Two if by LaND North Dakota Duo Wins Top Prize with SiteSearch Malia Watson, Open SiteSearch Product Support Specialist	Also in this issue News & Notes New Marketing Director ALA-Midwinter 2000-Training Dates Tips & Techs Z39.50 First Phase Results
Ellen Kotrba and Mark Diers faced a bit of a dilemma when they attended their first Open SiteSearch training session in Dublin OH this fall. The North Dakota Library Association's annual conference was approaching quickly. Ellen and Mark were responsible for implementing the first phase of the Library access North Dakota (LaND) project for the conference. LaND is a joint venture with the North Dakota library community, the North Dakota University System, and the North Dakota State Library, under the direction of the ND Library Coordinating Council. The LaND project grew out of the statewide library service vision, articulated in Library Vision 2004, to provide all citizens of North Dakota with "convenient and timely access to information." Its mandate required that LaND be able to search both local and remote Z39.50 resources and support cross-database searching. SiteSearch would fit the bill. Of course, this was the first time that they were touching the software -- with the conference was just a couple of weeks away. And even though they were learning all about version 4.1.0, they planned to implement a 4.0.2 environment since 4.1.0 wouldn't be released until the week of the conference. But once they learned about the merge and de-duplication features of 4.1.0, concerns surfaced. Merge and de-dup would complement the demonstration perfectly. But the window between the release date for 4.1.0 and demonstration was narrow -- only four days. Could the two of them put together the test environment and configure the extra features in such a short time based only on the training sessions and documentation? With the help of project planning assistance, Ellen and Mark decided to take their chances. Ellen, the techie support specialist and librarian of the duo, gathered database and server configuration info, while Mark, the systems guy, worked on the new IBM box to install the software. Ellen created new topic areas and group databases that they would need, and stepped through the documentation. Working from the "vanilla" interface, the two configured an environment in time for the conference, which went well. In fact, the LaND project earned the Exhibit of the Year award and impressed librarians and administrators across the state. Looking back on the project, Ellen had this bit of advice for SiteSearch users in a similar situation: "Prepare for the publicitiy early on!" They're now ready to take on the next phase of LaND. The two-person operation spent all of 40 hours -- one week -- to install and implement their "test" environment. They had the right mix of technical background for computer systems and library databases to ease them along. Working with project planning, they were able to focus on their immediate requirements. LaND questions may be directed to: ndsladmin@state.nd.us