The FAILURE of software:
Aleph500 cataloging program

Outline

The importance of software

Software failure

Library software

Brooklyn College software specific functions

Aleph500

Aleph500 software failure

•
•
•
•
THE IMPORTANCE OF
SOFTWARE TO THE
BROOKLYN COLLEGE
LIBRARY
Volume of books
Retrieval time
Unavoidable
Automation

SOFTWARE FAILURE






Introduction
Bugs
Organization specific Vs. User specific software failure
Common reasons for software failure
Some historical cases of software failure
Relation to our presentation

Introduction



Hundreds of thousands of software projects fail everyday
Software companies, not eager to share disaster stories
Reducing the number of software failures is one of the most challenging problems of software production.

Bugs
 Murphy’s Law


Cost to U.S. economy
“Death March mentality”
 Unachievable deadlines
 Too few programmers
 All-nighter credo of college-age jockeys
 Shrinking budgets
 Automotive aerospace industry study

specific versus User specific software failure

What an organization needs might not be what a user needs

What a section of an organization might need might not be what the organization as whole might need

Common reasons for software failure

Software aging

Data corruption

Numerical error accumulation

Exhaustion of system resources

Programmer does not understand the project requirements

Microsoft o/s XP

Some historical cases of software failure








Knight Trading Group Inc
FFASTFILL GET
FURNITURELAND
African Renaissance
USMC Osprey crash
Air-Traffic “glitch”
INTIUT’s tax software
Ebay








Historical cases of software failure cont ’ d
London Stock exchange (Taurus)- book reviews
London Ambulance Service dispatch project book reviews
Integrated reservation system -book reviews
The Performing Rights Society -book reviews
NASAs’ 1999 mission to launch craft into orbit of mars, $125 million
YEAR 2K
SATURDAY’S JAPANESE AIR TRAFFIC
SUSPENDED 30 MINUTES SOFTWARE FAILURE
TV GET PAPER

Relation to our presentation






Software failure is a fact of life
Automation exists due to software
As a result software failure is imminent
The library employs automation
Therefore software failure should not be a surprise
Rather, it should be a REALITY

LIBRARY SOFTWARE






The good old days
3”x5” card catalogs- no more
What would we do without automation?
No more
Automation can help locate books, journals etc, at light speeds. The electron travels fast.
Library staff can efficiently manage their collections and better point students in the right direction

The history of cataloging at
Brooklyn College
 Card catalog used until 1980
 1980 Microfiche
 1988 first online system / NOTICE from
Northwest university
 Technical service end of the program
 CUNY + student end of the cataloging tool
 Aleph500 January 2002

BROOKLYN COLLEGE
SOFTWARE SPECIFIC
FUNCTIONS



Cataloging
Circulation
Etc.

Library structure and needs

Brooklyn college library structure

Technical services function

Technical services old software

Technical services New software

Brooklyn college library structure

Technical services function

Cataloging, Cataloging, and more cataloging

Technical services old software

Technical services New software

Technical services function and structure

Cataloging R us

User, PC, dot-matrix printer,
Aleph500, Operating system

Let’s get going

Technical services picture

Technical services New software

Some companies that offer automated library software

Aleph500

Some companies that offer automated library software











Checkpoint
MARC cataloging software
Athena version 7.1
Winnebago Spectrum 4.0
All above are
SydneyPLUS
Horizon cataloging software
Follet software
ITS International
Voyager
MANDARIN M3 Version 1.5

Some more companies







Via
Surpass
ILLiad
Precision One
“Impact”/ONLINE
HomeMade software D – Wisconsin based school librarian Nels Akre
MARCit inexpensive tool $50.00 for cataloging websites

ALEPH500

ALEPH500 Introduction






Historical background
Self advertisement
Partnerships
Organizations that chose Aleph500
Organization specific functionality
Brooklyn College specific functionality

Historical background






1980: Created
1991: UNIX migration , 1 st library software
1996: Outside U.S. presence
1998: Notre Dame Library, Michiana Academic
Library Consortium
Chicago, Ex Libris
Summer 2000 Boston office

Self advertisement











Manages all aspects of the library, for staff and patrons (cataloging?)
Flexible
Open
Scalable
Expandable
Trustworthy
Multilingual
Client/Server
Cataloging with extensive control
Customer support
Internet Live sessions

Partnerships

SF -Systems : library binding


SFX provides reference linking services among electronic vendors even if they are from different vendors
Sweet Blackwell : serial invoicing

Organizations that chose
Aleph500










London University of East Anglia Summer 2002
PALNI (Private Academic Library Network of
India)
DELCAT
SUNY
CUNY
University of London
Universidad Nacional de Columbia (UNAL)
Brandeis University, MA
The Universidad
Russian state university

Some more organizations









Biblioteca Nacional de chile (BN)
Mcgill University
Notre Dame University
Sorbonne Nouvelle Univesity (Paris)
University of East Anglia (London)
Univesity of Iowa
Brandon University
Archdiocese of Cologne, Germany
Center for Advanced European Studies and
Research (Bonn)

And some more organizations







Harvard University
MIT
University of California
UNILINC LTD.
CA digial
University of Delaware
CO CONSORTIA

Brooklyn College specific functionality



Cataloging tool
Automation makes it easy, or does it?
Label dispensing

A cataloging tool, what is it?



Automated system for creating and editing complex records in MARC format
Has to have a highly trained individual who knows cataloging practices in general and
AACR2 specifically
It must take a significant amount of time to create each record

Automation makes it easy, or does it?
 Aleph500 promises the ease of use of its system to create labels for our library resources, namely books
 DOES IT?

The Problem

Conversion of Aleph generated script in the form of a Microsoft
Word document into two pocket labels and a spine label

Problem background
 The following is a listing of steps necessary to complete the task

We start by retrieving record by bardcode

Enter barcode

Information is displayed/double click label

We get a Microsoft word document

Pocket label

Spine label

Combined label






Old system rendered not operational and removed from Technical services office
New system rendered operational and fully implement able with Windows XP
XP is installed on almost all machines in Technical
Services office
Installation of new Aleph500 cataloging software takes place
Information that was migrated from old system into new system is present and all seems well





Users try to print complete labels, but can not.
Users seem to think that it is their inexperience in software that hinders their tries
Head of Technical services contacts Library director for assistance
Library directors assigns associate director to handle the problem.




Associate director arrives at technical services to apply his knowledge of computers into solving the problem
Associate director discovers that Aleph can only print spine labels and not pocket labels.
Also, the spine labels that Aleph prints are out of order and rendered useless to Brooklyn
College format.




Associate director begins to read the Aleph manual, he soon discovers that through a maco, it might be possible to generate labels
Associate director assigns a software developer to work on the problem
Through the work of the developer it is discovered that printing of labels could not be done in Microsoft
XP or Microsoft 2000 platforms, since necessary driver for controllling custom paper size is not supplied by printer manufacturer.





From initial time of Aleph deployment to discovery that Macro will not work, 3 months have passed
Technical services has become a very slow moving machine.
Users can not use the old system
They resort to manually typing cataloging information






The last time that regular type writers have been used to type cataloging information was 30 years ago
As a result, books are not returning to shelves quickly enough
Technical services is back to using “stone age” tools
Manpower is lost
Technical services, a viable department is shutdown






Technical services is to the Brooklyn college library what air traffic control is to an airport
The work of 10 is done to achieve the work of 1
Frustration is in the air
Tensions between the library executive branch and technical services department are rising
Resources of other departments are being exploited and pointed towards fixing a problem that is a result of an outside agency

In conclusion



The systems office of the library is now involved, a software developer and a technical engineer are working concurrently on the problem of software failure and hardware compatibility
Aleph500 software failure has caused havoc in the flow of information of the library, the core of the library, the controlling unit of the library
Software failure is inevitable and a fact of life, we have witnessed it in this case






Technical services is an important branch of the company
It was practically shutdown
Software was not able to meet needs of technical services, the chief operator of the software
An alternate software solution needed to be developed
Alternate solution was developed but it was discovered that it could not work due to hardware compatiblity issues





Even if the Aleph500 software problem could be solved through Aleph implementation, their software does not support fully the Windows XP enviornment.
The windows XP operating system is the only supported platform of the Brooklyn College Library
It looks like older is still better
The Brooklyn college library is a technological achievement, but its software is a technological nightmare

Summary






Software problems are inevitable
They exist in every organization, no matter what the cost of the software
Aleph500 was touted as a great cataloging program
It did not provide for the complete needs of the
Brooklyn College Technical Office
The office that is the lifeline of the library
It was not completely hardware compatible as it is self advertised and sold

 It did not provide for complete organization specific task management
 It caused the effectual slow down of work
 It was supposed to be a tool of automation but it became a tool that is useless
 Countless worker hours were lost
 Resources of other departments were wasted

 The functionality that it provides still does not work
 You as a student might be feeling the effects of this failure the next time you approach a librarian and ask the following question
 “Where can I find this book?”

 I hope that this presentation has made you understand
 The causes for software failure
 The reality of software failure
 And the effect of software failure on your school