PROCEDURES USING FLOWCHART]

[ENCOURAGE THEM TO MAKE SUGGESTIONS ON IMPROVING ‘HELP’]

 

April 17, 1998
Martin Schlabach, mls5@cornell.edu, Mann Library
Cornell University Library
URL: http://sigma.mgtlib.cornell.edu/techsupport_script.html