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The 2019 KLAS Users' Conference offers attendees three days of intensive networking and training opportunities with Keystone employees and other library administrators and staff who use KLAS. Why should you attend the 2019 KLAS Users' Conference?Palm Beach Florida Aerial

During the conference attendees participate in:

  • One-on-one discussions with colleagues and Keystone staff
  • General Sessions, Seminars, and Workshops led by Keystone instructors
  • Opportunities to provide feedback to KLAS developers
  • General sessions addressing new features and ways to use KLAS

Host: The Palm Beach County Library System - Talking Books will host the 2019 KLAS Users' Conference in West Palm Beach, Florida

Dates: A pre-conference will be held on Monday, June 3. Conference sessions begin the morning of Tuesday, June 4 and end the afternoon of Thursday, June 6.  Also, an afternoon networking opportunity with other Keystone Staff KLAS users will be held Thursday afternoon.

Registration: Online registration for the 2019 KLAS Users' Conference is not yet available, but here's this year's registration deadlines and fees:

  • Early Bird: $120.00 / person (on or before 1/31/2019)
  • Full Registration: $145.00 / person (2/1/2019 – 4/30/2019)
  • Late Registration: $170.00 / person (5/1/2019 – onsite)

 

Conference Format: Each day attendees will have the chance to network with librarians who use KLAS, attend general sessions and choose from different types of breakout sessions including Workshops, Seminars, and Birds-of-a-Feather Discussions.

Accommodations: The Holiday Inn Palm Beach Airport - Conference Center will serve as the conference hotel for the 2018 KLAS Users' Conference. The hotel offers a free airport shuttle, pool, fitness center, lobby restaurant and bar, and all rooms come equipped with a dorm-size fridge, a microwave, and a Keurig. Our conference rate includes the hot breakfast buffet and free wireless internet.

Getting to West Palm Beach: The Palm Beach International Airport is served by major airlines including Delta, Southwest, JetBlue, American, Frontier, and United.

Local Information:

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Welcome back to the "The Stars of Keystone Systems' Staff" series. Each will include some basic info and insight into one of our staff members. We hope these posts will provide you a look into who makes up our diverse, supportive, and knowledgeable staff.

KeystoneStaffStars

Basic Stats:

Name of Staff Member: Marion A. W. Campbell

Year Hired: 2008

Current Job Title: Customer Service Representative

 marion

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Around our Raleigh, NC office today everyone is talking about how they are preparing their homes for the unwelcome arrival of Florence. But you might be wondering how we’ve prepared our operations and support for such an event.

Disaster Preparedness

The answer is a combination of both procedural and physical preparedness including:

  • A gas-powered generator at our office
  • Redundant internet providers, firewalls, and network routers
  • Daily backups of data to our on-site servers
  • Weekly data backups stored offsite
  • Encrypted database backups on AWS S3
  • VOIP Telephone system to allow staff to work remotely
  • Keystone Status Page to communicate database availability, even if we’re unreachable
  • Contingency plans and equipment needed for remote database and customer support

We have prepared for events like we are now facing—whether the event was a hurricane, ice storm, or some other disaster. Part of our annual SSAE audit is to further review and refine those disaster preparedness plans.

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I hope you had a great Labor Day weekend!

As I’m settling back into my routine, I’d like to update you on the newly-reformed KDAC. The KLAS Development Advisory Committee had their first meeting last week. After a round of introductions, I reported to the committee about what the KLAS developers have been up to, and what they’re planning to do next.

It was a long list—with the push towards large-scale duplication and the need to address certain behind-the-scenes structural issues, we have a lot going on. Naturally, the committee members were curious how, with such a full development schedule already in place, they fit into the process. It’s a good question.

We can always think of plenty of things to work on and improve, come up with new features, and generally decide how we think KLAS should look and work. However, what we think is important to implement might not be what you, the users, really want to see. Some things we know need to get done, such as Gutenberg support and the update to KLAS’ character handling (which will accommodate the diacritics that keep coming up in the NLS MARC records, and should be available soon), but others are less sure. There are only so many hours in a day, so what stays on the developers’ to-do list and what gets tabled? If one library calls Support to request a feature, do we push to implement it, or help them find a work-around?

A big part of how we see KDAC functioning is to help us make some of those calls. By bringing together representatives from different types of libraries, we have a ready-and-willing soundingboard to help us know which features will benefit a lot of users, and which wouldn’t see as much use. We also hope that they will be able to serve as a contact point for the rest of the Users Group, reaching out to people and getting a feel for what people are excited about, concerned about, and what people haven’t even heard of.