PROVO, Utah — March 23, 2004 — Dynix, the world's leading provider of automation technologies, solutions, and services for libraries, announced today that Bibliomation, Inc., the largest consortium in Connecticut and a CARL customer for the past 10 years, has chosen the Horizon Information Management System to manage its libraries.
“Because we're a multi-type library consortium,” said Mike Simonds, CEO for Bibliomation, “we were concerned about finding a vendor that would allow each of our libraries considerable individual network latitude in setting their own parameters, rules, and regulations while still allowing a high interaction among the different members.”
“We feel that Dynix understands consortia a lot better than most vendors,” Simonds said. “Some are still just figuring it out and don't seem to have the comfort level that Dynix does in understanding the needs of consortia and building solutions for consortia into the software.”
Bibliomation spent more than three years in the process of selecting a vendor. An important part of the process was an extensive needs-analysis process. The consortium hired a consultant to work with focus groups and sent out surveys to staff in order to develop a complete requirements document. Once this requirements document was sent to every viable automation vendor in the industry, the search was narrowed down to four vendors.
“We had the selection committee go through a day-long presentation from the vendors,” Simonds said, “and then we asked nearly 100 staff members to compare the functionality of each vendor's modules. Dynix won in every category.”
Simonds said that in addition to functionality, Dynix also earned top points for ease of use in each category. “We were afraid that there would be so many differences of opinion that it would be difficult to get everyone excited about a particular vendor, but we were delighted to find that there wasn't anyone who preferred another system,” he said.
Amy Terlada, Assistant Director of User Services, served on the selection committee and said that Horizon's flexibility was a key attraction for the libraries. “With Horizon, it is so seamless for staff to do multiple jobs from one workstation,” she said. “In addition, we were looking for much better and more diverse types of reports. With Horizon, we can use all the indexes and combine different data fields to extract exactly what we need. And the staff can do it by themselves, which is a huge advantage.”
For the first time, patrons will have enriched content and will enjoy online renewals and many other self-service features that were not possible with the consortium's previous system. “Until now, searching options for our patrons have been fairly limited,” said Tony Bernardo, President of Bibliomation. “But with Horizon, the layout of the Web catalog will allow patrons a much more aggregated searching capability and will provide a way to get information from various sources.”
Each year, Bibliomation circulates more than 4.5 million volumes from a total collection exceeding 600,000 titles. The consortium, which serves a total patron base of 400,000, consists of 40 public libraries and 22 schools, representing eight different school districts.
About Dynix
Celebrating its twentieth year of service to the library community, Dynix is the world's pioneer provider of library information management systems. As a committed advocate of the library community, Dynix serves academic, special, and school, public, and consortium libraries in over 40 countries. With more than 100 professional librarians on staff and proven experience in software leadership, Dynix is focused on providing customers visionary technology solutions that support the latest industry standards and offer intuitive functionality. For complete corporate information and a guide to Dynix products and services, visit www.dynix.com.
