In May of 2022, we held the first KLASUsers' Mini-Conference to provide space and time for Keystone Staff and KLAS Users' to connect and learn from one another as well as share / discuss Keystone company updates and KLAS new features, tips & tricks, and new development suggestions. 2024's Mini-Conference will offer all of that and MORE!

The 2024 KLASUsers' Mini-Conference will be a free, online event accessible via Zoom held:

• Tuesday, May 14 - 1:00-5:00 PM Eastern Time / 10:00 AM-2:00 PM Pacific
• Wednesday, May 15 - 1:00-5:00 PM Eastern Time / 10:00 AM-2:00 PM Pacific

Add the event to your calendar now, then review the initial schedule, and submit your registration form. You can use the "Add to Calendar" button when you visit KlasUsers to register (link below), the day / time of the conference as well as relevant Zoom connection info will be included.

Sessions

This year will again feature sessions with topics of interest for all KLAS Users, as well as more specific Instructional Resource Center (IRC) and Library for the Blind and Print Disabled (LBPD) sessions. New for 2024 will be two sessions featuring updates from staff of the American Printing House for the Blind (APH) and from the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS).

Session Types:

General sessions will share information and updates relevant to all KLAS Users, and no conflicting sessions will be scheduled at the same time they are offered. During these sessions, there will limited time for questions and answers.

Workshop sessions are presented by Keystone staff member or a guest speaker. Attendees are encouraged to ask questions throughout the session. These in-depth presentations share information via different tools such as slides, live examples, and / or user experiences.

Birds-of-a-Feather (BoaF) sessions give participants the opportunity to exchange ideas in a group discussion setting. All KLAS Users are invited to participate in the BoaF sessions they feel are relevant to them. However, we do indicate for each session whether an IRC or LBPD audience might find it more applicable. Topics range from making the most of KLAS features to exploring broader service-related ideas. These sessions are not formal presentations with slides or software demonstrations. Instead, the format is casual and open. Moderators launch the discussion and keep the conversation on topic; participants are asked to come prepared to share and learn.

Get all the details and register at: https://www.klasusers.com/klas-news/2024-klasusers-mini-conference

Today, I want to share a few items of particular interest to our Instructional Resource / Instructional Materials Center users including the upcoming users' meeting at APH, an update about our APH integration project, and a new IRC addition to our Users' Community. Read on for more info about each.

KLAS IRC / IMC Users at APH 2021 Annual Meeting

As part of the the 2021 American Printing House for the Blind Annual Meeting which will be online again this year, Keystone will  host the KLAS IRC / IMC Users' Meeting on our Zoom account.

Date / time of the Users' Group Meeting at APH 2021: Tuesday, October 12 at 3:00-4:30 PM Eastern / Noon-1:30 PM Pacific

The link for the meeting as well as the agenda will be posted once we've finalized the planning.

September 2021 APH Integration Status Update

During our August 24 KLAS New Features Webinar Katy shared the latest info on our ongoing project to integrate KLAS with APH's catalog and ordering system. We know many of you are excited and anticipating the completion of this integration project (as are we) because it means much less data entry and duplication of effort for your staff.

I asked Kyle Honeycutt, Manager of Software Development, for any additional updates he may want to share with our IRC / IMC users. This is what he said:

Using a tool called "PostMan," I have been able to successfully retrieve catalog information, post orders to their test system, and retrieve status of orders. I am in contact with APH and their contractors regarding what information is mapped in which fields, and what criteria to query on to retrieve exact catalog availability. Once all these questions are answered, the next step will be adding calls to these services within the KLAS programs.

Basically, we are using a known testing tool to confirm that the services work as expected, and that we know exactly how to consume them. Then we will introduce the complexity of consuming the processes from within KLAS.

What that means is: we're making good progress and using known tools and processes to accomplish the integration. At this point, our development needs to verify the item information being pulled from APH's catalog is identified correctly and then setup the service to pull it into KLAS in a logical manner.

New IRC Installation

Finally, I want to welcome a new instructional resource center to our KLAS Users' Community!

The West Virginia Instructional Resource Center began their implementation of KLAS this week with an onsite visit from Marion and Mitake. We're excited to work Debbie and her staff in the next few months as we learn their workflow, policies, and process and how to best make KLAS work for their organization and clients. 

We're excited to have them on board, and hope you'll join us in extending a warm welcome.

Since 2018, we've made an annual post detailing our infrastructure and planning efforts to serve your library, your staff, and your patrons after a natural disaster, and share the additional improvements we've made in the last year to our Disaster Preparedness and Recovery plans. We've spent a significant amount of time building infrastructure, reviewing procedures, and planning for an untimely incident. For this year's post, we starting with our most recent upgrades and working backwards to our original September 2018 update.

2021 Updates & Improvements

To prepare for this year's post, we asked Lee what he felt were important updates or changes made in 2021, or for any other info he wants the KLAS Users' Community to know about our efforts. The two items he mentioned are:

1. The recovery process is the the same as before, but note that restoration of databases is sequential (per server), not parallel. So, while a one-hour recovery for a database at top of the queue is possible others at the bottom of the list will have a longer wait as the recovery process works through the list.
2. We have added weekly server snapshots to our AWS backup servers. For an end user, this makes no difference to restoration, but it makes Keystone staff's jobs infinitely easier.

2020 Updates & Improvements

Much of what we put into place as part of our disaster preparedness plan in 2020 is what allowed our staff to begin to work from home in March of that year and continue to do so even today and for the foreseeable future.

On September 1, 2020 posted a list disaster recovery and preparedness process and infrastructure improvements we'd make over the past year such as:

1. Cloud-based databases running in multiple regions, to better place the system geographically near the library
2. Incremental transaction data backups happen every 10 minutes
3. Database backups are saved in the local region, as well as to a separate region. If a database hosted on the east coast has a disaster, there is a copy of the database backup in another region.
4. Database backups are saved to the local server, as well as copied to S3 storage
5. Database backups are also copied from Amazon's data centers to Google Storage
6. A new automated system restoration process which had been manual prior to the beginning of 2020. As an automated process, it takes about an hour while the previous manual process took 10-12 hours at a minimum.

2019 Updates & Improvements

On August 15, 2019, we shared the news of some additional steps we'd taken to further enhance our disaster preparedness and recovery efforts including:

1. Back-end changes to KLAS 7.7 to it quicker and easier to create and store database back-ups
2. A move to storing back-ups in the cloud, so they are safe and retrievable no matter where disaster strikes
3. A new monitoring app so staff can be notified right away if something goes wrong with the servers and any emergencies can be dealt with as quickly as possible

2018 Updates & Improvements

Our September 11, 2018 our first Emergency Recovery & Disaster Preparedness Key Notes Blog post was written as we faced the threat of Hurricane Florence and shared details about we'd implemented at that point including a combination of both procedural and physical preparedness such as:

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

The KLAS Users' Conference is a gathering of library staff and administrators who use KLAS. Traditionally the conference is held in April or early May. The first official KLAS Users' Conference was held in 1997 at Keystone's offices in Raleigh, NC. In the first few years, the location alternated between a KLAS library and Keystone. Since 2006, KLAS library sites have hosted most KLAS conferences with the occasional return to Raleigh.

The KLAS Users' Group approved a conference format change in 2006 that created a three-day Tuesday-Thursday schedule. Keystone staff and members of the KLAS Users' Community cover topics ranging from improving circulation, new releases in KLAS, handling digital media, outreach and more in a variety of formats including general and breakout sessions. Breakout sessions are designed to appeal to a variety of learning styles with formats such as birds-of-a-feather, hands-on, workshops, and seminar classes.

With the impact of COVID in 2020, Keystone staff and the Users' Group Planning Committees took the conference fully online for the first time. This resulted in attendance of over 300 different KLAS Users' from across the country. With such an excellent turnout, a decision was made to present a fully online mini-conference in even years and a hybrid conference in odd.

In 2025, Keystone will partner with the Indiana State Library, Talking Book and Braille Library Service to bring the KLAS Users' Conference to Indianapolis, Indiana. The KLAS Users' Group planning committees have already been hard at work, and are excited to share more specifics about our second hybrid conference. Now, on to all the details you need to start planning your 2025 KLAS Users' Conference attendance:

• Dates: March 17-20, 2025
• Location: Indianapolis, IN
• Theme: Driving Innovative Inclusion in Libraries - Start Your Engines!

Conference Hotel: Embassy Suites by Hilton Indianapolis Downtown

Hotel Conference Rate: $129.00 / night + tax (or the prevailing government rate at time of booking + tax)

Conference Sessions Location: Indiana State Library

Conference Registration Deadlines & Costs:

Registration is not yet open. Announcements will be included in the KLAS Users' Weekly Wrap-up and sent to the KLASUsers listservs when it is. Until then, here are the planned registration deadlines and costs.

Online Attendees:

• Before December 17, 2024 = $85 with Early-Bird discount
• After December 18, 2024 = $100 per attendee

In-Person Attendees:

• Before December 17, 2024 = $200 with Early-Bird discount
• December 18, 2024 - February 16, 2005 = $250 per attendee
• After February 16, 2025 = $300 with late fee

The conference also offers ample networking opportunities during morning and afternoon breaks and the evening Welcome Reception hosted by Keystone Systems.

Past KLAS Users' Conferences dates and locations:

• 2024 KLAS Users' Mini-Conference - Online
• 2023 KLAS Users' Conference - Hybrid (Nashville, TN & Online)
• 2022 KLAS Users' Mini-Conference - Online
• 2021 KLAS Users' Conference - Online
• 2019 KLAS Users' Conference - West Palm Beach, FL (June 4-6)
• 2018 KLAS Users' Conference - Boise, ID (May 8-10)
• 2017 KLAS Users' Conference - Atlanta, GA (March 21-23)
• 2016 KLAS Users' Conference - Anaheim, CA (May 3-5)
• 2015 KLAS Users' Conference - Oklahoma City, OK (April 21-23)
• 2014 KLAS Users' Conference - Boston, MA (June 17-19)
• 2013 KLAS Users' Conference - Chicago, IL (April 30-May 2)
• 2012 KLAS Users' Conference - Columbia, SC (April 10-12)
• 2011 KLAS Users' Conference - Raleigh, NC (April 12-14)
• 2010 KLAS Users' Conference - Columbus, GA (April 20-22)
• 2009 KLAS Users' Conference - San Diego, CA (April 21-23)
• 2008 KLAS Users' Conference - Cincinnati, OH (April 8-10)

For many years, Keystone offered regular Administrator’s Training sessions at our office in Raleigh. Not only did that allow us to give admins in-depth training on their own systems, but it also gave them the opportunity to get to know us and network with a few of their peers as they learned together.

However, travel costs are a barrier to some, and others are banned from business travel to North Carolina for political reasons. Then on top of that, we have a pandemic situation. Even Keystone staff isn’t going into the office right now, and we certainly aren't going to ask you to do so. The answer was clear...as much as we loved having you in person, it was time to offer admin training virtually.

We want to make sure attendees get just as much benefit from the online version as they did from attending in person. That means the online version needs to have just as hands-on, personalized, and interactive an approach as the in-person version did, including opportunities for discussion with the other attendees and introduction to several Keystone staff members.

Training Structure & Content

We took this opportunity to revamp and re-evaluate the structure of the training. Because the in-person version required attendees to stay here in Raleigh, it was kept to two (very busy, intense, somewhat demanding) days. To make it a little easier to absorb all of the information without eating too much into your schedules, we spread out the online version to four half-days running from 1:00-4:30 PM Eastern time each day. The lesson plan itself has been updated from a progressive tour of the admin menu to a more module and task-oriented approach.

Finally, to help attendees orient themselves to each topic and come prepared to discuss their own settings and needs, we developed pre-class worksheets for each session. These worksheets are not checked or graded, it’s fine if attendees don’t have time to get through them all, but they will help ensure you get the most out of the training.

For more information about what is covered, please see the Administrator’s Training – What to Expect article.

Upcoming Sessions

2023 Library for the Blind and Print Disabled KLAS Administrator Training

• March 27-30, 2023
• September 11-14, 2023

2023 Instructional Resource Center KLAS Administrator Training

• TBD by participants after individuals from at least 2 organizations commit to attending a session

Prerequisites for attendance:

• Attendee must have a KLAS Administrator role in their local system
• Attendee has authority to change records and policies for their KLAS system

Training Cost

The training still costs $600 per attendee, which covers the staff time needed to prepare for and run the training session. It comes with an Administrator’s Reference manual, which will be mailed to you (or provided electronically if that’s more accessible for you), the pre-class worksheets, and recordings of each session.

We hope this will allow more of you than ever before to benefit from admin training, as well as letting us continue to offer it safely. Be sure to let us know if you’re interested in joining in!

Registration Form

To register for an upcoming session or express interest in another date, please fill out the following form:

• KLAS Administrator's Training Registration Form

If you have any trouble accessing the form or if you have questions, please let us know! We hope to see you soon.

As many of you will be aware, Hurricane Florence is forecast to bring heavy rains and high winds to central North Carolina, including the area where Keystone's offices are located. We are monitoring the storm closely, and are making plans to minimize the impact the storm may have on us all.

1. We have a generator for critical functions of the office. In the event that our electric power goes out, our systems, servers, network, email, and phone system should remain unaffected.
2. If the roads are unsafe for staff to travel to the office, our phones are VOIP and our customer support staff all have work-issued laptops. This would allow customer support staff to work from home over a VPN and keep supporting you all.
   Depending on the severity of the storm, we may have difficulty responding to support calls as quickly as we'd like, but we'll be doing the best we possibly can.
3. Customers that have their database hosted with us-- for years, we have been storing backup copies of everyone's databases off-site (in encrypted form) in case of emergency. In case the hurricane is really terrible in this area, we have an emergency operations site prepared to be able to bring up all the hosted customers on cloud-based servers within a number of hours. Should this be necessary, connecting to those cloud servers will require local admin rights to load a new set of KLAS support files. We will be sending out information about the backup connections and plans to affected customers as needed.

Another area that we have been seeking to improve: providing a consistent place for customers to be able to check on the status of their database and connections so that it is quicker to identify where an issue might be occurring. As part of the 7.7 release that we are in the final stages of testing, we have been planning to roll out new status pages to report on the status of each library's database.

For this weather event, Keystone is going to use an early version of this system to provide information to all customers on how we are weathering the storm. The Keystone Status notification site is now accessible from the "Keystone Status" menu item on klausers.com and at this URL: https://uptime.statuscake.com/?TestID=emlREBtN3e

This site will show the status of our Support and Hosting networks, and also provide us with a location to post any announcements. The Keystone Support network indicates, among other things, whether our email server is still receiving emails, and if we can expect our phone system to work. The Keystone Hosted Customers ISP indicates whether our hosting network is still communicating with the Internet, and therefore should the customer expect to be able to connect to the database with the staff functions.

• disaster preparedness 
• customer support
• communications

Published: Tuesday, 11 September 2018 20:06
Written by: James Burts

Keystone Systems is pleased to announce a system to store digital files, maintain title data and provide a download portal for patrons and libraries to access digital content. This national repository of locally produced titles is called the SHared ELectronic Files (SHELF) Project.

Participating libraries can contribute materials they have recorded and produced as a digital talking book (DTB). Keystone's integrated national union catalog of locally recorded DTBs provides the infrastructure to make those recordings searchable and easy to download.

Benefits of the SHELF Project include:

• providing a "one-stop-shop" for all NLS format DTB recordings.
• allowing your patrons access to all the recordings provided nationally.
• automatically tracking reader's downloads as a "Has Had".

For more detailed information about the these benefits and more, we invite you to download the SHELF Project flyer:

  SHELF Project Flyer - PDF (32.43 kB)

  SHELF Project Details and Pricing - PDF (134.92 kB)

The SHELF Project FAQ contains Keystone's answers to frequently asked questions about the SHELF Project.

For further information about the SHELF Project, please contact James Burts.