[CALIBK12] Alexandria Software, My recent experience with a good company, Companion Corp.

[Geoffrey Oram]

Librarians/Teachers,

    In 1994 I was using a DOS program, Columbia, better than nothing but not user friendly.  In 2000 I was using Athena, better than DOS very user friendly but disappointed with Nickols and Sagebrush since they didn't upgrade and take my product suggestions.  By my own initiative I searched for a better product and I selected Alexandria in 2003, while the rest of my district was mostly using Athena.

    Alexandria I like the best.  It is full featured and has great features any librarian would want.  I negotiated a terrific two year price.  I could not depend upon my district, they would not support me since they were using Athena.  This turned out to be good since my district never gave good support to its school to the proper ability.  I completely depended upon Alex tech support which was outstanding.

    Companion Corp on a regular basis updates and upgrades Alex.  About three weeks ago I upgraded and discovered two software bugs and could not use the latest Alex version.  I was very concerned and worried.  I emailed their product suggestion address told them about my issues.  The next day I got a email from the owner of the company and he said they would look into the bugs, fix it, send me a beta version and get me going.  I was worried, but impressed.  Within a week Companion programmers had a fixed beta version, which I now have and it works.

    This is what I call service!  Talking to the owner!  Says he'll fix it, and he does.  Companion Corp has its own programmers, so they really know the software.

    This might sound strange but my district forced me to use their web based union product called Accent.  Accent was a Sagebrush product, now owned by Follet.  Accent I do not like at all.  Horrible software issues with breakdowns.  So I use Accent to circulate items, while I use Alexandria for my students and OPAC.  Alexandria OPAC has really cool icons that I create and link to for my teachers and me.  It has a map feature which point kids to where my books are, and a built in word processor.  It has a quick link to my assigned homepage.  It has more of course.

    If all companies were like Companion Corp we would live in a much better world.  So I can say from my experience that Alexandria is a great product.  And I have no relationship with the company or financial interest.  If you are in the market for a school library management product check out Alexandria.

Geoffrey Oram, National Board Certified Librarian
Robert Louis Stevenson Middle School
725 South Indiana St.
Los Angeles, CA 90023
goram at lausd.net     (323) 780-6460
    
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.sjsu.edu/pipermail/calibk12/attachments/20080312/8a211851/attachment.html