Cylinder Audio Archive Moves To New Back-End Database

October 24, 2017

This morning the Cylinder Audio Archive switches over to the UCSB Library's next generation database, the Alma system from Ex Libris, as our back-end database. Users should see no change to the search experience or functionality of the system, though a few interface improvements have been made such as hot-linking of genre terms and better display of titles. Take numbers for certain cylinders no longer display, which we hope to have fixed shortly. If you discovery any broken links or problems, please contact library staff.

The Cylinder Audio Archive has been running continuously since October 2005 off of the Library's Aleph database, which was retired this summer. For the technically inclined, the old search interface was built through Z39.50 queries to the Aleph system which accounts for its 12 years of continuous up-time. The new system uses the SRU (Search/Retrieve via URL) system in Alma. By maintaining this live connection to our library catalog, all updates and additions we make are instantaneous and new content can be added daily.

Many thanks to the Library technical and metadata staff (Ian Lessing, Ana Fidler, Catherine Busselen, and Chrissy Rissmeyer) and Special Collections staff (Dain Lopez and Nadine Turner) for seeing this process through.

We look forward to the next dozen years with Alma!