Library Software

[MuppetQueen]

Looking into getting new library software. Any recommendations? Due to the restricted library budget it will have to be very cheap.

 

Cheers

[Ric_]

Eclipse is quite user friendly and IIRC can be bought with eLCs!

 

Where I am now they use Heritage which seems very comprehensive but is possibly overkill.

[SimpleSi]

What was your old one?

What do you call cheap?

 

All my schools (primary) use Junior Librarian (costs about £700) single user with 1 bar code scanner.

 

regards

 

Simon

[Ric_]

IIRC Junior Librarian is the baby brother of Eclipse.

 

They all seem expensive if you ask me but...

 

If you search around you can also find opensource systems and the like but you will tend to find that librarians aren't too keen on these.

[MkII]

We recently bought Eclipse. Cost about £2k all in, with thumb print scanner, bar code scanner and a pack of labels. We didn't have the install, which is very simple to do yourself anyway, or the training - not needed either - it's very basic. Librarian likes it too!

[GrumbleDook]

We still use Alice ... with thumb scanner, etc ...

[SteveT]

Alice chugs away here quite happlily too!!!

[SteveT]

...or even happily.....

[alan-d]

Alice here too - no problems since we installed the latest version

 

(so far :? )

[DMcCoy]

Alice here too - no problems since we installed the latest version

 

(so far :? )

 

Alice here too, the IIS web interface is a bit fiddly when you put IIS on a different server, but it works.

[GrumbleDook]

We have never got that happy. The instructions and support was not very good, pretty much the only part of Alice that wasn't. The fact that the installation instructions were still for NT4 and IIS4, and I got a pretty blank response when asking for instructions for W2K Server (after being hardened / locked down) or server 2003.

 

We will make another stab later this term ... I may PM you to rack your brains about a few things with it.

[Rozzer]

We also use alice here had no problems.

 

Ross

[MuppetQueen]

Thanks all.

 

Seems to be a bit of a panic over nothing here. Looks as if we are sticking with existing (Excalibar). Think the refurb was getting to everyones head - lol.

 

Thanks anyway for your input. If I need to change in the future I am more clued up.

[Sirbendy]

Heritage is a meaty beast...the support (as long as you're paid up) is top notch..can't fault it. The program though...in itself good, but PICK as a database needs to die now. The engine of the package shows its age in some situations.

 

We had a total catalogue failure due to corruption caused by insufficient error checking routines built into the inout fields...contacted Heritage,and they were happy for us to FTP our data to them, and promised to get it back to us next day.

 

Unfortunatly, NGFL decided it was a "security risk", and wouldn't open the firewall..so we had to mail a CD instead.

[DMcCoy]

Heritage is a meaty beast...the support (as long as you're paid up) is top notch..can't fault it. The program though...in itself good, but PICK as a database needs to die now. The engine of the package shows its age in some situations.

 

We had a total catalogue failure due to corruption caused by insufficient error checking routines built into the inout fields...contacted Heritage,and they were happy for us to FTP our data to them, and promised to get it back to us next day.

 

Unfortunatly, NGFL decided it was a "security risk", and wouldn't open the firewall..so we had to mail a CD instead.

 

I knew their support number from memory 2 years after I stopped using it at another school. It worked well with a new database when it changed to the windows version, we had upgraded from the dos version and it was awful.

[kingswood]

We can't get Alice to work at all really- having a real problem with their support. Not happy at all...

 

Paul

[GrumbleDook]

Paul, give Stephen a ring ... he managed to get things even happier than I could, including the OPAC stuff.

[kingswood]

Thanks Tony.

 

I was informed by the head today that Softlink are coming out on Monday to take a look- apparently they think the scanners are the wrong ones or something. They did want £450 (or thereabouts) to come out- but we managed to get them down to just over £200. Still bad though.

 

If the visit on Monday doesn't help, I'll make sure to call Stephen.

 

Thanks again,

 

Paul

[Ric_]

@kingswood: Surely a scanner (barcode I assum) is a scanner and it's merely bad practice for a 'reputable' company to blame somebody elses industry-standard piece of kit.

 

Just plug the scanner into any machine and scan the label on your coffee - if the right code comes out, it works! (you can give me £200 for that advice!)

[Sirbendy]

Our scanner got the blame for our heritage foulup....it fits in line with the keyboard, and the shift on the KB interferes with the signals from the reader, and then heritage' bad input filtering enters bad info to the database.

 

Mind you..the wand reader is so old, it should really be replaced.

[kingswood]

@Ric: Yes- we tested the barcode reader on a separate machine and it read fine into notepad (one of the things they asked us to test). I then checked the port settings in both device manager and Alice configuration to make sure they were the same (no timing errors etc) and they match.

 

The system will scan around 20 books and then it packs up. Softlink support reckon that we have been sent the wrong scanners/adapters. In any case, the head of support is out on Monday and will be re-installing the complete package. I'll be taking copious notes :-)

 

Your cheque is in the post ;-)

 

Paul