Syracuse, NY, January 4-Gaylord Information Systems (GIS) today announced that the Arlington Public Library System has agreed to continue its successful relationship with GIS and migrate from GALAXY to the Polaris Integrated Library System.
The Arlington Public Library System, located in Arlington, Texas, consists of the public libraries in Central Arlington, South West Arlington, East Arlington, North East Arlington, Woodland West, and two more libraries to be added in the next three years. With 172,000+ patrons and 265 client workstations, Arlington faced the challenge of supporting a rapidly growing patron-base and increased demand for information resources.
"Our rapid growth necessitated looking for a new automation system that could meet our staff and patron needs," said Dr. Betsy Burson, Director of the Arlington Public Library. "We thoroughly reviewed the new systems, with a consideration to the degree of stability and ease-of-use we had with GALAXY." After a two-year review processes, Arlington selected Polaris. 'We are confident Polaris is the only system that provides the flexibility and performance we need as we move forward with our expansion projects," said Dr. Burson.
For a system growing as fast as Arlington (500,000 items, 1.5 million annual circulations), scalability was also a major requirement for their new automation system. Recognizing the power of Polaris and the tremendous potential of a native Windows NT solution, Arlington is convinced Polaris represents a best-of-class product. Cary Siegfried, Assistant Director of Technical Support, noted, "Polaris is a great fit for Arlington. The City of Arlington had already adopted an NT infrastructure, so it was easy to recognize NT's advantages in accessibility and stability?' Arlington's Polaris implementation also includes the Polaris Telephone Notification system, provided on a Windows NT Workstation with communication and text to speech firmware and interfaces.
Although in the early stages of migration, Arlington staff commented that the transition from GALAXY to Polaris has been very smooth. Speaking to Polaris' flexibility, Cary Siegfried said, "It is nice to have the opportunity to customize the system before going live. It has been extremely helpful to see online samples of how our data configurations will display within the system. It gives a better overall idea of how Polaris is set up."
GIS will be converting Arlington's bibliographic, item, transaction, and patron records. Item record conversion includes profiling, mapping tagged call numbers, and other item values such as barcode number, price, volume, and copy numbers. Patron file conversion includes profiling, data entry into customized patron record fields, formatting, and loading/indexing. 015 is also providing authority control processing at the time of conversion, allowing Arlington to use the extensive Polaris Authority Control features immediately after going live with the new system.
Dr. Burson feels that the GALAXY to Polaris migration has worked well thus far because of the cooperation and open dialog between GIS and the Arlington staff. "Our Polaris Implementation Manager has been exceptional. Her knowledge of our libraries' needs and of the GALAXY and Polaris systems is a great benefit to us as we move through the migration process," Dr. Burson said.
Polaris is a non-modular, native-Windows NT library automation solution. Polaris offers complete access to integrated cataloging, serials, acquisitions, circulation, patron/student services, and system administration functionality. The system provides a Web-based public access client and a Windows 95/98/NT Workstation-based technical services client. Polaris was built with Microsoft technologies solely for the Windows NT Server platform and SQL Server.
GIS is a Microsoft Certified Solutions Provider and the 25 year-old software development division of Gaylord Bros., a leading supplier to the library industry for over a century. In addition to its library automation systems, 015 offers workflow analysis, retrospective conversion, and database enhancement services to libraries of all types. For more information, visit www.gaylord.com/automation or contact GIS headquarters at 800-272-3414.