[Web4lib] Ideas on emergency systems support

[Jack Drost]

The director of the library here would like to look into contracting with
some type of service to provide 24/7 emergency backup for our systems in the
rare case when one of our systems staff cannot be reached. The library has
two staff and a faculty member here who are familiar with all of the library
systems and can restart the various services, reboot servers, contact the
database vendors for database problems or campus IT if there is a network
outage. We are all available by cell phone and the staff who work nights and
weekends have a phone list to work down when there is a problem. Usually I
get the first call for any afterhours problem and we get systems back up
quickly, but perhaps twice a year something will go down and a systems staff
member cannot be reached immediately. My director would like an outside
contractor to call as a last resort in these cases.

I am not sure where to begin looking because not only will this outside
contractor have to be familiar with unix, linux and Windows, they would also
need to know the basics of our ILS system, database subscriptions, ezproxy
and the various other software packages we run for such things as electronic
reserves, printing, ILL, federated searching, digital archiving, etc. We are
currently working on documentation for each server and service we run with
information on basic problem diagnosis, what services should be running on
each server and how to restart each service. I could try to make that
documentation detailed enough that a contractor who is called on once or
twice a year is able to help, but I have my doubts.

Has anyone else looked into contracting with an outside service for the rare
occasions when your regular systems staff cannot be reached after hours?

Thanks,

Jack Drost

Director of Library Systems
UAH Salmon Library
drostj at uah.edu