Online library services play a vital part in providing access to library resources and services. Thus, it is very useful for library staff to know the status of these third-party services. Downtime is rare, but when staff and users need to know the availability of online services, having a library service status page can be extremely helpful. Fortunately, library vendors know this and increasingly are providing access to websites for displaying current service status and notices of planned interruptions.
Here is a list of the known major library service status pages:
bepress
bepress supports institutional repositories with Digital Commons, SelectedWorks, Expert Gallery Suite, and ExpressO online manuscript delivery service. Their website has a Current Status page that covers all of these services including status details, scheduled maintenance, and recent product updates.
Access the bepress Current Status page.
EBSCO
On its EBSCO Help website, the company provides News and Alerts for its wide range of databases and EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS). You can enter your email address to subscribe to alerts, as well.
Access the EBSCO Help Alerts page.
Ex Libris
With the merger of Ex Libris and ProQuest, Ex Libris took over the support of all library systems and discovery services. The company has created a unified system status page for Alma, Summon, Serials Solutions 360 Link, Intota, Primo, SFX, and more.
Access the Ex Libris System Status page.
OCLC
From the OCLC Support & Training website, you can access OCLC System Alerts. This blog-like site reports current and past maintenance and issues for services including Connexion, hosted EZproxy, WorldCat, and WorldShare products.
Access the OCLC System Alerts page.
SirsiDynix
SirsiDynix is a major library vendor with cloud-based systems such as their BLUEcloud services. The company’s status page contains notifications of scheduled maintenance and outages by region.
Access the SirsiDynix Status page.
Springshare
Springshare understands the importance of providing status information for library resources and services to library users. That’s why they created the Systems Status Dashboard in LibAnswers that allows your library to set up and display the status of your website, LibGuides, local resources, and databases. You can alert users to any planned system maintenance and explain unexpected downtime. For any LibAnswers site that has enabled the public status dashboard, you can view it by adding /systems after their LibAnswers URL. Some examples are Manchester Metropolitan University, the University of Maryland Libraries, and Georgia College.
Read more about the Springshare Systems Status Dashboard.
In addition to bookmarking the above sites, follow your important library vendors on Twitter. That is where they will often post the first announcements of issues and further status reports.