September 12, 2003

To the XXXXX Library Consortium User Community:

Many people have been wondering what happened to cause our serious system performance problems in the past 2 weeks.

Since last February, we knew we had performance problems. We spent months trying to identify possible bottlenecks with our internal and telecommunications network. As far back as late April, we expressed concern to our software/hardware vendor that our computer capacity was insufficient to meet public demand. When the schools and colleges opened two weeks ago, our server failed to carry the load. Our vendor has finally admitted that they knew when we first approached them we needed to buy a new computer but they were reluctant to tell us.

On September 9 we were finally able to pinpoint iBistro as the reason for system instability and we decided to shut it down. We chose to sacrifice iBistro - the public interface, over the staff interface. Our libraries needed their basic circulation and cataloging abilities in order to carry out their mission of serving their patrons. Unfortunately, this meant that you, the library patrons, have been the ones to deal with the agonizingly slow experience of iBistro. This also meant that the public perception of the SAILS Library Network has not been very favorable. I hope that there are many of you out there that realize we were doing everything in our power to fix the situation.

Since we were told the truth of the situation, we have had our vendor move our iBistro to a fast server, hosted at their facilities in St. Louis, until we are able to negotiate a permanent solution. We are continuing our dialog with our vendor communicating the great inconvenience they have caused to thousands of library users in Southeastern Massachusetts.

XXXX Library Consortium has always tried to provide quality service to our members. We very much regret that we have been unable to do so recently. We have restored service and I think you will be pleasantly surprised with our response time. We are committed to continuing that level of service.

Sincerely,

XXXX XXXXXXXX

Executive Director