PINES
Home

PINES System Problems, January 2012 - A Message to Our Library Patrons

The PINES system, which is administered by the Georgia Public Library Service, upgraded its software and hardware setup on January 12 - 16, 2012.  The version of the software we were previously running is now out of support and we required an upgrade.  We also believe that these changes will prove to be a significant improvement over our previous setup, and we view it as a step forward for our software system and the PINES library system as a whole.  Unfortunately, any system change of this magnitude comes with risks and problems that only reveal themselves when the system is actually in production use, and this change has been no exception.

We have experienced two service outages since our upgrade.  One was a planned service outage during the hours of 9 p.m. Monday evening, January 23 and 12:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, January 24.  The other was an emergency outage between the hours of 2:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, January 24.  We understand that these kinds of service outages cause a disruption for our libraries and for our patrons at home trying to access the PINES online catalog.

We are also aware of the following ripple effects that the underlying system problems have caused:

  • library patrons have failed to receive courtesy email notices for hold requests that are available for pickup, for items that will be due soon, and for items that are overdue
  • due to a delay in the overdue fines generation process, some patrons have appeared to have inconsistent billings, which we expect to be resolved over the next few days
  • library patrons have had problems while using the catalog to locate items or access their accounts
  • library patrons and staff have been generally inconvenienced by the system's performance

We would like to apologize for any inconvenience these issues have created for you.  Please know that the in-house and contract staff of the Georgia Public Library Service are working around the clock to resolve these problems and restore the system to the level of stability and responsiveness that you expect.

Thank you for your continued support of PINES and Georgia public libraries.

Sincerely,

The PINES staff of the Georgia Public Library Service