Illinois - Integrated Library Systems

Re: Maine Library Automation Issues

2007-12-14T16:02:29Z

I thought it might be useful to add Koha as a possible solution: http://www.koha.org/

Full functioned, and ... depending on your in-house technical expertise ... free.

Re: Maine Library Automation Issues

2007-12-13T15:35:46Z

Hi,

Here in Old Town School District we too are looking at several options to replace Spectrum. We found Destiny, Atrium, Centriva, and Alexandria to be very similar with a few differences in the details. We are re-examining them all to get firm, real prices (that include things such as barcode scanner, new spine and barcode labels, hardware, conversion prices, training, and additional modules - all those little extras that add up fast). The vague price of doing our district for $10,000 from Destiny sounded too high until we priced out Alexandria that seemed less until we figured in that each part was per school. Be sure to find out when you're getting prices if they mean per school or per district, and which numbers are per year!

To answer Liz, I believe the 'googlized' term means that in Atrium, if you misspell a term you are searching for, the program prompts the user with "Did you mean..." That is a feature unique to Atrium, I believe.

On Marvel! I found an article that does some comparing, but not in detail: search for the author Barbara Fiehn or the title "School Library Automation Revisited--2007!"

Since we all seem to be having similar questions/frustrations, I have inserted below a comparison sheet we're using to help us decide (I tried to send it as an attachment but MELIBS wont' take it - I apologize if it gets sized incorrectly - if so, email me and I can send it as an attachment individually to you). In my chart, I may have a few details wrong, and I invite your corrections and impressions, and I will republish it. If there is a question mark, then it means I'm not sure of the info. After talking to 5 vendors at AASL conference, my head was spinning! Maybe together we can put our info we're collecting into a common place to help everyone. I especially invite input from current users of any of these! I did not include details about Spectrum as that is what we are using.

Alexandria has an online demo (and I just received a postcard offering 50% off to Follet & Sagebrush customers - but it expires on 12/30/07). Surpass you need to request a demo disk.

This sounds like a timely, important and useful topic for regional workshops! Wouldn't it be neat if we could have demos from all 4 at one place! Too bad budget requests are due soon!

Have a great week,
Lynn

PS One other cog I thought of, and I hate to make this worse, but now I'm also wondering what will happen when we start forming SAUs - should we wait and have one system for each SAU? Im not asking for a response, just something to think about! Some vendors offer prices that make the cost less per school if there are more schools in the school unit.

Re: Staff Scheduling Software

2007-12-01T18:19:05Z

If you still have your PowerPoint presentation of W2W & Schedule3W, I'ld love to take a look at it.
Thanks!
sarah@beachbooks.org

Re: LCCN to ISBN?

2007-08-16T21:19:12Z

Gabor - I too am using Readerware for my personal library and have a question you may be able to answer--- is there a way to convert those Readerware files to MARC format for export to a more sophistcated program?

Re: Maine Library Automation Issues

2007-08-16T21:13:15Z

I feel like I'm in the Hyundai commercial having one of those "dah" moments. I had asked for feedback on this topic on MElibs and completely forgot to look here. Interesting that there hasn't been much discussion of LibraryWorld...we at South Thomaston are currently looking quite closely at that (several other of my teeny sized libraries compadres have indicated they too are looking.)

The biggest drawback we can see is the total and complete lack of machine records --we think we have a pretty good old fashioned shelf list (as in the CARD CATALOG type) but it is going to be either an expensive and/or exhaustive undertaking to convert over 6000 volumes into MARC format.

One library told me they've had 2 part-timers working over 6 mos and have only managed to get 2000 volumes done.

I'd love to see an "automation summit" where we can get together and a) see what's available for small libraries and b) meet others in the same boat who might already have experience.

For us WEB based seems definitely the way to go, if we could just figure out a good way to import non MARC data in a fairly easy manner.

Re: LCCN to ISBN?

2007-07-23T14:39:28Z

Hi Gabor - You're welcome and I'm glad to help. I hope you enjoy your cataloging class this fall.

Lorraine

Re: LCCN to ISBN?

2007-07-23T14:10:20Z

Thank you, Lorraine, so much for your answer. It was the "inserting 0s" part that I was missing in the case of LCCNs. It works now like a charm.

FYI: I will take a cataloging class this fall, and hopefully after that I will have less questions like this.

Re: LCCN to ISBN?

2007-07-23T13:20:53Z

Hi Gabor - Regarding your questions:
1. The ISBN program started in 1968 and the ISBNs are not assigned retroactively. Items published before that date will not have ISBNs.

2. To search http:\\catalog.loc.gov using a LCCN, you need to click on BASIC SEARCH followed by LCCN-ISBN-ISSN in the "Search Type:" box. To search the number in the "Search Text:" box, be sure not to use hyphens.

Exp. use 2005031326
or for books published before the 2000s here is an example of how to search. If the LCCN is 88-950 you need to insert zeroes in the middle so that the search is 8 characters long. The proper search would be 88000950

Hope this helps,

Lorraine Lanius
Head of Technical Services
Vermont Dept. of Libraries
109 State St.
Montpelier, VT 05609-0601
Tel: 802-828-3261

LCCN to ISBN?

2007-07-22T14:26:32Z

Don't laugh at me, OK? I am just an MLIS student, who never actually worked in a library. I have two questions that most of you probably know the answer, but I can't seem to be able to find them.

1. Do books that were published before ISBN became a standard get retroactively ISBNs assigned to them? (I am mostly interested in early and mid 20th century books, published in the US.)

2. If I have the LCCN for them (besides title, author, publisher, year published), what's the best way to find the ISBN if it exists?

I tried to worldcat.org but so far half the books were not even in it and the other half did not have ISBNs listed.

I also tried loc.gov (more specifically
http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&PAGE=First ) but I must be doing something wrong, because none of the 50+ books I tried was there. (How do I find a book there based on LCCN?)

I need to find ISBNs (if they exist) for LCCNs like these: 65-22448, 73-2210, 57-12828, 58-5269, 58-9403

BTW: The main reason I want to find the ISBNs because I volunteered to catalog a small private library, where ReaderWare is used and that can auto-catalog books only based on the ISBN, but not on the LCCN.

Thank you for any pointers.

Gabor

Re: Maine Library Automation Issues

2007-07-20T15:00:49Z

Thanks so much for sharing your experience with Koha!
I hope in the fall we can have an "automation day" and would love to have you share your knowledge!

Re: Maine Library Automation Issues

2007-07-20T14:36:54Z

I have been working with library automation issues at the Casco Public Library here in Maine for the past 12 years. In 1996 the then director at Casco, Holly Hancock, and I wrote a text based custom circulation and cataloging system which was used up until a couple of weeks ago when we started using Koha. We are currently using only the intranet (cataloging and circulation) portion of Koha but plan to implement the Koha OPAC module in the future. The staff and volunteers are very pleased with Koha and the transition from the the custom system to Koha has gone smoothly for them. I must add that another volunteer, Spencer Murch, and I spent a fair amount of time learning how Koha works and customizing it so that it works much like the previous system, only with more features and a modern GUI interface. I would strongly encourage other libraries to consider Koha when switching automation systems. Although we did not use their services when we implemented Koha, there is a company, LibLime, which offers a full range of Koha support.

Re: Maine Library Automation Issues

2007-06-30T16:54:14Z

Janet, I am very glad to see this subject being addressed. The library I work for is very small and we are interested in automating. I have looked at Destiny, but need to research more information about open software and how it works and what other options there are. I have looked at some of the websites on InfoNet.
Thanks for starting this discussion.
Becky Ames
Carmel, ME

Re: ResourceMate and MARC (was Re: Maine Library Automation Issues)

2007-06-28T14:56:29Z

Two other things that I did not manage to test was the MARC Import process and copy cataloging from Library of Congress, but I know there were issues in earler versions of ResourceMate.

1. Import of MARC records requires the same process of converting true (binary) MARC records to the text format. Again, you can easily use MarcEdit to do this and that even allows you to do some cleanup of records before loading, but it may prove a challenge in tiny libraries with high staff turnover or volunteers.

2. Records copied from Library of Congress to Resourcemate use a pretty simple "screen scrape" that creates unwanted fields when the LC record has lines that wrap in your browser. The usual suspects for this are long subject headings.

Other tasks called when I was trying to test these features in ResourceMate 3.0 I will try to get back to it and see if I can learn anything new. I'll update when I do.

Sheila

Re: ResourceMate and MARC (was Re: Maine Library Automation Issues)

2007-06-28T14:22:35Z

This is great info. Thanks for testing! I will try to summarize the info gathered from this forum to distribute to Maine Libraries and this type of info will help people make better decisions.

ResourceMate and MARC (was Re: Maine Library Automation Issues)

2007-06-28T12:49:27Z

I think I have this right regarding ResourceMate (just downloaded the demo and tested). The export to MARC does not create a "binary" MARC file, but rather a text file that looks like the example below. In order to prepare this file to import into other systems, you must convert to actual MARC format with a tool such as MarcEdit. For some users this is a simple enough process (the software is free), but it is another application to learn....

=LDR 00384cam 2200000 4500
=001 00000
=005 2005081000000000
=008 000000s1983\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\0\1\eng\\
=020 \\$a0-87123-320-7$c5.95
=090 \\$aJF FIC LEP
=100 10$aLeppard, Lois Gladys
=245 10$aMandie and the Secret Tunnel /$cby Lois Gladys Leppard
=260 0\$bBethany House Publishers,$c1983
=520 \\$a
=650 \\$aMystery Novels
=650 \\$aGrief
=852 \\$kJF$x594

Re: Maine Library Automation Issues

2007-06-27T23:48:33Z

I have been gathering names of low cost software. I haven't reviewed them all but I do know that the lower cost version of ResourceMate did not "create" MARC records but the "Plus" version did.

I will be making an effort to get some of these vendors to the Maine Libraries Conference in November. If anyone has knowledge of any of these products please post.

ResourceMate
http://www.resourcemate.com/

LibraryWorld
Software-http://caspr.stores.yahoo.net/software.html

LibraryWorld.com
Online-http://caspr.stores.yahoo.net/librarycom.html

Surpass
http://www.surpasssoftware.com/

BookSystems
http://www.booksys.com/

Alexandria
http://www.goalexandria.com/

Message was edited by:
janetmckenney

Message was edited by:
janetmckenney

Maine Library Automation Issues

2007-05-30T01:32:48Z

I am starting a new topic so we can discuss the issues happenning here in Maine re automation.

1. The dissolution of the Main Library Systems - Dirigo, Main Circulation System.

The software did not create MARC records. Libraries must select a new software and deal with conversion.

2. Libraries on the old Winnebago systems that will no longer be supported want to explore new options.

Resources for Information - Maine InfoNet website:
http://www.maine.gov/infonet/asils.htm

Here at WebJunction check out other topics under Library Automation, Library Software:
http://www.webjunction.org/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=5062&tstart=0

Open Source Solutions for Libraries
http://www.webjunction.org/forums/forum.jspa?forumID=31

Message was edited by:
janetmckenney

Message was edited by:
janetmckenney

Message was edited by:
janetmckenney

Re: Maine Library Automation Issues

2007-06-19T20:32:51Z

You have all given me some good ideas. More than anything it is heartening to hear from folks who are also looking at systems with an under $1,000 price point.

The thing that I need to be careful about is that our agency has taken a pretty clear stance on basic requirements for libraries that are automating and are seeking technical assistance from us. These include, but are not limited to, libraries being expected to implement systems that have full MARC cataloging and allow import and export of MARC records (a place where ResourceMate gets quirky and where Biblionix is quite unclear about record formats) and systems that have a public access infterface, not just staff modules for cataloging and circulation.

LibraryWorld fits pretty well for many libraries, but we still have our pockets where libraries can't get high-speed Internet access, or can't do so without eating a big chunk of their operating budget.

I have an inquiry in with LibLime to see if their ASP services and come anywhere near a price that is affordable for our libraries and will update here with that info. when I get it as well as anything else that comes of my efforts.

thanks to all
Sheila

Re: Maine Library Automation Issues

2007-06-18T12:42:30Z

As Central Maine Library District consultant, I am hearing pleas for help on two issues: (1) How to migrate from the home-grown "Dirigo" system (non-MARC records) to another *inexpensive* -- meaning, under $1000 -- system; and (2) Which system to migrate to from Follett/Sagebrush...

I will be talking with many of these folks over the next few weeks and will supply feedback here about issues facing the very small libraries.

Bonnie Dwyer
Maine State Library

Re: Maine Library Automation Issues

2007-06-17T23:29:10Z

The libwebcat "portal" that Marshall breeding has put together is a great source of information. It seems sorta strange, but maybe it is normal, but we do not track the automation systems at a state level as far as a piece of information that we collect on an annual survey of our public libraries. I just know that many of the regional systems are trying to provide advice to their smaller libraries on what to do.

The two main systems that I have heard of most smaller libraries looking at so far around here is Atriuum from BookSystems. One of their selling points is that the staff interface is supposed to look almost exactly the same as Sagebrush, so it requires little re-training. In my opinion, the other positive is that it is an ASP solution.

The other that is starting to pick up steam is Apollo from Biblionix. This is a small company - basically a father and son - but they worked with a smaller library here in Texas located just outside of Austin and worked to build the system according to library and patron feedback. It offers a good number of features, although I am somewhat put off by the patron interface. Then again, it offers features like spell check, holds, and other features that some of the "big" systems do not seem to offer. They also offer the ability to export all of the library data into an XML file so that if they want to migrate to another system, it is fairly straight forward to do - in fact, they have proposed working on a standard for this to make migrating from one ILS to another less painful. It is also an ASP offering and it definitely falls below the $10,000 upgrade cost.

I am not familiar with the Surpass offering.

I will check with our regional system consultants and see if they are creating or have created any materials that might help in the RFI/RFP scenario that you described Sheila.