As was reported at the last meeting, we were unable to schedule the transfer from the VAX to the Alpha before the start of term, largely because of difficulties in bringing together two key individuals, one from SLS and one from I.T. Services, to set up the connections to the local network. Matters were not helped by the absence on sick leave for almost a fortnight, of the SLS staff member. They were tactful enough to refrain from pointing out that we are similarly placed locally, and that the individual concerned here was unavailable for a substantial part of September. The performance of the new machine has been all that was promised. CPU utilization at these times averages between 15 and 20 per cent.
Work is almost complete on setting up a related works enquiry option and a Boolean search option.
The initial conversion to MARC format was carried out in-house by SLS during August, and the converted file loaded on to the Alpha shortly after it was installed. The incorporation of the records into the main database and the necessary recreation of the file indexes were carried out at the beginning of the Christmas vacation. The opportunity was taken to rearrange access to the alphabetical subject index as two separate enquiries. The public catalogue enquiry menu has now been split into two as the single menu was becoming overcrowded. These concerns might have more relevance, if the operating system concerned were not OpenVMS, and if the supplier concerned were not Digital.