LTS Newsletter: July 2024

Library Technology Services, Harvard Library

Welcome to Library Technology Service’s occasional newsletter for anyone interested in Harvard Library IT.

DevSecOps Update

The DevSecOps Transformation initiative at LTS continues to make significant progress. Having established development, QA and production Kubernetes environments, teams are actively migrating applications to the new platforms. This infrastructure promises to deliver greater visibility, optimized performance, streamlined automation, and enhanced security.

A major milestone was also achieved with the implementation of an automated technology pipeline. This modernized the end-to-end software delivery process through integrated continuous integration, deployment and testing. Faster and more reliable releases will soon be realized through the new automated workflows.

Those interested could find the technical details of how this DevSecOps transformation was designed in the project charter: DevSecOps Transformation Project Charter.

OpenAthens

OpenAthens is an authentication system that provides single-sign on access for subscribed electronic resources (e.g. journal articles). It is a replacement for EZProxy and will offer more flexibility in how users are authenticated. LTS is working with EBSCO to implement OpenAthens on an initial group of about 5-10 platforms, including JSTOR and Taylor & Francis. The platforms planned for this initial phase were chosen because they have current issues with EZProxy, have IPv6-related authentication issues, or they are moderate-level use resources based on course reserves data.

In July, the implementation of OpenAthens will reach some major milestones, including integration with HarvardKey and initial set-up and testing of the first round of electronic resources. The move to OpenAthens should be seamless for end users as they will continue to login via HarvardKey for access. For more information, please see the OpenAthens update slides presented in May.

ArtSTOR/JSTOR Changes

This spring and summer ITHAKA has introduced a series of changes for JSTOR Forum users, including the introduction of a new record structure and the retirement of the Artstor platform in August.

Work records are no longer supported in Forum and the migration to a new structure of Container records and Standalone records is complete. For more information about the migration and new Forum cataloging guidelines, please check out the JSTOR Forum wiki. The wiki includes links to training sessions and materials provided by the Image Cataloging and Access Working Group, as well as a new JSTOR Forum Metadata Field Reference.

LTS is currently working on modifications to the Forum harvesting pipeline to accommodate these new changes and ensure Forum records are harvested and published to Harvard Library systems. This work is anticipated to be completed in August.

As part of the Artstor retirement, the Fine Arts Library content that is currently discoverable in Artstor is being migrated to the JSTOR platform. This work will be completed by August 1, 2024. More information about where to find the institutional collection on JSTOR will be coming soon!

LTS Staff News

Geo4LibCamp

Maura Carbone and Dave Mayo, LTS software engineers, attended Geo4LibCamp last month, an annual conference for librarians & library technologists working with or supporting the use of maps and spatial data. Maura presented on our implementation of GeoServer, the data store for the Harvard Geospatial Library, and our collaboration with Princeton to optimize its delivery of geodata to students and researchers.

IT Summit Presentation

Maura Carbone, Maura Meagher, and Phil Plencner, developers and contributors to the LTS Discovery Portfolio, joined Vanessa Venti, Digital Collections Services Manager in Harvard Library’s Digital Collections Discovery team at this year’s Harvard IT Summit to present on the work to upgrade and enhance CURIOSity, the Library’s platform for showcasing digital collections, with a session entitled, “Improving Discovery with Open-Source Tools."