System Failure Forces NYPL to
Turn to Manual Methods
Users at the New York Public Library’s 85 branches had to resort to searching the stacks and checking out books manually when the library’s four-year-old online system, which typically serves as many as 1,600 users at any time, went down for several days last week.
The system “faltered intermittently over the weekend,” explained NYPL Director for Communications and Marketing Nancy Donner, eventually becoming unusable by March 20. Technicians from Epixtech and Hewlett-Packard were able to bring the system back up around 6 p.m. on March 21. An Epixtech statement said that the problem was resolved by replacing some of the components of the disk array.
Donner said that library staff searched for books manually and circulation staffers used hand-held scanners to enter information to be downloaded once the system was restored. Noting that “Libraries worked for hundreds of years without electronic resources,” Donner said her department had not heard of any increase in complaints, although one patron told the March 22 New York Times that she “saw a lot of people getting frustrated, yelling at the woman at the information desk.”
Posted March 27, 2000.
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