Library Systems

Had an interview with a school system yesterday, LMS in a brand-new school, and they chose Destiny as their automation.  I wanted to know about the features of the system (an extra hour with the Library Director would yield me all the answers I would like), but it was time to move the discussion on.

Today while updating my Delicious bookmarks, I found the Destiny manual amongst my network, and I'll take a look.

My observation for my other class LBS 730 has been in Rockland High School, where we talked at length about their system, Atriuum.  I'm pretty sure this qualifies as an interview because we discussed automation and the process of automating from scratch.  What a daunting task.  I've been at elementary schools with no automation, and I can't even imagine running a library without it.  It must be a fascinating process to investigate and choose a system, though.  In the business world, I've worked on building a new system, identifying needs, matching functions with future needs, that type of project.  I was liason between techies and real people, constantly translating, hahaha.

I've only worked on older systems, Winnebago 4 and 5, and CASPR 2, but the systems are not necessarily indicative of library neglect.  A lot of schools use Winnebago, and probably will until the whole thing crashes and they discover there's no support.  Surprisingly, a very well run MS library in Walpole uses Winnebago  -- they have chosen to put money toward other needs such as equipping the library with laptops  -- the Winnebago systems does what they need, and an upgrade is not in the short-term plan.  I'll have to get back in touch and ask about the long-range plan, though.  That LMS is very tech-savvy and is a valuable contact.