Kitchen Sink

Other Odds and Ends That don’t have a place yet…

All kinds of odd things come up that no one expects until they happen.

SAM is an interface that our library has on all public access Internet terminals.  It communicates with our patron database to confirm their library card number and discover if the patron is blocked from using library services.  When patrons sign on to the Internet at our library, they do so through SAM, which sets up an account for them at that time and gives them an hour time limit.  When using computers at our branches, sometimes the Internet computers are the only ones that can be used, which means that SAM needs to be circumvented in some way.

Troubleshooting SAM – we have ten library cards set up with dummy accounts.  In these accounts we’ve given the ‘patron’ a three hour time limit, as well as multiple sessions per day.

Some of our SAM computers are set up with 15 minute time limits on them – this is separate from the user account.  The 15-minute status has to be shut off by someone with administrative access to SAM.

As with all things SAM, you have to coordinate with the powers that be before hand, to minimize troubleshooting in the field.