[CALIBK12] Is Follett Destiny the only game in town?

[Blanche Woolls]

>From someone who has been in this game longer than some of you have been 
born, I have to tell you that I've watch automation systems go back and 
forth over the years. The earliest, and Follett was one of the two bigger 
ones, kept going back and forth. That is, one year Follett would put on a 
new gismo and beat out the competition. The next year, that company would 
do a gismo equal to that one and raise another, and so the game went on.

Slowly but surely, others got into the market and the came and went 
leaving school librarians (because they are the great big market for these 
smaller systems rather than something like for major library systems such 
as Innovative Interfaces) to regroup and "fix" to meet the new system.

What is good one year will be overshadowed another year. The company with 
the best tech support one year will lose all its staff to other venues and 
provide poor service until they can rehire and train new staff.

Your small school with parents doing all the work needs a system that will 
help weed the collection, that will allow them to purchase books with the 
cataloging moved into the OPAC seamlessly so they don't have to worry 
about input of records new or old or they will, unless you have someone 
there overseeing them, mess things up royally.

As an example, no school library (unless it has in excess of 100,000 
volumes) needs Cutter numbers. Once, eons ago, I went to an elementary 
school where the parents had been given the Cutter tables and Dewey 
without the helpful Sears Subject headings with Dewey numbers by subject. 
When it became easier to figure out Cutter numbers, they started putting 
Cutter numbers ABOVE the Dewey numbers.

Victoria is a saint to be trying to help. Maybe someone very near the 
school (because Victoria did not say if this was a distance from her) 
could help her because these parents need someone in place once a month at 
the least until the library gets weeded and automated. Then they need 
someone weekly, and, perhaps, they should be about finding the funds to 
pay someone to run this library or any money they put into it will be a 
waste within six months.

Blanche

On Sun, 1 Jun 2008, Waddle, Victoria wrote:

> All:
>
> I was recently on a WASC Visiting Committee to a small private K-12 school. It has three libraries--elementary, junior high and high school. All three were neglected and the committee report recommended that the school update the high school library. Now a small but dedicated group of parents are heading up a committee to weed, purchase materials, try databases, automate, etc. A library technician is employed by the school, but is out on leave due to a grave illness in her family.
>
> Since the WASC visit, I have remained in e-mail contact with the parent group. I've recommended this listserv, CSLA and its conferences, and other helpful sources. One of the primary concerns is automation. They have never been automated. The books have Cutter numbers and most are so old that they will need to be weeded. I remember a discussion earlier this year on library automation. Some individuals contended that Follett is really the only choice because it is buying up other companies. If this is true, then maybe that's what we should recommend. However, my own experience with Follett Destiny is a truly lousy one--our district switched from Sagebrush InfoCentre after only a year to Follett Destiny when Follett purchased Sagebrush. Our conversion was a mess, we have never had a single question properly answered by the support techs (although they always try to get us to buy something else!), the support itself costs almost four times what we paid to Sagebrush (a company!
  t!
> hat actually could answer questions), and the format of the system is not as user-friendly as Sagebrush was from running reports to simple things like generating barcodes.
>
> So--if you have experience or knowledge in the area, please weigh in. Since the private school has not been automated and won't need to have a conversion done, they wouldn't have some of the headaches we've suffered with Destiny. Still--would you recommend Destiny? Is there any other good school library software system that is holding its ground and expected to remain in business?
>
> Thanks once again for all your help! I've told this parent group what an impressive, indispensable bunch you are!
>
> Victoria Waddle
> Teacher Librarian
> Colony High School
> Ontario
>
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