Information Technology

As part of an assessment of public AV resources and their usage, the Libraries IT identified 11 group study spaces, used by students and staff, that required physical wires to connect and utilize the AV resources (TVs) in the spaces. By and large, members of the Library and University Communities have come to expect that group meeting spaces have the capacity for wireless connectivity using tools like Solstice, to enable a more seamless user experience, and allow control of devices by a wider range of devices (like mobile and tablets).

Working with Tony Maniaci and our colleagues in OCIO networking, the Libraries has completed the upgrades of the following rooms:

• 040a
• 045a 
• 045b
• 045c
• 051
• 055
• 057
• 244
• 247
• 352
• 359

These updates complete the process of standardizing solstice access across our group study spaces, and should enable our user communities easier access to the AV resources, and open up new methods of collaboration, as we’ve seen in other spaces where these pods have been installed and enabled.

As part of the updates in the rooms, the TVs will now display the connection information and instructions for how to use the devices on the screen. Additionally, Library IT has updated the printed instructions within each of these rooms to note the changes and instructions for connecting wirelessly to the devices. Finally, over the Christmas break, we will be removing the faceplates in these rooms that have the wired connection ports and will be replacing them with blanks to remove any future confusion on how to utilize the screens.

Library IT is currently reviewing AV equipment in our other group study spaces and will be planning future projects like this one in the next fiscal year to continue the process of adding wireless access to our AV resources in our remaining public group study spaces.

If you have questions, please feel free to reach out to me at: Terry Reese (reese.2179@osu.edu)

I realized this week that one of the new partnerships being undertaken by the Libraries and OCIO had likely gone unnoticed (and possibility unreported) and I wanted to rectify that oversight.  The Libraries and OCIO have a long history of collaboration and over the past year, Matt, Jennifer and our OCIO colleagues have been having conversations related to the management of the Libraries’ network.  Managing the network has always required a high degree of collaboration between the Libraries’ and OCIO’s network teams, and a bit of redundancy of service — so the Libraries and OCIO worked out a plan with the hope of gaining some efficiencies, reducing overall support costs, and potentially enabling more rapid growth of network capacity. 

This agreement went into effect around May 2018 and defines which parts of the network infrastructure OCIO will manage and what the Libraries will manage.  Essentially, the Libraries is responsible for the network from the switch down to the local servers, and OCIO manages from the switch out to the external network.  Clear right?  Probably not…so let me illustrate it a different way.  The Libraries new network arrangement with OCIO looks a lot like the way a homeowner interacts with the gas company.  The homeowner is generally responsible for the pipes from the meter into the home.  And the gas company is responsible for the infrastructure from the meter out.  When changes occur within the home or from the street — it is important that both parties communicate those changes.  This kind of mirrors the relationship that we now have with OCIO, and it is encouraging both teams to be more proactive in how we communicate needs and potential changes to our systems.  This clarification of roles is also allowing the Libraries to focus more on our local services  and is enabling OCIO to focus on expand the wireless infrastructure within the Libraries.

What will this mean for users?  For the Libraries staff and users – there should be very little difference.  I would expect our staff and users will see the same high level of network service as they have seen in the past.  Likewise, users should still contact the Libraries via Hub or the Libraries IT support line if one encounters network issues.  Infrastructure Support will then work with the campus networking team to determine where the issue is occurring.  In the case of the network outage that occurred at the Tech Center this week, it was determined that the issue was occurring at the switch – and OCIO dispatched a technician to reset the equipment.  We are now working with OCIO to determine if additional surge protection should be added to protect the switch (as power surges occur more frequently on this part of campus).  In total, the time to resolution was about 2-2 ½ hours from the initial report.  It’s example of how the process should look when things work right. 

Over the next few months, we’ll be continuing to work with OCIO to complete the network “migration” process.  This will require a brief period of downtime to migrate all our services to the new network which is being planned after the academic semester to minimize impact to users.  So, as we work with OCIO to settle on a date and get a better understanding of the total impact for our services – I’ll communicate this to the Library so units can plan around the anticipated down-time.

If you have any questions, please feel free to let me know,

–tr

I’ve been thinking over the past couple of days what I might write about for this edition of “A View from the Support Desk”.  There never is a lack of content.  One of the challenges of working IT Support (like any support unit) is that questions are always coming in.  These can range from simple requests, like making changes to support a new hire to more complicated questions related to unexpected behavior of computers, programs or functions.  This is just the nature of the beast – there is a continual churn that comes with the territory of running a large IT operation within an academic environment. 

But within these normal requests, comes ones that can occasionally stand out.  I’m going to talk about two, very briefly….

The work you don’t see

One of the things that I’ve learned to appreciate while working more closely with IT Support has been the invisible work that you don’t see.  This kind of invisible work exists all throughout the libraries.  Take a simple example, like finding a book.  For the user, this is a success if they can go to the website, do a search, find the item, and check it out.  Simple, right?  It should be – but the reality is, this process only works if the invisible work that needs to happen behind the scenes occurs.  Acquisitions needs to order and process the book, technical services needs to describe the book and load it into our systems, our catalog and discovery tools need to make locating the content reliable, and our circulation systems need to be connected to the patron’s university information to allow checkout.  That’s a lot of dependencies, and the truth is, that’s just a snapshot of what really happens. 

The same is true in IT Support.  I take for granted that when I turn on my machine, it will startup, print, be updated, join the network.  These are common tasks that require significant moving parts and dependencies to work together to create a seamless experience.  But what happens when things don’t work right?  Well, that happens more often than you might think, but you often don’t see it.  We have been dealing with something like this right now.  I’ll save the gory details for another time, but IT Support has been working closely with Dell to correct a bad driver update that made some of our server infrastructure unstable.  And by unstable, I mean, you would have noticed….

However, largely, you haven’t.  Gaymon has been working closely with Dell, and furiously babysitting servers to ensure that when things crash or stop working as Dell troubleshoots, that he can have it back up.  That’s meant that he may be up at 2 am checking on the server or spending all night with Dell engineers helping them troubleshoot their driver issues.  And for the most part, you wouldn’t see that, because in the mist of the chaos, he’s worked to keep user services protected.

In technology support, these kinds of things happen.  Like the example of finding a book – we have a lot of dependencies; vendors we rely on to update software and manage services.  When one of these dependencies have issues, we work harder to make sure that the gap doesn’t affect users. 

Recognizing Phishing

The second story happened just last night, and isn’t necessarily an IT Support issue, but one that should remind us that we all need to remain vigilant to phishing scams.  Two weeks ago, OCIO made departments aware of a phishing campaign targeting the University.  In fact, the University Libraries’ Cybersecurity Awareness Team blogged about it on Sept. 7^th (https://library.osu.edu/site/it/beware-of-phishing-campaign-targeted-at-the-university/) and digital signage has been circulating this information through the libraries.  Who knew how timely this information would be…

Last night, many in the Library community received a phishing attempt in Damon’s name.  This was not an account connected with Damon, but one that someone (or someones) had created to look like the message had been sent from him.  Did you get this message?  I did…and here’s how it started…

There are a couple of immediate tells that should make someone immediately question this particular message. 

• Why would Damon be emailing me from a gmail account?
• Would there be any reason, why Damon would be asking if I was available at 7:48 PM?
• If he wanted to get a hold of me, could he do it a different way?

I get these kinds of messages (though, using Damon was a nice touch) all the time.  We probably all do.  And the reality is, most folks will look at this, and immediately know that this likely isn’t an authentic message.  But, if you are like me, when you seen Damon’s name, you gave this a second look. 

In light of the phishing messages from OCIO, this was a great reminder to remain vigilant and demonstrates how attackers try to leverage social programming (i.e., you see Damon’s name, so you want to respond) in order to get users to compromise information.

So what are you to do?  In this case, I would have written back to Damon using his Ohio State email if I believed that he really needed to get a hold of me.  By following this protocol, you do two things:

• If this was a legitimate message, the follow-up would be seen and responded to.
• If this was a phishing attempt, the sender would be notified that their name had been co-opted by a rogue account…once made aware, they could contact appropriate agencies.

I think this might have been what happened, because Damon let the organization know that an email from a fake account had circulated.  So, by the time I saw the phishing email, I knew that I didn’t have to let him know.  But again, it’s a good reminder to always use a critical eye when looking through email – especially the message received seems out of character for the sender.

Reminders….

Finally – after talking to a few folks over the past couple weeks, it came to my attention that some in the organization don’t realize that the Libraries Technology team (AD&S, Digital Initiatives, and IT Support) maintain a comprehensive IT Help documentation page.  This information provides a wide range of documentation to help users troubleshoot problems.  While a user should always feel empowered to submit tickets to Hub (https://go.osu.edu/hub) to request help on a problem, I wanted to make sure that my library colleagues were aware of this rich resource as well.  We maintain the IT Help on the Wiki – which you can find at: https://library.osu.edu/portal/confluence/display/IH/IT+Help.

Best,

–tr

The past couple weeks on the support desk, we’ve completed a major computer move at LTC, committed significant effort to complete the Libraries annual security audit, continue to be vexed by Skype audio issues on Macs, have begun having substantive strategic discussion around long-term patch management practice, and got a cable bill paid.  So, let’s dig in…

Completed Projects

The past two weeks saw the resolution of a couple projects and outstanding issues.  Specifically, Gary and Rico wrapped up the LTC computer moves.  This was a significant time commitment and collaborative effort by many involved (facilities, LTC Staff, Morag, and IT Support).  Really, this project is a demonstration of how things work, when they work well we strive to collaborate across departments.  These kinds of moves have the potential to be disruptive – but LTC staff were incredibility flexible and the moves were able to be completed on time.  Thanks everyone!

Last week, we were also chasing down issues related to printing and scanning.  Gaymon was able to get both issues resolved, working in partnership with OCIO and Infrastructure Support to identify the network issues and work to correct them.  Additionally, his work with Malwarebytes lead to a patch that appears to have solved the Adobe scanning issues – a fix that helped not only our staff, but everyone within the Malwarebytes community.

Football in the air

Because even football season impacts the Libraries…an example of the kind of eclectic issues that sometimes make their way to the service desk…

Two weeks ago, the cable stopped working down in the Thompson Library Café, and we got a ticket.  Knowing folks might want to be able to watch the OSU/OSU football game, Warren spent a considerable amount of time bouncing between university and Spectrum contacts before he finally was able to make contact with the right person, and cable was restored in time for the game.

And because I know folks have asked – yes – I was rooting for OSU.

(I’m in the #7 OSU Beaver Jersey)

Security is the Word

One of the primary activities for the IT Support team over the last week of August/first week of Sept. has been collecting data and documentation to help Jason complete the Libraries’ annual ISSA security audit.  This is the unseen work that IT Support is continually performing for the Libraries…work that keeps our data safe and our networks secure.  I owe each member of the team a big thank you…in addition to Jason, who leads this effort for the Libraries.

Skype and Macs

If you use a Mac and have to work with Skype, I feel for you.  The Support team has been working with OCIO to try and trouble shoot a number of reported audio issues related to Skype on Mac systems.  These appear to be part of long list of known issues Microsoft keeps related to the Skype on the Mac.  And while it’s great that the software exists and is continuously improving – there are times when I feel like we’ve adopted and are relying on a software solution that is really only ½ baked.

And this issue isn’t a fun one for IT Support – while we are actively working with partners to find a solution, it’s difficult when you have an problem arise that you simply can’t fix.  It’s not what the user wants to hear, and it’s not an answer we ever want to give.  But these things happen.  Like any job or service in the Libraries, sometimes, answers are elusive…so you find partners, and get to work.  That’s what we are doing here.  If this issue affects you, know we are actively looking for solutions across a wide range of venues.  And if this issue does affect you (or you run across others), please make sure you let us know and report the problem via Hub (https://library.osu.edu/hub).  These reports are important as they potentially provide missing pieces that could help us (and OCIO) find a solution, and, more importantly, help us when working with our partners to underscore the scope of the problem.

Strategic Discussions

Finally, my goal for the period of time that I’m helping to lead IT Support is to engage the team in a broad set of strategic discussions related to work that we do.  In the IT space, it’s sometimes easy to get lost in the day to day work, but I’ve found the members of the IT Support team to be deeply thoughtful and ready to engage in the kind of deep strategic thinking that will enable us to do what we do better.  For me, this is where the work gets really fun.

When you need help or have ideas

Finally, just a quick reminder.  Like every unit in the Library, IT Support is here and ready to serve our users.  If you encounter a problem or a support need…please reach out.  Filing a Hub ticket (https://library.osu.edu/hub) helps us route the problem to the best person to answer the question, and gives a historical record that we can use to track support trends and understand how we can do better.  But beyond Help, IT Support is full of members with deep technical expertise, many that have been working with the Libraries for a very long-time.  If you are working on a project or have ideas for a new project and initiative and you need IT Support involved, again — please reach out.  Hub is a great place to start — but if you still working through an idea or need a sounding board, feel free to contact me directly: reese.2179@osu.edu. 

–tr