[WEB4LIB] RE: Historian software

[Amy Hynek]

I gave Historian a try on one of our public Internet workstations this past
summer. We were also interested in usage of our subscription databases. The
log file it produced filled up rapidly, with all the activity from users.
It caused some error messages, and the log file abruptly ended in the late
afternoon (starting it at 8:30 a.m.) I had to empty it everyday, and even
sometimes that wasn't often enough. I talked to the folks at Fortres, and
they couldn't tell me the max file size it supported. They were able to
tell me how to get rid of the errors I was getting from a too full log
file, but that's about as far as it went.

The log file wasn't all that helpful anyway for statistical purposes, at
least what I was able to decipher. I admit that I didn't spend a bunch of
time on it though, with other projects to work on at the time, Historian
fell by the wayside.

Another option is Internet Manager at:
http://www.elronsoftware.com/coindex.html
We haven't yet installed this, but it was suggested either on this list or
the libsoft list at some point in time.

At 08:37 AM 12/10/99 -0800, Jule' Ketcham wrote:
>Karen,
>About two years ago when I was working for another institution I purchased
>both Fortres and Historian from Fortres Grand Corp. (www.fortres.com).
>Fortres worked very well for our public access Windows 95 machines, but
>Historian fell so far short in functionality that it was removed from our
>test computer and never installed on our other machines.
>
>I had hoped that we could track usage for our subscription databases and the
>amount of time patrons used those databases, but the software failed
>utterly. Can't remember all details but I do remember that Historian was
>clunky and unwieldy, and we looked elsewhere for statistics gathering
>software. I would hope that this product has undergone substantial upgrading
>since then and that perhaps now it works as billed.
>
>*********************************
>Jule' Marie Ketcham, Librarian
>jmketcham at cerritos.edu
>Cerritos College
>11110 Alondra Blvd.
>Norwalk, CA 90650-6298
>(562)860-2451 ext. 2415
>http://library.cerritos.edu


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Amy J. Hynek
Library Computer Specialist
Madison Public Library - Administration
201 W. Mifflin St.
Madison, WI 53703
phone: (608) 266-4953 / fax: (608) 261-4283
email: ajhynek at scls.lib.wi.us
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