This page lists the narrative of comments given by individuals responding to the 2012 library automation perceptions survey. Comments have been redacted to remove content that identifies the indivudual or institution.
El sistema absys es poco amigable y antiguo, sobre todo el catálogo. No me propongo migrar porque quedaría fuera de la red y no podría compartir funciones con resto de bibliotecas de [...], sería ésta una cuestión a plantear a nivel de la red andaluza. debería integrarse también a bibliotecas escolares en esta red.
Pienso que el SIGB tendría que mejorar e implementar aplicaciones para la gestión de libro electrónico y en fondo específico de sección local para cada biblioteca, también en la presentación y diseño de las descripciones bibliográficas añadiendo comentarios, enlaces e imagen de los materiales descritos.
Es Biblioteca escolar,de 3 niveles. SIGB proporcionado por Bica. Nacional de Maestro,Ministerio de Educación Argentina
ILS products under consideration: The library keeps an eye on the ILS market in general, but prefers not to give names of any specific products at this time.
We have EDS as discovery tool and Aleph both integrated into Vufind
[...] Library plans to start implementing one of the "cloud" systems in 2013
We're part of a consortium. We've never dealt directly with Ex Libris (the vendor for Aleph), so I answered the questions about customer support, etc. with the [...] staff in mind instead. This also means that we don't decide if we're trying new products and ILSs; we do what the consortium does.
Above approximate number of titles held - most titles acquired before 1979 are not in the on-line catalogue so this is an approximation.
Our library is among over 300 libraries in our consortium so we are not able to answer some of the questions correctly. We would like to aquire a discovery interface for our users but it is not up to us. It would be best to send this questionnaire to the consortium here in [...] and ask them to answer your questions.
I expected to see a question such as "How likely is it that this library would consider implementing a hosted/web-scale/cloud-based ILS".
Interoperability with eBook collections may have an impact on choice. As does cloud technology and electronic resource management integration.
Our library does not make decisions on our own. We are part of the [...] group, so my answers may not reflect what the [...] office/staff would think about how the process is. We will only be a small part of any decisions made by the group.
We now use the Primo discovery layer as our default public catalog, and will be activating Primo Central (article search) next fall.
[...] is a member of a national consortia. [...] There are no plans to change the situation.
I have responded with reference to our current Aleph system. Although we have made the decision to migrate to Alma this is not expected to happen before late 2013.
Due to local issues we are currently using an older version of the vendor's product which contributes to lesser satisfaction.
We belong to the [...] consortium in [...] , and are a fairly small player within the network. Overall, the software works well enough for us, although we occasionally get odd problems and the reports module could be easier to use. We will have input into any new system, but not the final say.
We are a founding partner in OLE.
[...] we are monitoring the ILS developments but don't see enough reason to move off our current environment as it would be a major initiative with major costs associated with it. The current software has solid functionality for what it does though the customer support varies widely depending on personnel. The real challenges are managing e-resource purchases (ebooks as well as title level). Usefulness of Knowledge bases and are limited by vendor constraints. There needs to be a total separation between content and management tools (image if ILSs from the 1980s and 1990s were owned by content publishers and had similar constraints - ready access to their own content but limited access to competitors.)
We did a massive weeding of print material since the last survey
We are very happy with our vendor customer support for our ILS, but not for other products. Support for our federated search product has actually gotten worse. We are also in the process of trying to find a digital preservation system.
We did not implement an OPAC when we installed Aleph in 2011 but chose to use Primo as the single front end. In answering the survey, we are thinking of the ILS as comprising Aleph and Primo. Though there are gains in dropping an OPAC, e.g. support effort and simpler naviagtion for users, we have found that it is taking time for Primo to achieve full functionality and stability. We may consider re-introducing an OPAC in order to satisfy demands of particular stakeholder interest groups, especially the areas of maps, music and early printed books. The main issues of concern have been lack of index browsing and Primo's implementation of quasi-FRBR clustering.
We are very satisfied with ILS support from Ex Libris, but completely dissatisfied with support for Primo.
Considero que los servicios de descubrimiento y las interfaces de la nueva generación de catñalogos deberían incluirse dentro del SIGB y no tener que adquirirlos por separado. Por el momento los precios que se ofrecen al mercado, al menos para Argentina, son muy elevados. No conozco ninguna biblioteca univesitaria en Argentina que haya implementado servicios de descubrimiento o catálogos de nueva generación.
Las respuestas no contestadas lo son porque eso no depende de este centro
Esta herramienta es muy util para evaluar y comparar ILS
[...] is a partner in the Kuali OLE project and we are committed to implementing the system when it is released.
Just local but not consortia
The discovery system was _not_ implemented in a timely manner. It took ~2 years to implement Primo according to the terms of the contract. It's still not what we were sold, but we've lowered our expectations. Our system decision is made by our library consortium,[...] which is currently looking at next generation management systems. While our Aleph system has lots of functionality, it is a rather difficult beast to manage, particularly in a small library. Adding Primo and SFX to the package only increases the expense, care and feeding required. Our library is advocating for a simpler, more streamlined system. At this point we would take fewer features in exchange for more reliability and better support. We are not considering open source because we don't have the resources to support/develop it.
[....] New ILS, discovery interface decisions will be made statewide.
Went live with the Primo Central system in October 2012.
We will likely not continue with AquaBrowser.
We are in the final stages of moving our Ex Lbirs applications, including ALEPH to hosted with Ex Lbiris.
We are currently in the process of moving from III's Millennium to Ex Libris' Alma.
We are only two weeks old with our new Alma system, so the first question cannot really be answered adequately. For the second question, we knew it was a system under construction when we signed up, so that answer should also be viewed critically.
Go live with Alma was [...] . Implementation and go live went smoothly.
We are in the process of migrating to Civica Spydus from Capita with a go live date of 22nd March 2013.
No investigation into ILS systems has happened since 1999. Planning to do a full investigation in 2013 with a view to possible replacement of the ILS in 2014
Dissatisfaction has grown steadily as number of e-resources has grown and lack of vision from vendor fails to address these. Rising costs also a factor (as are failed integration attempts with core University systems). The fact that a few other vendors are demonstratively more progressive is of great interest to us!
Cost and funding is becoming a major issue for the higher education sector and we are mostly likely to consider alternative ILS systems purely on the basis of significantly reducing our annual costs
A year of uncertainty under OCLC/Amlib, mostly user generated. OCLC have been trying to get Amlib users to migrate to WorldShare, although they have said they are supporting Amlib into the foreseeable future. WorldShare looks like a good solution, but is too early in development for most public libraries to currently migrate. OCLC are looking at rewriting the database structure of Amlib, which would improve the product greatly, but as to a timeframe for this... I personally feel that a lot has been promised, but very little has been delivered (e.g. new catalogue software, smartphone app scrapped)
AMLIB has been sold by Infovision Technology to OCLC. OCLC continue to support AMLIB, but not to develop it. My expectation is that as a product, its life is limited.
We are moving to WorldShare to increase customer service in a rural area; patrons will be able to access library services from home incl e-resources.
Since Amlib was bought by OCLC, it will no longer be upgraded, however we may consider other OCLC products in the future.
Our installation of Amlib is flaky but it may, in some degree, be caused by our complex (read 'unwieldy') installation.
still not completely automated, only discovered recently that my catalog is accessible through your website, surprise!
Our ILS vendor is extremely helpful and receptive to our needs. They have implemented several features of which we suggested. This will be our 5th year with the ILS and it gets better every year.
Apollo is wonderful!
We went live with our ILS three weeks ago and are still learning its capabilities. My only negative comment stems from creating electronic records for our material, this being our first iLS, an add on for a fee module allows you to import records from other libraries, but does not allow you to view those records as they are imported. I would not recommend this feature to any libraries that are doing retrospective conversion, although i do not imagine that thee are many left.
We are always in awe of what our automation system is capable of and the new services we are able to provide to the public. We are now able to customize our computer alert sounds to fit our needs. This spring we were able to offer a mobile app of our card catalog to the public. We also are able to sync to our off site programs such as audiobooks/ebooks, Ebscohost database, and language software program where patrons can enter their card number and password. They are then allowed access to all of these programs from our online card catalog.
Apollo by Biblionix is WONDERFUL! They make it their business to provide a customer service driven, intuitive, and simple yet effective ILS for small to medium-sized libraries. They are always open to suggestion on how Apollo can be improved upon and many times have accommodated customer requests without ever imposing any additional fees. They have a realistic, behind-the-scenes view of how libraries operate because many of the employees volunteer or have volunteered at a library!
Questions are answered overnight, if not the same day. Responses seem to be personal and specific to our library. There is prompt information about new features. Sometimes, we even get information about a forthcoming feature before the feature is announced more generally. Thus, we like the attention to our needs.
Biblionix is wonderful to work with. They go above and beyond - providing a mobile app at no cost and working with the Texas Library to mesh Interlibrary Loan Service with our ILS. There service is the best it can be which is why I couldn't really rank it on how it has improved.
In responce to the question, "Has the customer support for this ILS gotten better or gotten worse in the last year?" I marked 7 because the customer support was great last year. We received the same great service.
Regarding a contract, our library was responsible for the implementing & basically the installation of this system. After which the contract was started.
Awesome technical support and the system is very easy to use. We are very glad we migrated to Apollo.
I have only been here a year but like the system. It seems to work well for our library.
Apollo from Biblionix is a great automation system for our small library. It is affordable, and the support provided is fast and responsive to ALL of our needs. I recommend Apollo and Biblionix whole heartedly!
We could not be happier with the ILS. Customer support is extraordinary - a couple of times over the year Apollo has assisted me with issues that were clearly not related to the ILS (instead it was an internal computer issue). I cannot recommend Apollo higher.
I cannot emphasize enough how much we like Apollo and especially the support help we get from the staff. They are always available, and no question is silly to them!
Support services were very good!
Apollo is wonderful for this library. We were on Koha Liblime about a year; it was so bad it defied description. When you (rarely) have to call customer support you get the top guy (Clark Charbonnet)
Biblionix is open to suggestions that have been made about making the system better for the library.
We are extremely pleased with Apollo and highly recommend it. The Apollo system cuts our work load down, makes our Library more user friendly for staff and patrons.
We are very happy with the performance of Apollo Biblionix and the support we get from their IT people.
We love the performance of Apollo Biblionix program and the support we get from the IT people there.
A "7" was marked under improvement in customer service, but customer service was already great and we really haven't found it necessary to need help with much of anything as far as Apollo is concerned. Biblionix was a perfect match for our library.
When I ask a question for help I receive an answer within the same day.
The Apollo system is very user friendly and a great match for small to mid-sized libraries.
Very happy with the system. So easy to use.
While we would like the "search" options simplified, overall we are very happy we chose Apollo as our new ILS.
We are very satisfied with Biblionix because the company is always ahead of the game. It addresses new capabilities before they are required and makes the transition as painless as possible; for example, changing to the new ILL system in Texas. Our library has been on the program for approximately a year and a half while other libraries are just beginning.
Our software is so old that the software-specific questions do not apply.
Our ILS, Athena, is no longer supported by the company we purchased it from.
Athena is the only ILS the library has had. We understand this is out of date, but until funds are available and updates have been made to the computers, it does not make since to change the system. The computers will be updated within a year and we will be back to trying to find grants for a new ILS.
We don't really use ILS altho it is offered so my answers are really irrelevant
We went with a web based ILS, Atriuum, so that we did not have to depend on the server, which is old and outdated. We have T1 lines, but it is so slow, it takes about 10-20 sec. just to pull up the patron, then each book. Remote hosting is not working well for us, although I am enjoying the new feathres.
We did not want open source as we have so little tech support and heard other libraries who had issues with them. Our ILS has been very good at upgrading the product with new elements to continue meeting our needs.
Atrium is designed for school libraries and it is ok for a small public library, but not desireable.
Book Systems Atriuum is an extremely functional automation system. Book Systems is responsive to problems or requests for additional features or functions.
we just got our new system this month
We recently updated to Atriuum... and we will have ebooks available for our patrons to download.
We like the way Book systems is always improving the circulation reports and product to make it eaiser for libraries to use and is growing with our needs.
The staff here really does appreciate all that our automation system does. There are so many different features that are offered. We have had this system for 2 years now and it seems like every day we find a new and likeable feature. The way reports are ran on this system is much easier than any system we have had. We are very satisfied with Book Systems, Inc.!
We are very pleased with Atriuum, for the most part. The reports feature is difficult to use because there are so many fields to choose from when creating a custom report. It is confusing and somewhat overwhelming to try to create custom reports with this program.
For the most part this is a very workable system, pretty stable, and not very difficult to use. However: While Atriuum has many advantages the cost for "add-on" modules is expensive. Some of the interfaces could be a lot more intuitive/ user friendly. Finally, when there are issues with the entire system it would be better if we were notified. Otherwise we scramble to figure out what is going on.
We have been with Booksystem, Inc. Atriuum since May of 2012 and really like it.
Very pleased with Atriuum. Moved from KOHA/LibLime in March 2012 due to extreme dissatisfaction with tech support, the product, and being in a consortium.
Switched ILS from Concourse to Atriuum in November 2011, which allowed us to provide an OPAC patrons can access from any computer or smartphone. Also allowed for an updated online system with more capabilities.
Atrium is good product. However, we have had issues with the server at Book Systems being down. I was surprised that there was not a backup in place to deal with such times. I have suggested ideas for upgrades to reports or other areas of the program, but none of them have been addressed.
We have been very happy with Booksystems. The customer support is excellent and they continue to improve and upgrade Atriuum on a regular basis.
We are very happy with Atrium and have no plans to change programs.
We have been very pleased with our services.
I have found it easy to train new employees with Atriuum--it is intuitive and new hires seem to pick up on it quickly. My biggest frustration is that patrons cannot reserve or renew online. However, I know these tools are available through Book Systems. My libarary system has not yet adopted them.
Book Systems has been wonderful. Installation and migration was effortless thanks to their cooperation and patience with our libraries. Atriuum is very user and staff friendly. We have been extremely satisfied with our decision to use Book Systems.
Great ILS for our small library, provides exactly what we need. Migrations went very smoothly, and the training provided was fantastic!
I would like to find out more about Discovery interface or Next-generation catalog.
we have been unable to upgrade to newest release of ILS because of local computer problems.
Book Systems has been our ILS for 18 1/2 years. They have always been helpful and timely whenever I had a question or problem.
We made the switch from Winnebago Spectrum to Book Systems Atriuum just last week. So far, the switch-over has gone smoothly. The tech support people at Book Systems have been very helpful and it has been an easy implementation so far. They have answered my many questions. The staff is now in the process of learning the program after a day of training and it is never easy to learn a new software product. I have left some questions blank because of this.
Atriuum is a fine full-featured ILS. We remote host, which is great. Reporting functionality is amazing (sort live data sets!) and quick cataloging from ISBN is a breeze. There are some quirks and issues as with every ILS. Atriuum only lacks only a iPhone app (under development) and a Federated search (is that "discovery products?") to be a 9 or 10. Only reason I would switch would be a major change in annual price, service, functionality, or company stability. Apollo would be my most likely option in that case.
We are noticing some errors in Atriuum. We are trying to determine if these errors are human errors or errors that Atriuum are causing. We would hope that Book Systems could implement some kind of error log that will tell you how these errors occurred.
We have been with Book Systems since 2005. We upgraded to Atriuum in 2006. They are always friendly, helpful, and patient. I highly recommend this company to any library wishing to automate their library.
Service has been good with this co. I am pleased.
I am dissatisfied with Atriuum's report module and its search engine. The reports are impossible to format so that staff could print out information for users or other staff. Search parameters are limited to the point that the only report that has all of the record fields available is the Accession report. You cannot use word processing or spreadsheet software to improve the layout or display. The search engine has the same problem that many fields in the item record are not searchable. Atriuum is inexpensive in the realm of ILS systems which makes it attractive. It also seems more attuned to the school market rather than the public library market. I am constantly frustrated by what it doesn't do.
When calling customer service, I have never been put through to a live person. Someone eventually calls back, but it might not be at a very convenient time. Many of my issues have never been solved to my satisfaction.
BookSystems is an excellent company.
Because of their professional, dependable, & timely service, I would recommend Booksystems Atriuum library automation software to other libraries. From the first time that I met the sales team to the many times that I have contacted other departments for billing questions, for additional services, and for technical support, I have always been treated with respect. I hope to actually meet the people who answer my calls so that I can put faces with their voices. I will continue to renew our library's annual contract with Booksystems in the future![...]
I am not sure what you mean by open source
Our library is a member of the [...] library system. It offers many mutual benefits but it also makes decision making a bit more rigid.
We have not staff enough to implement open source (no technical support or knowledge) The current system is expensive but staff cost is no option
En realidad nuestro sistema CaMPI ya es un sistema de código abierto y no fue provisto por una empresa, sino que es el resultado del trabajo colaborativo de varias universidades. Formo parter de la comunidad de desarrollo de CaMPI y en general estoy ssatisfecha con el producto, no obstante soy consciente de que se puede mejorar. El problema está en la continuidad del proyecto, por tal motivo las dudas.
I have not researched some of these products, and do not understand what a discovery interface or Next Generation catalog is.
We are currently purchasing Destiny to be installed soon! Our old system was not well supported by Follett anymore and our tech people are no longer familiar with it as well. Also, we would like to update to a better system that will serve our patrons better.
[...] is going to transfer onto Civica Spydus in the 4th quarter of this financial year.
The only restriction currently encountered is the lack of update of the software to be compatible with new Windows operating systems on recently replaced computers. We were assured an upgrade was coming but it has now been 10 months of requesting to Customer Service and no action.
We are very happy with BookSystems.
We are just converting/upgrading to Atrium. I want more options, better reports, and patron account access.
I interpreted "number of items" as number of entries in our internal online library catalog.
As this is a highly customisable ILS, it's development relies on the ability of the librarian to optimise the customisations - we enjoy the degree of control that we can exercise over this.
Hemos realizado un estudio para la selección de nuestro próximo SIGB. Esperamos, para el próximo año, tenerlo en funcionamiento.
[...] have joint the national projekt [...] .
We are happy with the vendor and product. However, it is school-oriented and thus does not have some features we want in our public library setting.
With the upgrade of the digital reader that is attached to our library system, we are hopeful that this system will continue to work for our growing ebook collection.
Destiny works great for books but a bit unfriendly for equipment.
Sorry to say that I don't even know what Discovery Interface means :(
Great system for K-12 except for the weakness in some fuctions of the cataloging interface/module.
We are set to migrate to Apollo on November 21st. Destiny is just not open to designing for a public library environment, even though it is a stable product with a polished interface that is very affordable for small libraries.
Follett Destiny was purchased and installed by [...] school department in 2012. The two public libraries in [...] were invited to join, which we gladly did in September 2012. This allowed us to replace the outdated CirculationPlus ILS and remove the overhead of running our own in-house database server. All libraries in [...] are now on Destiny, with the server maintained by the the school department
The relatively low cost for acquiring and maintaining this ILS was the primary factor in selecting it and in continuing to use it. There is one notable problem with Destiny -- apparently the ILS and our website cannot be on the same server, and within the library network of computers it is impossible to see what the public sees in our online catalog, and to link from the website to the catalog within the library. Works fine, apparently, otherwise.
Do not understand some of your terms like discovery interface, next generation catalog, open source ILS?
We recently switched from Follett to Destiny which is web hosted
Don't know what a discovery interface is...possibly Follett already has one and I don't use it.
I owuld be happier with Destiny if the reporting features were as easy to use as InfoCentre. [...] would have stayed with InfoCentre if it would have been adapted to work with newer server software. Although Destiny is the newer product with an easy to use visible format, the reports do not give me the information I seek and are not as adaptable as the reports from InfoCentre. I have to reinvent the wheel every thime I use them.
The [...] Public Library serves a small community of 375 people.
Still current using an old Dynix system known as "Classic Dynix" which is three generations old. [...] as signed a contract with Polaris.
We looked at KOHA for an ILS but did not find that we would save as much money as we expected (or hoped). The [...] announced a KOHA Pilot Program in May 2011 and we expressed an interest in it to [...]; but again found no significant financial advantage in the program. We suggested that [...] should offer it as a statewide service giving public libraries an opportunity to realize savings at the local level.
Just waiting desperately to get of Dynix Classic!
We had originally planned upgrading / migrating for the beginning 2010. For numerous reasons this still has not happened (and we are still unsure when it will take place). Consequently, the slightly lower ratings for the satisfaction and functionality are really more a reflection of our inaction.
We are interested in moving to a hosted product, with a discovery interface.
mobile app - Boopsie
We moved from SIRSIDYNIX Symphony to EOS in July 2012
Eos becomes unhelpful and sluggish in assisting with the remainder of migration process once they load your data onto their server and have your money. They need to be reminded repeatedly that they agreed to make fixes to data over the course of days and weeks, and will just "happen to be thinking of doing work on your data" at the exact time you call them.
It's important to us, as a public library, that vendors respect the laws concerning privacy and confidentiality of records (which is not the same as a school library, where teachers may act in loco parentis). We also have a patron base that is older and not particularly skilled with computers and ebooks.
EOS Customer support is unparalleled. It's Community Forum allows users to contact/respond to each other on system questions and problems - with support staff also involved.
EOS is great, but I had it installed at the beginning of the school year so I have a bunch of things I still need to learn. The customer service and help desk is superb.
We considered Open Source when deciding to go with EOS this year. We dismissed it because of the amount of support we would need from our IT department. The cost outweighed the perceived benefit of a "free" system.
Training could DEFINITELY be improved. Also navigating Help is maddening. Also, things that are supposed to work should.
Due to two downsizing/lay-off events within the [...] and the fact that the [...] IT group provides no library-related support, it is incumbant upon the two library staff members to do everything in the most efficient method possible. Open source does not, at this point, lend itself to our situation and, I imagine, any special library at this time.
We have a Discover Service from Ebsco, but I did not interface it with EOS.
Although there are some functionalities lacking for us with this ILS, we have not found a product in our market that rates better overall on that criteria than EOS. The variety of help and support from this company is a huge plus for us.
Very satisfied with EOS and its Federated Search Tool.
Our consortium was unhappy with the support we were getting from Equinox. We went independent, and now do our own tech support. We couldn't do it without some experts within our group. Even so, it is sometimes hard to get issues resolved because of how busy our experts are.
Currently using an open source ILS, Evergreen.
We are part of the [...] Consortium which has grown from 9 to 22 libraries in less than 2 years. We're running evergreen version 2.09 and will soon upgrade to version 2.2.
We have been using Evergreen since July 2010. In May 2012, Alpha-G Consulting notified us that they would not be supporting Evergreen any more so we have switched to Emerald Data Networks for support services.
The initial migration to Evergreen was somewhat problematic, but there have been several upgrades that have improved the functionality considerably, especially with the circulation, online catalog and acquisitions modules. This library is still awaiting a serials module that will work for us, as well as further improvements to the other modules. Our network, [...] , was instrumental in developing a children's catalog and we are looking forward to its debut in early 2013. I really appreciate that we are able to modify and enhance the software on our own, with partners from the Evergreen community. We create our own priorities and schedule as time and funding allow, and do not have to wait for the vendor's scheduled upgrades with their priority list.
We are a member of [...], an Evergreen offshoot. The State has not included funding for upgrades to the system and it is woefully inadequate. We have contracted with 3M for RFID services, and it remains to be seen if these services [self-check, automated handling] will actually have the functionality we expect. I'm not sure that this is an Evergreen issue as much as a [...] issue.
This is a new consortium and we are still working out some of the issues. I expect that as things settle down service and satisfaction will improve. By joining a consortium we added an extra layer between us and the vendor, which is an interesting challenge.
Evergreen is open source, installed and maintained by the consortia.
Switched to open source Evergreen this year. Most dissatisfied with the PAC and the labor intensive nature of most functions.
We already have an open source ILS.
Open source offers great opportunities. Less dependent on "company" for support, one source in a collection of support options. Evergreen community is an important and helpful source of support.
Overall satisfaction level is a mix of staff who are satisfied and others who are having a hard time with the changes. The biggest overall complaint that the staff have at this point in time is that the catalog does not have the functionality that we need.
The date of switch over to Evergreen (the new ILS system) was moved many times and finally installed in May 2012. There are some bugs and functionality issues but overall we are happy to be with an open source system.
Evergreen IS open-source.
Our library couldn't afford an ILS like Evergreen without the support of the Georgia Public Library Service.
Already using Evergreen, an open source ILS
Many of the questions above reflect on [...] , our nonprofit library consortium, not Equinox, since I do not deal with Equinox directly.
Migrated from Sirsi/Dynix Unicorn to Equinox Evergreen April 2012
Our open source catalog is managed by our consortial group so some questions about support services do not really apply.
Our consortium,[...] migrated to open source Evergreen last May. The [...] folks have been wonderful to work with, just as they were when we used III. I am looking forward to more improvements in Evergreen, especially for library users.
Our network moved to Evergreen in May of 2012. Although we see the long term benefits of open source, a lot of the functionality that we had with III Millenium has been lost; especially in the catalog search function.
Library is a member of a consortium that successfully migrated to Evergreen open source ILS in May 2012. So far we are very happy with it.
It is slow due the distance of the servers. It goes down somewhat often and we all know what an inconvenience that is.
We do not deal directly with the vendor. Also, times were changed with the initial roll out, as per the system. I do not think that Equinox was having the problem. Also, I am pretty sure that Evergreen is an open source system.
[...] (Evergreen) is an open source ILS product and has an interactive OPAC system. It is very user friendly and so far very few interruptions in operation. The support staff is extremely good, knowledgeable and responds quickly - same day, if not a few minutes to answer your needs.
Because many of us do use OS systems now, some of the questions might need to be modified to enable sensible answers. These questions assume that there is a vendor. Thanks!
The biggest problem with the ILS is that it is aimed towards large libraries. Although this is important, I believe that the consortium needs to remember the small, rural libraries that service much smaller communities. Our needs are different and should be just as important as larger libraries.
We have Evergreen open-source system. It has been problematic to say the least. Staff and the public have a hard time working with it as it is not very intuitive. There seem to be a lot of glitches as well.
We contract with ESI for support with our open source ILS, we are very pleased with their response time and help with periodic upgrades.
This year, after years of planning and a year of stalling, our consortium finally migrated to Evergreen. We have [basic] functionality, but the shock of moving from the Cadillac ILS [III's Millennium] to an open source product was much more than many expected. It has been particularly interesting to see how many users take good relevancy ranking for granted (thank you Google-verse), and how creating a ranking algorithm is easier said than done.
Customer support has remained excellent as it was last year. We already use an open source program so it is not possible to answer the question how likely is it that your library would consider implementing open source ils
Can't really answer these questions properly, as we are only a few months into adding our holdings to the automation catalog. We won't go live until this coming summer.
Only negative with Evergreen is the Reports function: quite complicated and user must have some knowledge of database mgmt. to compile reports. Equinox staff, however, are helpful with coaching the user on report compilation. Also, our users frequently ask for their personal circulation history, which could be optained with our previous system, Follett Athena. The version of Evergreen we use (2.1.1) only shows the last three circs by item, not by patron. It is my understanding, however, that newer releases of Evergreen allow users to access their circulation history.
Our current circulation system is an open source ILS called Evergreen and unfortunately I feel it is not geared towards smaller rural libraries. It has its good points but you had better be proficient in computer use and jargon to utilize it. Rural areas such as ours seems to have times when the computer is slow even though you have a high speed internet, and you definitely need high speed with an open source system otherwise scanned checkins are missed and scanned checkouts are lost. There also has been way too many times Evergreen has had problems since we went live in July 2012.
we considered evergreen users community as "Vendors" in all our answers
This survey is not relevant to those of us using open source ILSs without any vendor support. We are very happy with Evergreen and in the way of most open source projects, we love and rely on the Evergreen community at large. We get faster and better help on the Evergreen mailing lists than we ever got from a vendor when we used a commercial ILS.
Our open-source ILS was installed and supported by in-house staff so did not give feedback on ILS vendor questions.
We are a consortium that relies on internal staff to support the ILS for our member libraries. We also rely on the Evergreen community to help us when needed.
Evergreen was developed by librarians, but there are several basic (to us) aspects that are missing, that makes us wonder how libraries function without these aspects. The Acquisitions module is very difficult to use, many of the reports are useless, and in several aspects, one must click through several screens to do simple tasks that were only one click in the previous ILS. However, over all it is a good system - it just needs more work.
No ILS does everything the way everyone wants it to.
Question "How likely is it that this library would consider implementing an open source ILS?" was left unanswered because we have already implemented the use of the open source Evergreen ILS system
migrating to OpenSource product this month.
It's interesting that the ILS procurement process has devolved from choosing functional suitability into avoiding a lawsuit from one's current ILS vendor. It's beyond understanding why a vendor in this small and close-knit library marketplace believes that filing lawsuits against its customers or its employees, as SirsiDynix has done in the recent past, enhances its reputation.
To be completely accurate, regarding selecting a new ILS, the project will not be active until next year. We have, however, committed to beginning research and RFP development in 2013
We don't see a move from Horizon for at least two years. Still unimpressed with alternatives. Won't jump early to intota but we will be watching closely how early implementations evolve.
We are currently satisfied with our Horizon installation. However, the system is getting old. We may change if the price is advantageous for us. Many other College level libraries in Québec have moved to Koha. However, the integrator used with this Consortium is charging as much in support fees as we currently pay with Horizon.
We are thinking about adding a discovery interface; however, money is very tight at present.
Acq never worked in Horizon, so we run III for acquisitions
We just have recently upgrade Horizon to 7.51 and HIP 3.21
Horizon is old and tired. ..It is so outdated looking, though it works well for staff. The public don't like it as it isn't Google-like. We'd like to upgrade but can't afford to.
We just signed a 5 year annual maintenace agreement with SirsiDynix, so we will be on Horizon for quite awhile and are happy with that.
Migrating to Polaris in April 2013
Our data is in the cloud. SirsiDynix has never been able to manage this, from day one. Several times each day, we are disconnected, then reconnected. That's a standard problem. In addition, we've had other technical issues. We expect to go live with WMS in June 2013.
Part of Consortium, so subject to Consortial decisons on which ILS we migrate to next.
We will probably look at migrating to a new ILS in 2015
SirsiDynix is keen to move Horizon customers onto Symphony and while there are some upgrades to Horizon it is fair to say the energy of the company is directed on Symphony. While knowledging that Horizon is not keeping up with trends, we are not convinced that Symphony is a better product han Horizon and would be keen to investigate a range of options before deciding to move to a new system.
planning to upgrade from Horizon version 7.3 to the latest version in q1 2013
Currently implementing Polaris.
we looked at discovery interfaces, none available that work with 2 ILS, which is needed for our consortium
Until recently we were planning on purchasing a new LMS to replace Horizon. However, I have been told by SD that they are going to continue to support and develop for Horizon into the future. So we are now going to focus our efforts on enhancing Horizon with additional modules and on purchasing a spiffy new discovery layer. We feel there is more value to be had from investing in a new discovery layer over replacing the whole LMS. (That said, if Polaris were to enter the Australian market then we would have to reconsider the whole thing...)
Sirsi would receive higher marks if they were moving forward with the Horizon platform.
We are ASP/SASS, so it is difficult to make customizations. ILS is geared more toward public libraries and has major features we do not need.
Horizon is quite sturdy and reliable, it hardly fails and it works fine. It just doesn't do what we want it to do now and isn't being developed further. We're at the very early stages of looking for a new system and probably will be for at least two years plus.
We're currently looking at for a new ILS and expect to have a board-approved selection in April 2013.
very customer oriented service staff, state of the art library, a jewl in the forest.
Our ILS vendor is not the maker, is a local company. It was a long learning curve for them, during which they learned from clients mostly, as usual. But they have been able to integrate some additional functionalities and customization features that do not come with the standard product. We feel that the maker (sirsiDynix) puts some resistance to change standard versions, and the evolution of versions is too slow.
Though we are keeping a whatch on developments in the ILS market, we are not likely to change ILS, apart from upgrades, within the next five years.
Moving to Horizon SaaS in 2013.
The changing trends of technology and future of the public libraries makes it difficult to make a decision for ILS selection.
While we did not change ILS this year, we did go to SaaS from SirsiDynix, which meant migrating all our data to remote servers and we now operate solely in a cloud configuration. The migration was very easy and so far living in the cloud has been OK. It does make you realize how vulnerable your network is, however.
Technically we are still Horizon - will migrate on [...] Polaris is great to work with - trying to accommodate our number of libraries and all that goes with migrating.
End of life issues are becoming pressing with Horizon. Symphony would be better but not what we really want. The money challenges of implementing a system from another vendor might be insurmountable.
We will be going live with the Innovative product in the middle of January 2013.
This response is from a consortium office representing 18 libraries/institutions and multiple branches.
We're only vaguely considering a discovery layer. Some of us are quite keen on the prospect and some of us are quite luke-warm at best. Cost and functionality (or lack thereof) are our main issues.
The current system was installed so long a go now that answering the question about whether it was done to contract is difficult. Perjpas a
We're interested in apis and similar technology that makes it easier to pull different vendor information into our catalog. For example, use OverDrive api to pull info into our catalog so patron's don't need OverDrive site at all. We're also interested in open source archive software.
We migrate to Polaris in April.
question about number of items in collection... Physical items on site or including electronic items. The foundation is shifting...
Current ILS support has not been contacted this year.
Este sistema de bibliotecas desde hace años trabaja con un sofware realizado de forma particular por un informático contratado en la década de 1990 elaborado sobre una plataforma Clipper, el que aún se continúa utilizando debido a que el Municipio nunca ha otorgado una partida presupuestaria para actualizar los ordenadores ni migrar a un SIGB.
We are in the middle of a huge weeding project, which will account for any wildly differing numbers.
ByWater might be growing a bit too fast
We have been on Koha for 10 months. While it has room for improvemennt, we feel we have a lot more control over enhancements and bug fixes. We love our ByWater Solutions support vendor. I would never go back.
Overall, migrating to Koha through Bywater Solutions has been a cost effective move for us. In addition, ByWater staff has supplied timely support when requested.
ByWater Solutions have provided us with excellent service and a quality ILS product. We couldn't be happier with our choice. The install and maintenance has been smooth as silk, and the customer service is top-notch. The product is versatile, easy to use, and cost effective. It has been a great buy for our library.
We use Koha is as our ILS which for back-office operations. We use Worldcat Local as our public catalog and discovery tool.
Already have an open source ILS.
Migrated from PTFS Koha fork to Community Koha 3.2 in March 2010. Support and Migration services from ByWater Solutions have been excellent.
We found the migration from SirsiDynix to Koha, with the help of ByWater Solutions, surprisingly simple. There are always things that need improvement in any system but we are finding Koha works very well for us and whenever we run into a problem we find that if it is just a minor bug in the system it gets fixed quickly, If id is a more major bug it may take a month to get fixed. But, it gets fixed! This is not the experience we had with SirsiDynix. We also like that we have a lot of flexibility and can do a lot of things ourselves, in each individual library, without having to go through a staff tech. person. One area that was a problem in the past was reports but we are now able to do most reports ourselves in the way we want them. Not third party involvement. We also like no longer having to have servers to maintain locally. We like that we don't need to have a SIP for access to the staff area of the catalog. This makes it convenient to address issues on the site from wherever we are and makes it easier to do some work at home or when out of town. The upgrades for Koha are also much more regular than they were for SirsiDynix and we know that if we have found an area that needs work it will actually be something that is worked on by ByWater Solutions or other Koha partners.
Using an open source solution (koha) hosted by ByWater was truly the way to go. Costs are kept manageable and the support that we receive from ByWater is superior. We are small (2 librarians) and don;t have a systems librarian so this has been a wonderful solution for us.
The approximate number of items in the library's collection is 32,000. I can't get the survey form to accept the correct number.
Disappointed with the slowness or lack of interface development with 3rd party software and the disruption that each new release causes. Bywater has built up it's in-house talent bank and the community continues to grow, but nowhere is Koha a competitor yet with the robustness of a product like III or Polaris.
Bywater Rocks!
Koha gets more impressive with each release and Bywater has been a wonderful vendor to work with.
[...] is looking at as many Open Source options as is possible. We have made a conscious philosophic decision to select open source products. It is something that small liberal arts colleges ought to be doing.
5500 cataloged items, still in start up phase, adding to collection as space becomes available in our facility.
Currently we use in-house support which will change next year as our IT Support is leaving the school but will continue with paid support for Koha.
Please note that out IT implementations and customiations are all internal to our organization.
We have no support company/vendor, so I left questions related to that blank.
A N/A option would be appropriate in our circumstance. We installed Koha using all volunteer labor and volunteer tech support so have no contract for support.
We are using an outdated version of Koha but planning an overhaul and upgrade to the most recent version of Koha. We are completing everything in-house and not using paid customer support.
We plan to upgrade to 3.8 with Bywater assistance in 2013. We are adding EDS in concert with the [...] sirsi-dynix ILS to improve resource sharing.
We are in the process of migrating to Koha at this time. Our former ILS was from Learning Access. When our hard drive failed. Learning Access did not respond to our requests for backups. We will now have an open source system and catalog with in-house backups and power failure safety system.
Already we instaled the system using our own human resources available in the National Lybrary, thatś why we cannot answer all questions according to the survey
Todavía estamos utilizando la versión 3.8 de Koha, planeamos actualizar a 3.10 antes de fin de año.
We have been using Koha for a little over two years. It's been slow implementing because we're doing it ourselves - a librarian 2 days a week cleaning up databases and preparing them for importation and training people to use it, and a volunteer IT person. As such there is no company involved, but on the other hand we couldn't have done it without the two people who have been working on it. It is vastly superior to anything we have ever used before, but because ours is a very specialized collection, it doesn't always fit. Regular improvements have made it more useful for us.
We've been running Koha in-house for a few years, but just recently starting hosting the ILS on the Rackspace cloud. I've tried this before, but never had enough root access to configure the server in the cloud. However Rackspace let's me do it all and it now works.
Have struggled with getting help for Koha this year, errors are minor but can't get answers to my questions. Possibly need to have a new upgrade.
Estos datos son iguales para el resto de [...] .
We migrated - again - to the LAK (Waldo) version of Koha. This has allowed us to have input on enhancements and more frequent updates.
KOHA, the open-source software, was promoted to us as being a cheaper alternative to a packed ILS. Instead, we have paid the developing company, PTFS ABOVE the cost of other pre-packaged systems. In addition, PTFS has not fulfilled its promises to give us all the functionality we were promised, the system constantly crashes or develops bugs, and the searching is nowhere near up to par. One recent example of a frustrating bug was searching for "bees" under Subject. The tope two displayed results were for beer.
ILS, KOHA via [...] . Some problems with ILS after upgrades, slow to be corrected.
Very interested in OCLC Worldcat Webscale on the reason of simple management of bibliographic records . However, the price does not match with our budget size.
Excited to become part of [...]!
I like Koha, and I like open source, could not see going back to one of the commercial vendors. Although I have seen definite signs of improvement in customer service this past year, have not been thrilled with PTFS customer service but not likely to switch vendors in the near future.
Already using open source - Koha
We are migrating to Koha-Lib-Lime. We are currently using Follet's Athena software.
The system we use, Liblime Academic Koha is not an appropriate solution for our academic library. It lacks the search precision, stability, and speed we need. It's possible that the open source version of Koha would also fall short of our requirements, but it would have been significantly less costly. Each new release of the proprietary PTFS/Liblime Koha system causes problems and it appears that the company relies on its customers for all of its pre-release software testing. Due the ongoing significant adverse impact on staff productivity, Liblime Academic Koha has been more expensive for our library than using a traditional ILS systems based on closed source software.
We have been very happy with our Koha installation as a consortium. PTFS has done a great job on mission critical issues, and an adequate job on picky problems. Consortium issues are mostly communication. Altogether a wonderful step up from our prior Follett installation.
Our library belongs to the [...]consortium hosted by PTFS. We have no direct contact with PTFS as all support issues goes through the [...]. Based on our previous experience working with [...] , we decided to migrate to Koha from Horizon.
Our library implemented Koha (LibLime) about 4 years ago and we are very disappointed with the lack of functionality. The customer support services is fair to poor. No decision has been made as of yet, but it is a strong possibility that we may migrate to a new ILS in the near future.
We are in the process of migrating to Sierra.
Koha has been working well for us, although we've had some issues with the acquisitions and serials modules. We are upgrading to a newer version soon, so that should solve most of the ongoing niggling problems. The basic circulation functions are very quick and easy to use, so learning time is minimal to get started with it.
I would recommend using an Open source rather than a proprietary system as the latter can be very slow to adapt to new technologies
we have implemented last year koha an open source ILS and have a contract with a company which took care of the implementation and give us a costumer support service
[...] is implementing WMS together with OCLC. WCL went live in august 2012, WMS will follow in February 2013. Meanwhile OCLC took over the hosting of our ancient LBS 3, a very wellcome intermediate relief.
We have migrated our system to new version 6 of Libero, which is completely webbased, no client installation needed any more.
our ILS in increasingly incompatible and unsupported with latest technology like IE10, Microsoft Office 2010, etc.
I would highly recommend Softlink Liberty to any corporate library. It offers great flexibility and functionality and is extremely reliable. The only time we need IT support is for upgrades, and then only for about 1-2 hours. This is an outstanding ILS.
Will be migrating to Liberty 5 in Jan 2013
The catalogue system for the library is vastly out of date as it has not been maintained and the library has been on the bottom of the priority list for some time. It is anticipated that mid 2013 some substantial work may be able to progress.
We contract out IT services, so have no Library-specific expertise or on-site IT. This would make it difficult for us to implement and maintain an ILS system.
We migrated from Horizon at the end of 2011 and have found many benefits from the functionality within Liberty.
Open source ILS has been under discussion, but for the moment we lack good internet connectivty (small bandwidth) and reliable IT support.
We have just migrated to this system.
Discovery Interface--our ILS recently implemented a unified search into our online catalog. If that works the way we think it will, it should met our needs.
I felt more attention has been given this past year.
Slightly less than 30% of our collection is comprised of "physical" titles (all formats). The remaining 70% is electronic.
We are currently preparing for implementation of TLC's LS 4.2 Release 24 upgrade. Also, we have recently added our branch library
TLC truly listens to its customers when planning product enhancemetns and upgrades.
We would only migrate to another ILS as a result of joining a consortium. Both of the consortiums under consideration use Evergreen.
The new OPAC interface LS2pac 2.0 that is soon to be released is a big improvement over the present version.
We took over a year making our decision to migrate to TLC four years ago. We are very happy and do not anticipate changing to another vendor for a long time, if ever.
TLC has been a good partner in our library automation processing. Issues that develope are quickly handled or are entered into a process of consideration for implementation in subsequent upgrades.
We upgraded last year to TLC 4.2 which was a significant change from the previous version. We have not been very pleased with the change. TLC is pushing its web-based circulation module which we have yet to embrace due to its limitations. We will consider to review it but overall are not thrilled with the product and the standard catalog is terrible.
Our library is the home base for the physical servers that hold the ILS and we are also unofficially the point of first contact if one of the libraries we are in the consortium in needs assistance. We are the county public library and the other libraries in our consortium are the independent school district libraries. We started with 5 libraries total and now have a total of 3 libraries. TLC is just not cost effective anymore for such a small group.
We just completed a major hardware and system upgrade this year, and it went much better and easier than planned. We had comprehensive support and service from TLC before, throughout, and after the process. Recently they track support requests and do follow-up much more aggressively than before. I really appreciate how responsive and helpful they are overall.
The thing I don't like about our LIS is being in a consortium. If we were on our own and had control over own MARC records, I'd have no problem with this system.
We love TLC's customer support and it was the initial reason why we went with it, although economics has eroded response time it has not eroded response quality.
TLC has been the best partnership for our libraries and ILS. They are always helpful. courteous, friendly, and timely in resolving any issues or questions. The best part is the amount of customizing they allow each customer to do to fill their work needs. Truly the best relationship we could ever hope to have with a vendor.
Functionality of special collections does not meet the needs of an academic library, and the system they are focusing development on has NO special collection function. They have not addressed the upgrade requests in the first system. There have been problems with our server; we are hosted. We have had freezing and disconnects, and it has taken months and finally they moved us to a new server to resolve the issue. The reports department is very good at resolving request well and quickly.
There are 12 member libraries in our Cooperative. 11 of the libraries are funded and governed by their municipality and board of trustees. The last library is a non-profit, 501C, organization that supports all 12 libraries, provides bookmobile service, and maintains the shared ILS servers and databases.
Our total item count is up only 2,000 from the last count, but that is because we have done a lot of aggressive weeding in the last year.
TLC is very customer oriented and has one of the best user conferences I have ever attended. They provide immediate answers to support questions and respond quickly to customer requests and system enhancement requests.
We sometimes have tech problems and TLC has resoved many of these in a timely manner, so we appreciate their service on this matter.
Over my 26 year library career, I have worked with at least 5 ILS platforms. Library Solution from The Library Corporation is by FAR the poorest product I have ever come across. Patron OPAC and staff search options are completely substandard, the circulation module design is non-intuitive and requires far too many keystrokes and when we upgraded with them the last time they were unable to migrate important elements of our collected database information WITHIN THEIR OWN SYSTEM.
Library.Solution has provided an excellent system for us. We particularly like the L.S2 interface and the web-based circulation and acquisition services.
We have had the TLC product for over four years and have been very pleased with all aspects of the product and service.
We are completely satisfied with the product given the limitations of our local available bandwidth. We do not yet have the capacity to take advantage of upgrades that are available from TLC. We consider TLC's support to be exceptionally good and are very grateful to them for the importance they place on our needs.
If there is a great downsize in funding, we may have to consider open ILS sources, but I have not narrowed it down. We have been very satisfied with our current vendor. We are completing a system-wide weeding project and expect our library collection to be about 39, 400 items at this time.
Will be migrating to a newly est. consortium in June--[...]. It will be comprised of 5 public libraries with shared database under the leadership and direction from the [...]. A state-wide resource sharing network is planned.
Our IT person is a volunteer and he does a great job. When he has a problem Library Soft doesn't respond to his inquiries. We would love to switch, but cannot afford it. Library Soft is very affordable and it works.
We don't actually use an ILS. We are a noncirculating special library so we have no need for patron or circulation modules. We just use the OPAC.
LibraryWorld was selected by the previous director. It is very difficult to get any kind of reports from this system. Support is only available through email; no telephone support at all. Will wait to see when/if [...] goes to one system.
We are a small, poor library and so we can't afford much. We hope that the [...] will put forth a global catalog for all of [...].
We started using the LibraryWorld app this year. Some glitches but customer service has been responsive.
Although LibraryWorld does not offer all the bells-and-whistles of more expensive automation systems, it meets our needs and the price is affordable. Nice to have the catalog accessible through the Internet.
This library is very satisfied with its ILS system, but because we are in a Cooperative Service Agreement with the surrounding regional library system that is considering joining a newly formed consortium of public libraries in Missouri, we will have to migrate to that system if they decide to join the consortium. That consortium runs Evergreen open source ILS.
The Library is using a software developed by the Librarian which currently satisfies all the requirements for our school library.
currently hosted by vendor and are satisfied with that arrangement; all upgrades and other technical issues handled by vendor's staff. Customer support is very prompt and competent. I would like to see better training information when an upgrade is done i.e. let us know what the changes are and how to work with them
We have conisdered open source ILS, but we do not have the resources necessary to adapt the system to the special features needed in this library.
We have signed with Innovative and will be migrating to Sierra in Q2 2013. We will be looking at discovery layers for the next fiscal year.
Our consortium is currently working with a consultant to create an RFP.
We plan to migrate to the Sierra ILS in 2014. Many of the major issues regarding the Millennium ILS have been addressed in Sierra.
We will be migrating to Sierra in May 2013
[...] we will be upgrading to the Sierra ILS in early 2013. [...] is our proxy for dealing with III, so we have little input regarding III's customer service or implementation efficiency.
We are part of a consortium; we wouldn't be able to afford an independent implementation of this software otherwise. We are so small that we're likely to do whatever our consortium does.
For academic library - the online catalog is just a target. It's days of BEING the core of the Library's online presence are diminishing.
Is the "approximate number of items in the library's collection" strictly books? That is what I answered, however we have access to far more.
We will be migrating to Alma in 2013
Some concerns about open source ILS products: we are a small community college library. We do not have any programming or development staff available. Reserve textbook circulation is a significant and complicated part of our library circulation. I wonder how well open source ILS products would work for a small academic library such as ours, with very limited resources. We have learned from other open source products that free is not always free or, you get what you pay for.
I have some concern that the investment by 2 equity firms, combined with the launch of the new LMS Sierra, has led to III becoming simultaneously over-extended and losing direction.
We feel that our current ILS is not well-optimized for current needs and tools as it has a quite clunky java-based interface and its OPAC doesn't offer much in the way of sharing cappabilites and information on the items listed in the catalog besides the catalographic record itself
We have not moved over to Sierra yet and do not have the money to do so. We want to see what it truly offers before making the investment.
We will be moving to a hosted environment in December.
as part of [...] , much of our options are choices about an ILS are dictated by our consortium.
We have already evaluated and rejected Encore, EBSCO Discovery System, and OCLC World Cat Local as discovery tools. We have already evaluated and rejected OCLC Web Management System as our next ILS.
We are hopeful that Sierra will give us better access to our data and allow for more in-house development.
We're pretty fed up with iii right now but a new ILS is not in our immediate budget. We'll dump them as soon as it's feasible. The product is fine but the customer service is not good at all.
Disappointed with 1990's interface and functionality + pricey cafeteria style add-ons for basic functionalities that 'come with' other ILS systems. Support for unique needs of consortium members not available in software or III staff expertise. Overall rating for support is poor -- requests languish and response is often page number to convoluted and incomplete documentation which has already been thoroughly studied prior to crying uncle and submitting request for help.
The current system has been recently acquired and it is in the implementation/installation process. More concrete feedback about the ILS will be available during the 2nd quarter of 2013.
The "number of items" includes our electronic books and streaming videos, which have to be included at this point. Our number of traditional, physical items is about half that.
Difficult to respond to some of these quesions as many of the decision respetive to the ILS are takenby the [...] library administration and as an integrated library are accepted by us automatically and applied to our library
Items in collection - 25,016 is number of physical items and OWNED ebooks. There is an additional 75,000 (approx) in the catalog of subscribed ebooks. We are not currently investigating a new ILS as we have a few years on our contract when the time comes we will consider other options.
Our library is in a museum setting. Our ILS does an excellent job of meeting our needs as a library. We are exploring better integration with the museum side of our institution.
We aren't just considering Sierra, we've signed up for it and are scheduled to go live in Nov 2013 (long lead time at our suggestion to fit in with end of NZ academic year). Our rating for satisfaction with Millennium has been dropping the last few years as open access to the system for APIs becomes more important. III's proprietary APIs are ridiculously expensive so we don't use them.
This ILS vendor charges too much for systems upgrades and additional modules
The consortium chose to change ILS vendors due primarily to cost and customer service. Innovative did not seem to be as willing to work with us as Auto-Graphics has been. What's more, we could not possibly afford the variety of resources offerred by Auto-Graphics from Innovative.
Innovative Interfaces' support for Millennium has suffered while they are focused on rolling out Sierra
displeasure with III has to do with the expense of the system. When first implemented, the library could not afford all the modules, and so we have limited functionality. It seems that anything we'd like to add costs $5,000 or more. It was not meant for a small library, and the administrator who selected it did not take that into consideration. We are now considering joining a state consortium, which is in the process of choosing a new ILS. This will save us tens of thousands of dollars each year.
Is it possible to disclose a list of libraries or consortia who have implemented open source discovery layers including those which have built-in or custom features such as a built-in hold feature to request items from other libraries;... Is there a library who's created a Summon type product via open source? Who, where, how? Thank you.
We are still using Millennium. We are partners with the[...] who will be switching to Sierra in 2013
Choosing an ILS is a consoria issue. Several options have been considered but actual companies I am not sure of. I feel there are more things available that we are not aware of but I can't be sure as access is limited to the provider and I do understand why.
Our collections, including monographs, are primarily online. Integrating online resources into ILS still poses some challenges.
Innovative should come outright at the end of the year to list products that they are charging maintenance even if they are not being used anymore such as 1:" webpac, 2) z39.50. etc. instead of waiting for the client to raise the issue. They should also be willing to issue credit when installation gets delayed for some of the interfaces instead of charging the same full amount ex. : databases interfaces for Synergy were not put in place as expected and was only taken care of after client follow-up. But no credit issued for the amount of time the interfaces to databases were not sued because they were not yet in place.
As part of a consortium, we will do what the group votes to do.
We are migrating to Sierra on Dec 12th. So, my answers are for millennium.
We would have supported open source products if the consortium had been interested in putting the technical resources toward developing, maintaining and enhancing the ILS product. The decision was made to purchase a hosted ILS and focus resources on developing/supporting other digital access projects within the consortium.
Decisions are made at the consortium level.
We are committed to migrate to Sierra.
We are part of a consortium of 9 [...] libraries that use III Millenium. Our server is hosted by III, and III also supplies a systems librarian (an "Application Management Coordinator") to handle system configuration issues. This has been a very good arrangement, esp. since many of our libraries are smaller and don't have the expertise to manage the system.
Implementing Innovative's Sierra plateform in 2013
Implementing Sierra (from Innovative) in 2013
OCLC's WMS isn't quite as mature as we'd hoped it would be by now, but I'm very interested in OCLCs ILS services because they are non-profit. Alma is too big of a change right now. We invested a lot of effort in Verde and were told by Ex Libis that we'd have the ER portion of Alma as a Verde upgrade. Then they changed their minds and said (early 2012) it wasn't possible to separate the ER portion so we would have to transition to Alma. We weren't prepared to adopt a new ILS at that point, but now feel pressure to do so since Verde has no reasonable replacement other than investing in Alma, and we'd like to integrate ERM with our acq and print mangement systems. We'd also like to minimize the duplication of another KB, namely, the local catalog and instead rely on WorldCat for monograph/AV/DVD discovery. Many of the CSU's recently began using Summon for discovery. That means duplicate KB mangement since we're currently using SFX and Metalib. We don't want to maintain yet another KB. Library's need better options, and there isn't a single system that can do what I want right now. Most likely, a modular solution will need to suffice for the next several years. Perhaps with a combination of say, Summon for discovery, WorldCat for OPAC-type discovery (if we can phase out the OPAC as a discovery tool, but with DDA and ebook package subscriptions that change monthly, it's difficult to envision), Serials Solutions for ERM management and continuing to use III for all acq and print management. Finally, I can't tell you how disappointed I've been with Ex Libris in the last several years. Verde customers have gotten the shaft. I don't envision ever investing in an ExLibris product again.
[...] libraries have just migrated to Millennium in June 2012. All elements of the main contract were fulfilled on time. Ancillary aspects had no set timetable but are being addressed in a timely manner. Training, setup support and ongoing support through this process has been excellent. Functionality relative to the needs of the library is down due to the unsophisticated HomeBound module, however this was known at the time of purchase. Satisfaction is high with reservations, as staff grapple with a new way of doing things and learning the capabilities and limitations of the product.
The only reason we are considering Civica Spydus is that we are part of a larger library consortium, which running a single LMS project. Civica won the tender for this project. Membership of the single LMS project is not obligitory.
This is our first year with Millennium so I cannot compare the service with previous years
This library is not directly in communication with the vendor. We go through a consortium. However, during the implementation there was very little training done by the vendor to the end users, which was very disappointing.
Innovative presents very good products, but the documentation to support these products is on occassion confusing. The Help Desk staff is very knowledgeable and resolves issues very effectively and in a timely fashion. The company is also very responsive to customers concerns and suggestions. We have been Innovative customers for about 18 years and I highly recommend them.
[...] We have also hosted Evergreen for the [...] , but have not committed to moving to Evergreen or another open ILS at this time.
[...] is moving to Ex Libris Alma and Primo in January 2014, a shared system of the [...]
The collection includes e-book subscriptions
Summon is not being used as discovery for catalog, only electronic resources. [...]
We have 30000 titles, most of the electronic. Items are physical things that sit on shelves.
We were scheduled to have SIERRA installed November 2012 but I had to push it back to May 2013 due to server issues.
We are considering joining a local library consortium that is implementing Polaris, and if so would migrate to that system. It makes me feel sad, because I think Millennium is a very superior system. However, budget constraints have made it difficult for us to keep up with the latest products from III.
We looked into our options earlier this year and decided to remain with III but with shrinking budgets we don't want to pay for more than we need.
Heavily acquiring Electronic - in process of weeding print holdings
We hired a new Director who started in January 2012. He came from a library system that used Evergreen. He has been pushing for a change to Evergreen since he came. The automations librarian and I are agreeable to looking at Evergreen, but we keep pointing out the functionality and products that we have with Millennium that we would lose if we were to migrate to Evergreen. Before the new director started, the automations librarian and I were looking forward to migrating to Sierra and the things it would offer. We don't see migrating to Sierra anymore. It looks like we will be on Millennium until we are able to switch to Evergreen. The main reason is the cost. We do not have staff with programming capability so we would have to rely on the open source community to come up with the features that we would want. Our budget is still really tight and other than staffing, our biggest expense is the ILS.
Performance problems more noticable since we started importing e-monograph records in large numbers. Multiple added entries for aggregators (eg Ebsco) seem to somehow clog up the author and title indexes.
Rapid change. Difficult to keep up for both vendors and libraries, We are starting early to define what we need and who will give us what. Budget is also a big issues. Higher administration hear bits and pieces and thinks we can create a system easily. We have been surprised before to learn that when we migrated we lost things the old system had that we took for granted
For the most part, we are pleased with the functionality of Millennium. Issues which cause us concern are the 1) high cost of maintenance, 2) high cost of new products such as Encore or moving to Sierra, and 3) enchancements which are packaged/sold as a new product rather than a standard upgrade in a new release.
It is difficult to differentiate between satisfaction with the vendor and the product itself. For us, Millennium has served its purpose, but it is cost prohibitive to get the ILS to support the changes we need to implement now and in the future to improve staff efficiency, adapt to new service models, make data driven decisions, inter-operate with other systems, and improve the patron experience. Aside from the cost model, III uses for Millennium, the ILS itself does not give us much flexibility. We recently determined that to bring on RFID and address some significant changes in workflows, it will be more difficult and costly to change Millennium than it will be to go to bid and migrate to a new solution. I've been told that III has changed the cost model for Sierra, however, at this point, the functionality we need now isn't there, so we have decided to go to bid.
Regarding customer support, too many inexperienced staff provide poor support. This year it took more digging to get to experts who know what's what.
The biggest concern for our library continues to be the costs of operating our ILS.
Utilizamos el sistema de forma consorciada con otras instituciones y tenemos algunas opciones limitadas, no podemos utilizar libremente todo lo que ofrece el programa. La difícil situación económica nos impide considerar la adquisición de un interfaz de descubrimiento, cosa que sería útil para consultar simultáneamente la Biblioteca y el Archivo, que utiliza otro programa.
En un futuro próximo no estamos considerando un cambio de sistema.
At this time the [... Evergreen] ILS is not robust enough for our needs.
La biblioteca depende de la red de bibliotecas de la [...], que es quien ha adquirido el programa de gestión. Nuestra biblioteca no puede tomar ninguna decisión sobre el programa contratado.
As part of a consortium we do not have direct contact with ILS vendors - all changes in this regard are done at the consortium level with input from member libraries.
I wasn't quite sure how to respond to this, as we are on the brink of implementing Sierra--we will be live at the end of January. We have been on Millennium throughout 2012.
The [...] led an RFP process in 2011-2012 that resulted in the selection of Ex Libris Alma and Primo. [...] will implement Alma and Primo in[...], with an expected go-live date of January 2014. My library's relationship with the current ILS vendor, Innovative Interfaces, are basically static - not better or worse. Innovative's emerging management system option, Sierra, received serious consideration during the [...] RFP process, while its current discovery product simply isn't competitive with products like Summon and Primo - based on the way Encore functioned in spring 2012. Overall, I see several encouraging signs from Innovative (as my library ends a 17 year relationship with the vendor), including the Sierra product and the tone set by Innovative's new CEO. The bottom line for my library is that we are committed to the shared management system and the Ex Libris Alma/Primo solution was seen as the best option at each stage of the [...] lengthy process (including RFI, RFP written proposals, and RFP demos).
We are migrating to Sierra and have subscriptions for Encore Synergy and Content Pro waiting to be installed.
Due the fact we are part of a consortium, our choice for ILS is what ever the collective choose. Our hands are tied on this decision.
We are migrating this year to Evergreen.
The main concern I have with ILS and Library product vendors (i.e. ebooks, databases, discovery tools) is that they claim that their products all work well together when in fact they do not and need to do problem solving on the Library's end. While the whole ebook explosion is good, I have found that vendors do not have a solid infrastructure in place to manage them. Another concern is that vendors and link resolvers (ePortals) are not getting their data uploads fast enough to one another in order to provide easy access point in one place--such as our ePortal (serials solutions 360 link). I realize that everything is evolving and will continue to be worked out. People search for information these days much differently then they have in the past and Library's need to be aware of this.
We migrated in the past year to a hosted version of our ILS at the vendor's site. It has not been as smooth as we hoped, but seems to be improving.
Innovative support is hit or miss and the company charges money for anything and everything.
In our view, Innovative is overpriced and provides very poor customer service. However, it's one of the very few systems that provides all the features we need. We evaluated several ILS/LMS products over the past year in an attempt to lower costs, to get better customer service, and perhaps to support the open source model. Three products -- Koha (open source), EOS, and OCLC WorldShare/WMS -- made our final cut, but none was entirely satisfactory. (EOS came closest, and their customer service appears to be excellent.) We ended up staying with Innovative after getting a major price reduction from them. Poor customer service remains a problem, however.
[...] is considering a transition to the Sierra data structure offered by Innovative, but we are waiting to hear about issues encountered by other systems of similar size that have made the move to Sierra. The high cost of the data conversion is also an issue since we had not included it in budget projections before FY13-14.
We still like Millennium, and the Sierra formerly known as Millennium, but we need some of the functionality that III only offers as additional--and expensive--products, and we're increasingly unable to afford them. Polaris is whining at the door like Dan Rather's hound dog on a cold night in December.
Information about other libraries' DAM products would be a useful addition to the Library Automation Survey and technology guides. Thank you.
Would be good if we could get enhancements without a ballot process. we have different needs to US and university libraries.
We are a medical school library and find that most of our patron requests are for current electronic resources. We have built our own portal for these electronic resources and now find that less and less of our usage is via the catalog. We have statistics to back this up. So, we are always questioning the cost for the ILS vs the usage.
[...] has been closed since October 29 because of Hurricane Sandy. We belong to a 52 member computer consortium in Nassau County New York, which migrated to Innovative Interfaces new Sierra platform at the end of November. Because of our closing, the staff has had no experience with this new product; consequently, we cannot comment.
We've been particularly dissatisfied with III but the consortium decided to stick with it after an ILS review last year. The reason came down primarily to cost, although functionality is lacking. Being a multi-type consortium has its problems one of which is seeing our ILS in the same light.
We completed our implementation in November 2012. During the final stages of our implementation we became aware that the implementation team was working on several other implementations at the same time. We felt at times that we did not receive the level of support or promptness of response that we were expecting. As we have only been live for a month it is difficult for us to give an accurate response to some of the questions.
We are currently working on ERM and will then Federated Search prior to deciding on a Discovery Interface or pure integration with the dept. Enterprise wide search, if being developed at that point. (Library Systems team of 1.4 FTEs).
we are part of a consortial group that would make a consortial decision on changing ILS. However, the data above represents our thoughts/feelings with regard to the consortial input we have.
Budgetary concerns remain an issue in moving to discovery platforms and/or Sierra.
Will migrate to Sierra in June 2013. Unlikely to move to a new ILS due to [...] commitment to and integration with Innovative - but if that were not a factor, we certainly would consider a new ILS as we are not very satisfied with III.
WAM sometimes inadequate. Add-on modules expensive.
Number of items is physical items, and is decreasing as we shift the focus of our collection away from print and physical formats.
Note: We loaded Hathi freely available records last year which inflates our item count a bit.
We will be migrating to OCLC WMS, with a go live date of July 2013.
I've not directly experienced the ILS vendor's customer support so I skipped those two questions. (We are in a library network and they provide our ILS suppport)
Innovative must improve on their customer support services/helpdesk to reflect their 24/7 commitments truthfully.
We are beginning an investigation to possibly migrate in 2015. We have no products in mind yet.
We are considering upgrading to the the latest III software (Sierra) - we've looked at what is available currently in "the cloud" and are not impressed, especially from a consortial point of view with our [...] colleagues. But we anticipate that there will be greater reason to review the scene in 3-5 yrs.
Support is patchy, problems getting responses or solutions, partly caused by different work patterns, particularly poor if no speedy resolution. Basic functionality fine, but more advanced features don't seem fully integrated with work flow. very poor support for older products no longer in development
We are using open source version of NewGenLib 3.03 U5. So, Most of the questions seem to be irrelevant in our context.
We are NOT automated.
We as the client must accept some respnsibility for the problems
We are currently in the process of implementing a new ILS and discovery interface - project due to be completed by Easter 2013
I indicated 9 for service improvement. In truth, there has been no change. The service w have received from OPALS has always been exemplary
Customer support is fast, efficient and pleasant. Opals accomodates "trials" before purchasing. This 'open source' model is really more of a hybrid. We pay for hosting, maintenance and improvements. In the end, it is only open-=source in theory. It is a hybrid model with no complaints. It still saves us a considerable sum of money.
OPALS is the most ethical, responsible company, period, this systems librarian has ever dealt with. I can not say enough about the excellent support staff who are always responsive and cheerful in helping us get our work done efficiently. OPALS still needs to do some basic development work -- for example, there is no acquisitions or serials functionality -- but there are regular significant updates and they are working through our collective wishlists systematically. The basic system is very intuitive for our staff and users, with little training needed to get us up and running. All the library staff feel that selecting OPALS was the best decision we could have made.
OPALS staff was very helpful in our migration to their system. We have had issues with the way the records were loaded. They are working on correcting the problems.
We switched to OPALS from Infocentre this past summer, and so far we are very satisfied with our new ILS.
the OPALS catalog has been operational for a short time and we are still working on fine-tuning it to match the needs of our library, which has a small specialized collection.
Not sure how to answer some of these questions. The service is the same and they are very responsive. We just subscribed to this ILS.
Opals is constantly improving its interface and is receptive to suggestions
Our tech support from Media Flex is exclusively by email. Response to software glitches is very prompt, with minor programming issues often handled within a matter of hours. Company is very responsive to customer recommendations for software enhancements, though implementation sometimes takes longer than we might like. Customization options for the OPAC home page and enhancements to the Pathfinder function during the past year have made these features especially useful for libraries which do not also maintain a separate website. Significantly improved MARC record editor has almost completely weaned me away from a long-used 3rd party product.
Migrating to OPALS is the first step of integrating library into curriculum, integrating more electronic sources while retaining print and expanding the library space virtually.
OPALS is a very satisfactory program. The support is excellent. We have been very pleased.
Collection is in 4 languages English, French, Hebrew, Yiddish. It is possible to create records in all 4 languages which is important for our library. My experience with this vendor has been excellent over the past 10 years and their tech service is always very helpful and timely.
The OPALS team continually reviews and develops this product in response to needs of their users. Our staff imports demographic information regarding our users from our student management system into OPALS with ease. We also import student images from our school’s photography company. Their development team recognizes the value of the handshake between multiple information products used within the same organization. Their customer service is prompt, efficient, and user-friendly.
OPALS is a high value product with a lot of functionality for a low price.
OPALS system is perfect for our needs. The company far surpasses our expectations in terms of service, functionality, and long term sustainability and vision.
OPALS is easy to use, easy to teach and has wonderful functions that other systems don't have, like the ability to create bibliographies in various formats. The [...] Library is a very specialized research library and OPALS covers most of our needs. The changes made recently have greatly enhanced the system.
The software is very dynamic, constantly being update and augmented, and the company not only addresses individual library needs but also is a leader in the industry keeping ahead of new trends and standards.
Because this is a professional library our needs differ from the other component school libraries and the software allows for a large degree of configuration and leveling to accommodate everyone. The support we receive from the vendor is exceptional, especially in today's competitive market where promises are rarely kept and executed in a timely manner.
irst year service was exceptional. We cannot comment on whether it is better than last year.
We cannot comment on whether service has improved in the past year. We started using this system two three months ago.
The support and help to migrate to OPALS has been terrific. Migration from our previous system was seamless. I am looking forward to a long and happy relationship with OPALS.
Cannot comment on improved services question as this is our first year.
Oneida Middle School was closed this spring, and I now find myself at two elementary schools. With rapid-fire book exchanges, I find myself with more errors coming out of the circulation system, though I'm not sure it's a problem with the ILS vendor. It may be problems with our district's remote connection to OPALS servers in Canada, or simply with my own routines. I'm experiencing a few of the hassles my elementary colleagues have bemoaned since we got the product. I'm still committed to it for other reasons. I use many of the features my colleagues don't.
I've been very happy with the support of the [...] and OPALS reps in a team approach to solving issues.
OPALS has done everything that has been asked of it. Any issues have been resolved incredibly rapidly.
We are working with a system called Open Biblio. We have about half of the volumes in the library entered into the system.
Greater flexibility needed ILL clunky greater integration ie authority finance, rfid, ebooks and statistics as part of main system. More interactivity for the public
Over half of our collection is now ebooks.
Overall the customer support is good. We went through a period of time where our site manager was slow to respond, but that has improved significantly. I think Polaris tries hard, and mostly succeeds, in putting out a good product and making it flexible enough to suit large and small libraries.
Good service from Polaris, but the newer products they are offering (Fusion, WebAPI, ebook services) are priced beyond our budget.
Our library system has recently been reorganized so that we are now only a City library system instead of a City/County library system.
The lack of barcode validation would have been a deal-breaker had we known. We have had numerous problems because of it. The remote desktop interface drives me nuts with windows jumping around the screen, sometimes partly off the screen. With three servers and no way to tell which one you are connected to it makes troubleshooting very difficult. The bulk changes feature is my favorite feature. The overall lack of attention to detail is appalling. For instance, in bulk item creation, you have to tell the system how many barcodes you are scanning in, even though it should know because they scanned them in.
Decisions are made at the system level
we will not migrate to Polaris until Spring 2013. we currently use III, Millenium ILS.
Polaris is more focused on public libraries, not academic libraries. They are working to improve their academic focus.
Have had Polaris since July 2012.
Price of Polaris is difficult to sustain in these economic times.
There are some features we would liked to have changed about our system but did not have the option to do this (such as larger screen shots). I'm not sure if there was a lack of flexibilty or if it was a pricing issue with our consortium.
Polaris is great to work with! Can't say enough about all the Polaris staff I deal with; all fantastic.
Currently in transition from SIRSI to Polaris. Go live date in Polaris will be [later in ] 2012.
Using BiblioCommons as a discovery interface to Polaris
several subsystems in use in the library have their own Discovery interfaces (i.e., MediaBank dvd dispenser, OverDrive, 3M Cloud)
[...] Also we are a hosted Polaris site and so are ILS is in the Cloud not onsite.
Still not happy how Koha handles records for search access
Not yet using this system still using Horizon
From look-see to contract to implementation, vendor support has been exceptional! We made a great choice
Polaris is all about customer service. I appreciate their personal touch.
If or when the [...] open source catalog is as robust and offers as many features as Polaris, and would be cheaper to maintain, I would consider switching. I also am a fan of OCLC's Worldshare, however, it is way to expensive.
Polaris support has not been responsive. We don't feel a close relationship/partnership with the vendor and what we had hoped would be a state of the art ILS is somewhat stagnant because of the in-house effort it takes to implement changes and improvements. We felt more support from our previous ILS vendor, SIRSI-DYNIX.
Approximate number of items was last updated (in our records) around March of 2012. It's most likely closer to 250,000 today - but there is currently no hard data to back up this claim.
Because of cost, the days of maintaining our own server and support staff onsite may be numbered. Polaris is not as expensive as other ILS vendors, and they support us well, but we may be forced to join a consortium to better utilize our diminishing resources.
Polaris support has always been excellent. The past year they have experienced quite a bit of staff turnover. Currently we are not getting the same response we did in the past--longer time in receiving a reply from our Site Manager, upgrade date pushed back because it wasn't properly scheduled, etc.
We have only been on Polaris for one year, so I cannot answer whether or not customer support has gotten better or worse. Overall, we are happy with the move to Polaris, off of Horizon.
The ILS is not very efficient to produce statistics reports. Statistics provided are not accurate. Is slow to respond when asked to produce a report. Not super userfriendly.
considering upgrading to the new ResourceMate product, but this depends entirely on library budget for 2013
The RQM online catalog is poor, so we are replacing it with LibraryThing while we migrate to Evergreen over the next few years.
* The [...] Consortium migrated to Sierra including new servers, in early October - migration went smoothly, except that we still have some issues with freezing, slowness and latency at times. For example short loan transactions sometimes take time to reflect on the system. * Our archival database is still working on Millennium and will be moved to Sierra in a 2nd phase of Sierra development schedule.
On October 23 our library and [...] system migrated from Millenium to Sierra.
In early March 2012 the [...] consortium finished negotiating a contract with Innovative to migrate to the new ILS (Sierra) by early July 2012. Most of the Innovative staff have been good to work with, but the product itself is not ready for consortial use inasmuch as [...] needs it to be. We are still working on cleaning up loose ends from the (very short!) migration and are also requesting several software changes to make it more consortial-friendly. I believe the ILS has the potential to be ranked higher than what I selected, but it's not there yet.
Sierra implementation scheduled for February 2013. EDS implementation scheduled for January 2013.
number of items is physical items. Add about 90,000 for electronic resources (and that's probably a low number of what we can access, since we don't add bib records to the catalog for the Open Access books & journals, due to the huge number and, in some cases, unreliability - may be available now, but who knows for how long?)
Innovative has to much control over our ILS. Sierra is suppose to be more open than Innovative's older ILS system but we are finding it isn't much more open. They have to much control. We want more control.
We believe that Sierra will deliver integrity to data and transactions, as well as the reporting functions that we need. We were happy to participate in its alpha and beta stages.
We have purchased and are implementing Primo as our discovery layer. As for the issue of whether the ILS vendor (III) implemented the latest product on time, I answered "no" because we were scheduled to migrate in August, but III scaled back the migration timetable. We are not unhappy with this decision. It allowed III to be better prepared to handle the new environment and allowed time for the resolution of known issues and the discovery of other issues. We are satisfied with the vendor's plan and feel that it was the correct decision.
Have had several problems with new ILS not performing well in our consortial setting with several independent libraries. May work better for consortiums that are smaller and less diverse in needs.
Many functions in Sierra are suffering from very slow performance despite the software being installed on very high performance new hardware. Triple I has been working to improve performance and code efficiency, but it is disappointing how many issues we have encountered and the length of time to resolve issues.
Each member of [...] has a discovery system --[...] and [...] each implemented an instance of Encore Synergy on a hosted, shared III server this fall. [...] is in its 2nd year of using EDS.
It is highly likely that the discovery service we choose will replace the Encore interface of our ILS. It is also quite possible that in a few years, Alma, In Tota, or WorldShare will replace the ILS.
We are in the process of migrating to Sierra from Horizon and discovered the product is still underdeveloped and underdevelopment. So far we are not impressed with most of the functionality and discovered the sales pitch was more impressive than the process of training and implementation.
Lost some helpful functionality with the new version. Layout in some of the record forms is counter productive. Additional key strokes are now necessary.
As a branch library we don't have too much to do with the decision maker in regards to our ILS. We mostly just use the circulation and OPAC. There are a few annoying glitches but we've been told that these should be cleared up with an upcoming major update.
Innovative Interfaces provides very good service. We appreciate their interest in upgrading the system regularly.
Migration from Millennium to Sierra in process with expectation for completion by late February to early March 2013.
Our consortium [...] just migrated in early December from Innovative Interfaces' Millennium to its Sierra software and upgraded its hardware platforms. The migration went quite well. Our personnel are currently working out what appear to be relatively minor "kinks" primarily in the generation of statistics and reports. The OPAC interface is virtually unchanged so there has been issue of acceptance by the public.
We upgraded to Sierra from Millennium this year and it wasn't as smooth as we hoped so some of the numbers on satisfaction may have gone down from last year.
Library collection appears much larger because included electronic books for the first time.
Previously Millennium, migrated to Sierra during Dec 2012. Satisfaction levels decreased mostly due to number of problems with Sierra functionality and lack of prompt or any resolution so far.
Our catalog is controlled by the main campus of [...] . We have no control over what we might implement or change. We are part of [...] , so their system applies to us, too.
Innovative Interfaces has not yet fulfilled its"100% Millennium functionality" guarantee for the new Sierra library services platform. If Sierra were still in development or in beta, we would be more flexible but, since it is now officially in general release, our ratings are likely lower than last time when they pertained to Millennium.
New discovery layer will be joint with main campus.
Sima Inc has always provided an excellent ILS and their customer service is outstanding. They implement enhancements based on the users' recommendati
Our ILS is an open source product originally started in Georgia (the US State) and adapted by the [...].
We're new on Civica, having gone live at the end of July 2012
Will be shifting onto Symphony and becoming part of the state wide system in June 2013. We did consider standing aside from the new system but a steadily increasing lack of support, increasing annual fees and individual charging for issues that we consider integral to the successful funcioning of the software has led us to change our mind.
This ILS currently offers a large range of global consortium features that allows [...] Library to work with other librarires across the [...] Libraries.
the delay in installation was many years ago
The library is a part of th e[...] Consortium that also has Enterprise as its catalog overlay. The present problem we are having is that not all holdings display in Enterprise as they do in Work Flows circulation module. Also we are receiving "Unexpected Exception Occurred" messages intermittently when searching holdings in the Symphony Catalog.
Key customer support improvements: known issue tracker/documentation, list-serv participation regarding current bugs/problems, response time to open cases
We've just started using SirsiDynix's Enterprise discovery interface and like it very much so far.
Our consortium currently has an RFP out.
Ths library operates as a part of a consortia. This limits somewhat the capacity to be innovative with the way we deal with some niche collections as we must follow the consortia rules. We are also unable to enhance any bib records as these are shared.
Are in the process of moving to SirsiDynix's SAAS environment having our ILS hosted by them.
Major issues with vendor are price, slow pace of development, and increasing emphasis on public library needs not academic.
In some ways, our ILS has almost superseded in the last year or so. Because of organisational constraints on ICT, and the slow development of next gen interfaces by SirsiDynix, we've gone to an externally hosted discovery service (EDS). We're still using Symphony for all of our back end library functions, but when patrons need information, we mainly directing them to EDS because it's a faster, better, easier and more complete user experience. Symphony is now much more of a user afterthought, and in some ways, we don't really care what happens with the development of their discovery option, because we're already committed elsewhere.
Bring back Horizon 8
Have submitted a case for funding to "consider" LMS; awaiting approval, hence vague lists above. Will need to submit case for funding to *implement* LMS when decided; not guaranteed we'll get the cash, and certainly not before Aug 2013
We can't believe how much better Vufind is than any of the SirsiDynix products we've used (WebCat, iLink, EPS, Enterprise). It has more functionality, is more flexible and arguably has as good a support system through the user responses to questions. And it's FREE!
Will migrate to OCLC WorldShare Management Services in late spring 2013.
[...] currently is in the bid process for a new ILS. We should have a new vendor selected by Dec. 1st.
Migration, updating, problem solving is done by the current SA, who is me. Because I migrated the system from Winnebago to SirsiDynix in 1999, I have been here a long time. When I leave....they will move to some other discovery service...probably Open Source or outsource the ILS.
We are very happy with [...] and their support. We have been on [...] since March 1, 2012
Except for frequent failure of server to restart correctly after indexing, we would be complately satisfied We're working with customer service and getting good responses from them.
This library will be joining the [...] library consortium in early 2013
Main issue with this vendor is the high maintenance fees, that rise every year while our budget gets cut
[...] has an RFP out now for a new ILS. Bidders include SirsiDynix, III, ByWater, Polaris, VTLS, Insignia, Infor Library Systems
We are using VuFind as our Discovery interface.
[...] has been a SirsiDynix customer since 1996.
The library recently opened in a new location and went from a facility of approximately 9,000 square feet to 32,000 square feet.
We are keeping our eye on OCLC's WMS ILS but it currently cannot handle the needs of a consortium.
We hope to implement RFID technology in 2013
Budget prevents consideration for replacement of ILS or implementation of a discovery interface or Next Gen catalog. Over the past years we have been forced to reduce features on ILS due to expenditures.
The library consortia is migrating to Polaris
I would like to see software for library uses catch up technology-wise to what patron use every day on their phones, tablets and personal computers. Librarians will adapt to the products that are delivered, but patron deserve better. ILS vendors perpetuate the idea that libraries are out-of-date and out-to-touch when they continually deliver software that is outdated before it's even implemented.
Annual renewal fee is quite high,[...] . Upgrades should be proposed by supplier at nominal cost, specially for libraries in developing countries.
Support services and SAS are expensive
[...] State Library rocks for us! They have been integral in creating the[...] consortium and spearhead the Request For Proposal process in selecting a vendor, installations, technical troubleshooting and training. Their customer service is superb! We would not otherwise have an ILS if it wasn't for [...] consortium.
We will sign 5 year extension for Symphony this month. We will continue to be locally hosted, but we've just moved from physical servers to a virtual server setup to facilitate easier management and troubleshooting.
Number of items in collection has increased exponentially due to digital materials (e-books, e-audiobooks).
We have 124,000 ebooks from multiple vendors.
We recently migrated to SirsiDynix Symphony (within the last 6 months). Our opinion of their products and services has gone up recently, but were lower during migration and implementation.
My main complaint is the Reports portion of the system - it is not very "user friendly" and therefore takes a lot of time from the Technical service staff of our consortium. Our staff is terrific!
Our legacy ILS lacks modern features and our vendor only provides them as added-cost add-ons mostly from third parties that are bolted on to the legacy system.
We plan on migrating to Evergreen in the next 6 months.
Please take my responses regarding our ILS with a grain of salt. We use an ILS that spans several campuses, and the ILS was selected before I began my position at this library. I direct any problems to our flagship campus, so my involvement with the ILS is very limited. I am responsible for the maintenance and updates to our discovery service, though.
Most of the decisions about the ILS are made on a consortium level, so our input as an individual member is minimal. [...] is keeping on SirsiDynix to deliver on their promises, but it has been an uneven process and our patrons are only willing to be so patient.
Multi-county library system (public)
Library Administration is open to the idea of an open source solution, but we receive all our IT support from the County. Our County IT Dept. is wholely against any open source solutions.
SirsiDynix's support is fantastic. But Symphony as it is has reached its use-by date. It's great for print - but a non-starter for electronic collections. We're therefore keeping a watch on the developments around products such as Alma & Intota.
The Library is currently implementing Symphony. Go-live mid Dec 2012. Thus comments are based on the implementation experience, not live usage.
I currently shadow the books for my library and would very much like an established program that I can utilize for these taks: incoming and outgoing, invoices, monies etc.
The reporting feature is not working well. Individual libraries in the consortium have to ask [...] to do the reports for them. We used to be able to do them ourselves.
Our consortium is in the process of moving into a union database. Our library will not be joining the consortium in this initiative, but are committed to a contract with our current vendor until the end of 2015. At that time, we will consider moving to a different vendor.
[...] subscribes to SirsiDynix's platinum services which has given [...] immediate access to API and consulting services, which has facilitated our ability to respond to public service needs.
We are in the middle of migrating from SirsiDynix to WMS. We are already live with the public interface and are finalizing the migration on the staff side. The reason for the switch was that OCLC can provid us with a discovery interface AND an ILS system all in the same package for less than we were paying for SirsiDynix.
We have recently migrated to a virtual server on our campus network. We will most likely implement the SirsiDynix discovery interface once it is fully developed.
We participate in a consortium of libraries and have a contract with SirsiDynix for another 3-4 years. We are most unhappy and could opt out of the consortium, to the detriment of the other participaing libraries, so we hang on, but are unhappy with the ILS and the pricing structure of any enhancements.
We would be happier if our library could make changes to Symphony that just affect our library. All changes are made at the consortium level, and require consortium approval before implementation.
We are in the process of implementing a Discovery interface (Enterprise from SirsiDynix)
There is interest in looking at another ILS in four years or so. The quality or functionality is not the issue; it's the escalating cost of the software maintenance that makes our people want to look at the competition.
We recently decided to negotiate a five year renewal of our Symphony agreement, and to do a full vendor evaluation in three years, when we feel that, in addition to Polaris, other alternatives including OCLC WebShare, III Sierra and Evergreen should be more mature and viable for a consortium such as ours. We think Symphony is moving in a positive direction, but still want to see improvements especially in the ACQ and Serials modules and data mining (we'll see how Analytics Station goes). We also look forward to the planned web-based client.
We are a Consortial type group,
I'm on the consortia staff, so I'm answering from the consortia level, not from a member library.
Sirsi/Dynix has met all of our expectations. The company continues, for us, to be a strong leader in customer support and service. The Sales Rep, [...] , is very attentive and responsive to our needs and patient in helping us to understand new approaches to service
I am pleased with the ILS we are currently using.
The number of items is the systemwide count. We have a consortium.
Evaluating EBSCO Discovery Service for use for journal article discovery.
Been happy with SirsiDynix Symphony but very unhappy with SD's ability to deliver an OPAC or discovery layer that matches current expectations. Have had major problems with every upgrade, service pack or patch in last 2 years. Problems with internal silos and failure to communicate within SD affects their ability to deliver either on time or as promised. Looking for a web-based LMS that offers full integration of e-content acquisition and management as well the usual tools. Will decide on whether discovery layer will be from same vendor based on whether we can find a vendor that can meet the web 2.0 & integrated ebook delivery options while still providing a robust LMS. I doubt we'll get that, but I'd rather something designed to work together than having yet more forced collaborations.
Having inherited a 7-year contract for Symphony SaaS, I have put my focus elsewhere. In the end that's not so bad. The ILS isn't as important to the value we provide our university as it used to be, though it's still necessary.
I find that there are a lot of steps to do simple tasks. I also feel that a lot was done for us by Sirsi staff at the very beginning (which was good at the time) but now when something isn't working the way it should, staff comes to me and I have to fumble my way through because I'm not sure how it was set up to begin with. The training was difficult for us because it was so different from what we used before. I believe most libraries who were doing the training the same time as us had been using something similiar to Symphony so they understood better. It was like a foreign language to me. Therefore there is still a lot I have trouble with because I don't know how it was done in the first place. There are several things I love about this system and several things I hate. Having to run a report for everything is time consuming for me because of all the different things that need or could be filled out. I find it very complicated. So does most of our staff. I didn't get to get in on the first talks when deciding what new system to get. I was brought in after everything was decided and came in blind. The lady who was our system administrator at the time decided she wanted to retire so they brought me in. I feel I've done pretty well considering, but it has not been easy. The manuals that I have explain just very, very basics. And the "Help" doesn't help much either.
SIRSI has not seemed caring to our consortium as a customer, , other than to sell us more product, or to charge for products we were not paying for prviously, i.e. BOOK COVERS in the catalog
We chose to have SirsiDynix host our ILS for us. I feel it was the right move for us. We have received excellent support and been relieved of the need to worry about new servers, upgrades and maintenance.
ERM is the next system priority for us. We are keeping a keen eye on work by a [...] ILS consortium who are favouring an open source approach for ILS and ERM via Kuali.
We plan on upgrading to Symphony in the next few months.
Library collection count only for tangible items
Have seen a significant improvement in customer support this year. This led to purchasing several new products from the company. Implementation of the new products has gone quite smoothly. Things aren't perfect, but I do think they've improved this year.
We have a contract in place to upgrade to SirsiDynix Enterprise from EPS Rooms. The project is underway.
Keep hoping for the next great ILS
I am thrilled with the current system. I have library cards for both Washington and Multnomah Counties, and their systems do not begin to compare with what we have in Clackamas County.
Currently using highly modified version of SIRSI web2 opac, in a consortial environment. Retirement of web2 is planned for mid-2013. Selection of new opac and discovery layer still i progress. Note: Library uses VuFind as discovery layer for one special collection. Would not consider VuFind as discovery tool as replacement for opac, due to support and management issues.
above item number does not include the shared group ebooks.
I am responding as the library system representing 6 libraries.
The bigest problems with symphony is the lack of a staff web front end and interface to easily add, edit, and manage the database. the "WorkFlows" Java client is archaic.
We have been on Sirsi's SaaS environment for more than 2 years and have been very happy with their hosting service. However, we are very disappointed with their next generation catalog, Enterprise. It is not suitable for a large academic library.
Reference to local public records and the joint local authority image store [...] are becoming increasingly important in our day to day operations.
We received a federal grant to join the [...] in 2012. Therefore, we now use Symphony/Sirsi Dynix as an ILS. This has been a win-win situation for both our library and our patrons. Our membership was completed[...] .
Although not actively considering a new ILS at present, we are keeping an eye on developments in unified and e-resource management and may consider widening our systems in future. When we do, all viable systems including open source will be considered. We have an excellent relationship with SirsiDynix which will certainly count in their favour, but any future decision will inevitably be based also on functionality and cost.
Increase in items due to electronic holdings being put in catalog
We are a SaaS site. Service has been great and outages few, Any issues have been resolved quickly.
[...] which was purchased through SirisDynix is clunky and is not user friendly. There is way more in the system than is actually used. It is not efficient and for what it is, its expensive.
The reporting system compared to Follett is massive. I could have reportsts done in lot less time then using Director Station.
This library and other consortium mebers are watching bigger shared ILS products with shared databases, collections and one card.
The collection count you have listed does not include over 90,000 ebooks. ILS vendors cannot be competitive because of incentives to keep current customers. Incompatibility with ILS systems and many discovery search platforms is a problem. Consortia portals are not accessible or compatible with all services.
[...] contract lasts a few more years with Sirsi Dynix. Executives are always thinking of which company to go with next.
[...] are a development partner on the Serials Solutions INTOTA project. We are not unhappy with our SIrsiDynix Symphony implementation. We are interested in leveraging SaaS benefits including reducing our local system support footprint.
Our ILS solution is hosted by our vendor and we are considering moving to another hosted ILS solution. Due to the size of the collection, however, the cost of this move is prohibitive in our current budget environment.
Total cataloged items: 459,263. Total physical items in collection: 212,066
Please note in consideration of the survey that our migration of ILS from Sirsi Dynix WorkFlows to Polaris takes place on Wednesday, December 12, 2012 and takes place within a library consortium.
The library is hoping to implement Software as a Service, mainly because of IT issues, but also because the vendor appears to be shaping its development and support structures to strongly encourage this.
We are curently using the system in a live environment for 3 weeks so our responses should be ponderated. We are discovering our system every day, lot of ajustments but overall happy with the end result. We cannot evaluate the support because we are just switching from implantation to support.
Before choosing another ILS, we are waiting for the ILS Cloud solutions market to become more mature.
Support team is excellent.
Good, affordable ILS for smaller libraries. Ready for this company to migrate to HTML5. Latest release needs to remove flash components as it slows the loading of catalog pages, and not every patron's device supports flash if searching catalog remotely from home.
Autographics has great customer support. I just don't find its ILS very intuitive. Sometimes I think it was designed by non-librarians.
We have had intermittent issues with the speed of Verso. Auto-Graphics did send out a survey about speed issues, and it is my understanding that they are working on improving this issue.
Recently had an upgrade in server capacity for the ILS company but still experience slowness- waiting for response on the ILS side, pages to move from one operation to another, pages to open after being selected. The vendor does host our catalog on their servers. had difficulty this September in getting databases to connect to our search pages and function correctly, which is done by ILS company technicans. Find more help on the listserv at times than in emailing/calling the vendors support line.
Auto-graphics has federated search which I understand is different than discovery service, but it does help customers to easily access our online resources.
Speed bumps in line with AG's growth as an ILS service provider and these have come with many downsides. The upsides are AG's Customer Support services, ILL, and ability to work with outside vendors.
There is an ongoing issue with Auto-Graphics and our interlibrary loan provider, [...] about NCIP.
Love Verso; great help from [...]
Please fix the "Item Categories" to line up in Alfabetical order! It really hurts my eyes to seek out what "item categories" I what to put a holding into when I'm attaching my holding to the MARC. Thank you so much!
Problems that existed at the time of migration are still not solved two years later. Products, interfaces, and reports that were promised have not become available. Updates to the system often change settings in areas that should not be affected, meaning that the system runs in a very inconsistent manner. We aren't happy but funding has pigeonholed us into continuing service with this company.
Many features don't work as advertised out of the box, and turnaround time is extremely poor. Their turnaround goal for non-emergency issues is two weeks, and they often don't even make that time frame.
We are in a consortium with [...] and other LIbraries in the [...]. We find our version of Virtua out of date.
Consistent problems with timeliness and completeness of technical support
[...] has begun a consortium project utilizing Evergreen, management is looking to move to it as a cost savings
We change discoverytool from Summon to EBSCO Planning to upgrade OPAC to VTLS Chamo
The Library is new; it was commissioned on June 1, 2012. We are now doing the data entry of the materials.
Thank you VTLS in providing good libraryn automation system for our library.
The company should make significant improvements on its systems, (Virtua and Chamo) regarding the capacity, performance and user-freindliness, in order to cope with the needs of large libraries like us for handling large volume of data and transactions, and matching the scale of operation. The systems now are not efficient enough for large libraries.
An open source ILS would be a long term consideration, not an option for the immediate future. We continue to monitor the OS ILS software communities and marketplace closely.
Effective and efficient integration within and between corporate systems is becoming more critical - ILS, enrolments, finance systems etc. Traditional ILS do not offer this or are only slowly moving towards APIs etc. Workflows within and between ILS modules and other systems also need to be made more efficient, which is why we are interested in the latest developments of Intota and Alma - unified resource management, discovery layer integration etc. In relation to cloud computing, ILS vendors should realise that not all organisations will pursue external hosting of data, especially if hosted services are located overseas and therefore subject to foreign jurisdictions.
We run a consoritia service for 35 libraries so our library system has to be able to support libraries with different clients and policies.
Have only just finished setting up EBSCO Discovery Service. It won't be properly launched until Feb 2013.
Ex Libris Voyager (Release 8.1.2) System on a Windows 2003 server using MKS software has proven to be extremely unstable.
Our library is now under management of the [...] , which is connected to the University's main library. They have become an Orbis Cascade member, so our library is now included with whatever plans and ILS the main library decides to go with.
Serials librarian wants to add ILL software, but not Voyager ILL. Serials librarian also wants an ERM system to manage licenses, and can't envision using the current ILS system in albeit somewhat unorthodox ways to do this. As the current local server hardware ages, we will eventually have to move to a hosted solution. The next year is going to be challenging...
you should have "maybe" as a choice for Q9 and Q11.
The web services APIs that Ex Libris offers for the Voyager ILS have enabled us to build a number of enhanced user services that bypass the native OPAC interface.
The library is in the process of implementing Primo as our resource discovery solution. The [...] System is creating a committee to put together an RFP for a next generation library system to replace our current ILS.
our ILS is managed under[...] consortium
figure above based on bibliographic records; last year's report was on items so there is a discrepancy.
We are in the very early stages of exploring other ILSs. We have not decided to switch yet.
we will be implementing ALMA in 2013
Collection grew substantially this year due to ebook acquisitions
Although we currently have AquaBrowser as our discovery interface, we intend to replace it in 2013 with a web-scale discovery tool. We are currently looking at EBSCO Discovery Service, Primo w/ Primo Central, Summon, and WorldCat Local. Voyager, our current ILS, is still doing a good job. However, we also think the new generation of back-office library management systems just coming to market offer advantages and we would consider migrating.
Voyager's customer service has been declining (longer response times and less helpful answers) while functionality has not siginificantly imporved, and costs have continued to rise. We will be migrating away from this ILS at the end of this academic year.
Current ILS is Windows version of Voyager which is not as well supported by the vendor. We will be moving to a consortium with a different ILS in 2013.
Implementation of Alma and other Ex Libris products is scheduled for 2013 Q4
We are doing a rough review with no firm plans and will likely stay with Voyager another 18 months at least.
The ILS is today only used for circulation. We have no immediate need to replace it. The big question for the future is whether to move "everything" to a "next gen ILS/URM" or to replace it with a simple, cheap solution for only circulation. On this, we have not decided yet.
I've had a chance to work with a small scale vufind implementation at [...] , a non-profit school for environmental education aimed at elementary school age children. The [...] in general, are considering using vufind
Considering switch to hosted and cloud-based system
I can see why you wish to receive only 1 response per library, but our staff members are very divided on our current ILS and whether we should consider other options. Some members really like our current ILS; some really dislike it. Many neither strongly like nor dislike it, but if it comes down to the time and effort it takes to evaluate, select, and implement a new system (especially a WMS-type product that is relatively new), they do not want to bother making a change.
The implementation of the discovery interface, Primo, has been more complicated than the implementation of the ILS. We went with their TotalCare service, and they are not always clear on customization options for this hosted service. They seem to still be new at this, and there are conflicts between what we are told with TotalCare and Ex Libris Support.
Support response for specific problems is very slow. We are still waiting for resolutions to tickets open for more than six months.
We added a nearby partner library to our ILS contract and catalog this summer.
It is important for us that whatever new ILS we acquire has ERM functionality built-in. Also, we are actively investigating all new ILSs and Discovery interfaces but cannot act soon because of budgetary concerns.
ILS vendor's upgrade support and problem solving is far from dynamic or responsive. Known bugs remain in the system through new iterations and place an undue burden on staff to manage through preliminary testing and required upgrades (e.g. intra-consortial borrowing functionality). Training in new software (such as GDC) is only spasmodically available at times convenient to Australasia and is charged when it should be supported as a matter of course.
We are looking at ILS and Discovery in tandem. Budget constraints will almost certainly prevent us from making a change before July, 2014. But we are following developments closely.
One of the problems we have with Ex Libris is their reports don't work for us.
moving forward with the RFP will be dependent on external funding, but we are planning for it with that in mind.
We will migrate within the next couple of years and will ONLY consider a hosted solution.
ILS decisions driven by main campus
It is seemingly a market that is changing and evolving constantly. We are waiting patiently to see how the market evolves before moving further down the road towards decisions on a new system. [...]
EBSCO Discovery Service is provided through [...] membership. Still considering other options while we see if EBSCO will meet our needs.
We are very interested in open source, but our consortium makes the final decisio
Overall, Technical Services staff are happy with the ILS and the back-end functions, but Public Services staff would prefer a better public-facing interface than the native catalog provides.
Voyager continues to be barely adequate, creaking along with its outdated design and functionality increasingly causing annoyance at best or delaying/destroying new developments at worst. Whilst some in the library have been agitating for change for years, even the very conservative actors have come around now and we are actively looking for a replacement. It is a slightly difficult situation though: On the one hand we have an old and unsatisfactory system, whose support and development we expect to get even worse in the next few years. On the other hand, most of the systems we are considering are realistically a couple of years off - they're either under development, or the waiting list for new migrations is long. Do we trundle along with the status quo for a few years to see where the market goes, and put up with the frustrations and restrictions Voyager places on us? Do we sign up for a next generation library services platform without being able to fully evaluate it, and have to wait a year or two anyway before fully migrating? Do we migrate to a more robust traditional ILS and see what happens with the new LSPs over the next few years? There are people answering yes to each of these questions here (and probably at every other library too). Ex Libris uses a third party software to run their customer support site - it's old and clunky, and is broken on all modern browsers (Internet Explorer 6 and 7 are not modern). When we report an issue with it we are told that (paraphrasing) it's crappy third party software and there's nothing they can do about it right now. We just wish we didn't have to say the same thing to our patrons and staff about the ILS.
The ILS, per se, no longer seems relevant. And, the consortium, a great advantage during the heyday of the ILS, now seems to inhibit the rate of individual innovation, and even cost savings, on the part of member libraries. A question that needs to be addressed is, 'what/how does the consortium add value in the cloud?"
We are a records service, we do not have holdings
We are a development partner for Serial Solutions Intota product.
The above count does not include e-resources or e-books that are included in our catalog.
We work under a [...] System, most or all policy is developed there.
Spectrum very good for its time, but very outdated. Follett no longer sells it, and support personnel do not seem very knowledgeable. Cost is the largest factor in choice of ILS, so consortium or open source seem to be the only viable options.
We are using a system and is no longer being developed, with little or no support. We would like to upgrade but funding is an issue. Open source is under consideration but with little internal tech support, we do have some concerns.
We have only been live for 2 months on WorldShare. It has many pluses, but still has much that must be done for it to be as functional as legacy systems.
We are still in the migration phase so the new ILS is not fully implemented. This makes it difficult to respond to these questions at this time.
We are in the middle of migrating to OCLC WMS from Sagebrush Accent. My answers are more a reflection of my loathing of Accent (now owned by Follett) and the complete lack of support--literally--that we have had for the last year or so. So far, OCLC WMS's support staff have been awesome!
We have just begun the pilot phase for implementation of WorldShare Management Services ILS.
WorldShare is the wave of the future. Ride it!
Regarding the "on schedule" question above. OCLC was migrating more libraries than it could handle on time, so they offered to have us migrate our circulation info from the old system. We agreed in order to get WMS on time. So, it's really a qualified "yes".
WMS lacks too many basic library functions. It's like we don't have control over our own data and we're just along for the ride.
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