David Percik the Chair of BIALL posted the following message to UK LISLAW yesterday..
Over the last couple of days I have talked to various people at PLC, and I can now pass on an official response by one of PLC’s directors to the issues raised on LIS-LAW on Monday afternoon. The main purpose of the response is to provide those concerned with details of the most appropriate way to communicate officially with PLC about their problems, as well as a list of the information it would be useful to include in any such communication. I will be happy to respond to any questions or comments that anyone has about either the response itself or any other aspect of the situation.
Here’s PLC’s comments
We apologise for the performance problems a number of our subscribers are still experiencing. We are working very hard to resolve these issues. We have made significant progress ? a number of the initial problems have been successfully resolved ? but we recognise that several issues remain to be solved. We are currently working very closely with a few firms to diagnose and resolve these for everyone.
These problems have all stemmed from complications relating to our system upgrade. We are very disappointed that we were unable to predict these more effectively ? particularly as we have enjoyed such a good record to date with our subscribers. We also recognise that our communication might have been better ? although it is often hard to get this right in an environment where problems are evolving.
The problems that remain are, in general, intermittent and can manifest themselves in different (sometimes unique) ways with different firms. In saying this, we are not suggesting that particular firms are alone in experiencing problems.
To solve the remaining issues we need to diagnose them as precisely as we can. We recognise that this can be very difficult, particularly for librarians ?caught? between the users and us. But we would be very grateful if you could continue to help us in this. Whenever a problem is reported, it would be very helpful to know the following:
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- When exactly did the problem arise and for how long did it last?
- Who is experiencing the problem, can you provide us with their details?
- Authentication method: IP address/Username+Password
- Is it a logging-on issue or a problem relating to accessing a particular page?
- Which page were they trying to access?
- How delayed was the response time (to the nearest 10 seconds)?
- Are they getting an error message? Can you send us a screen-shot of this?
- Is the same problem being experienced on another PC or not?
We are also concerned that some firms may be ?suffering in silence?. We would be very grateful if you could ask your fee-earners if they are still experiencing problems ? so that all problems are surfaced and addressed as quickly as possible.
Please contact us on +44 (0)20 7202 1220 or [email protected]
