Losing Library Data

[Lynn Autry <tlautry@EARTHLINK.NET>]

  I would like to thank all the wonderful people who have written to me with
ideas on how to manage this crisis.  I will post a HIT in a couple of days.
The most important thing I learned, which I really already knew, was that
having backups is critical. I had no idea that I could be backing up to a
hard drive on any computer in my library all along.  Rest assured that I
will be doing this in the future. In fact, I see multiple backups in my
future.  I will never trust a server again.
  Now for the good news.  Our in-school technician had done a backup on
January 28th before she did an update to the Follett program.  Guess who's
computer this backup was on...MINE!  I didn't even know it.  But it gets
better.  The district tech people were at school today and they said they
WILL be able to retrieve most all of the data from the old servers hard
drive.  (They had to bring in a new server today)  So it seems that we may
not loose any library data at all!!!  Please keep your fingers crossed.  At
the worst, we will just be one month behind and we had multiple snow days in
February so its not as bad as it seems.
  In the meantime we are still checking out books using old check-out cards
that had never been thrown away.  We had to blow the dust off them first. It
was amusing to see the faces of these high school kids when they were handed
a card to sign their name on.  They had no idea that libraries used to use
cards to check out books. Our district's libraries have been automated for
at least the past 15 years.
  Many of you were curious about the backup tapes.  Apparently they were
just old.  In fact, I checked today and they had been purchased back in June
of 1999. That is another lesson learned.  Backup tapes need to replaced.  I
don't know how often, maybe someone on this list does.
  Once again, a big thanks to all of you that responded. Friday afternoon
was one of the worst in my library career.  Your words of support and
encouragement helped me get through this weekend.

Lynn Autry
Central Hardin High School
Cecilia, KY  42724
lautry@hardin.k12.ky.us (school)  not working yet...ha!
tlautry@earthlink.net (home)

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