Pittsburg State University - Pittsburg, Kansas
	PSU Home | PSU Search | GUS / Logins | A-Z Index | Campus Map | Contact Info. | Comments | Help
	Pittsburg State University

PSU Library Consortium - Library System Replacement

Institutional Overview

The Pittsburg State University Library Consortium is comprised of libraries from Pittsburg State University (two sites: The Leonard H. Axe Library, and the Kansas Technology Center Library), Pittsburg Public Library (Adult and Youth Services), Pittsburg Unified School District 250 (six sites), and the Fort Scott Community College Library, Fort Scott, Kansas.

The mission of the Leonard H. Axe Library is to provide materials and services which effectively enable members of the PSU academic community and Kansas citizens to reach their learning, teaching, research and service goals. Two subsidiary missions are the education of present and potential Library users in the use of the Library's resources, and the collection and preservation of the region's cultural and intellectual heritage. The Axe Library is large selective Federal Documents Depository and a State of Kansas Depository

The PSU Library Consortium bibliographic holdings are comprised of approximately 577,000 bibliographic records, 850,000 item holdings; 22,101 serial titles; 70,000 patrons, with an annual circulation of all agencies and branches combined of over 334,000.

A replacement exercise for the Consortium's current (legacy) Dynix library system commenced in 2005, with proposed delivery of a new system in late 2005 and a go-live intent for early in 2006.

We are interested in the fullest demonstration of the following areas of service or “modules”:

• Public/web access catalog (including children's, Spanish, and ADA skins)
• Cataloging
• Circulation
• Collection Inventory
• Reserve Book Room
• Acquisitions
• Serials
• Reporting and Notices
• Inter-Library Loans
• Digital Collection Management
• Federated Searching
• Newspaper Index
• System Administration and Indexing Interfaces

It is our intention that demonstration scripts and further questions prepared by PSU and Consortium staff may be used to amplify vendors' "standard" demonstrations in order to give Consortium members the best possible overview of the products available in the marketplace today. A site visit will require a minimum two-day presentation/interview to cover the necessary components.

Technical Overview

Pittsburg State University's data network is installed and maintained by the Office of Information Services. A gigabit ethernet backbone interconnects thirty buildings on campus and delivers 10/100 ethernet to approximately two thousand stations, including open computer labs and public access ports in meeting rooms. Campus dorms are wired "port per pillow," with network and Internet service available to each resident. PSU uses WiFi standards IEEE 802.11b and 802.11g in most buildings on campus (including the Axe Library). These standards provide up to 54 megabits/second connection speed.

Internet service is 12Mbps, provided by the Kansas Research and Education Network (KanREN). Campus Internet traffic is shaped to provide higher priority for academic needs during the day, but P2P and gaming traffic are permitted freely outside of classroom/business hours. PSU is moving toward Network Address Translation (NAT) for most non-server machines, including both academic/administrative and residential.

The Axe Library currently maintains eight servers utilizing Microsoft Windows 2003 Server, Windows 2000 Server, Novell Netware 5.0, Red Hat Linux 7.3, Fedora Core 2, and IBM AIX 5.1L. These servers provide file and print, domain, web, proxy, and Directory Services (both NDS and Active Directory) as well as hosting the library ILS and OPAC. The ILS server is currently housed within the Office of Information Services (OIS) computing center in another building. All other servers are housed within the library.

The systems staff at the Axe Library are responsible for 35 staff and 110-120 public access workstations running Windows XP/2000. The network is 10/100 Mbps switched Ethernet within the library, with gigabit Ethernet links between other buildings on campus. Campus internet services are provided by KANREN at 12 Mbps. All library connections are currently on non-NAT’ed subnets.

USD 250 is a KANREN partner and has a 4.5 Mbps link to the internet which supports approximately 2000 staff/student hosts running a combination of Mac OS and Windows. 100BaseFx Fiber Optic connections connect each district location to the central USD 250 Technology Office. Six schools (Pittsburg High School, Pittsburg Community Middle School, George Nettels Elementary School, Lakeside Elementary School, Meadowlark Elementary School, and Westside Elementary School) access the ILS utilizing this network.

Pittsburg Public Library hosts approximately 40 machines running Windows OS. Their internet connection is SBC DSL service at 1.5-3.0 Mbps downstream and 384-512 kbps upstream. Five of their workstations currently have static IP addresses for IP-based access to the ILS.

Fort Scott Community College, located 35 miles to the north of Pittsburg, in Fort Scott, Kansas, is also a KANREN partner and has a 4.5 Mbps link to the internet. Tentative plans are in place to increase this to 6 Mbps sometime during summer 2005. The FSCC Library hosts 12 public workstations and two staff workstations accessing the ILS.

If any points need clarification, please contact

Robert A. Smith
Special Projects Librarian
Pittsburg State University
Leonard H. Axe Library
1605 S. Joplin
Pittsburg, KS 66762-5889

(620) 235 4115 (Phone)
(620) 235 4090 (Fax)