Re: REASONS TO AUTOMATE

["Marianne Haase, Librarian" <HAASE_M@HCCA.OECN.OHIO.GOV>]

        Monica, I pretty much agree with what you point out
        regarding an automated catalog.  In my case, (3 years of
        auto cat), I too wonder about the "increased time", however,
        I wouldn't change to a card catalog ever again.
        The students seem to discover so much more, our circ
        had increased year by year -- especially as I get to
        add more notes to 520 which provide many more access
        points in searching.  Our teachers really appreciate
        the ties to the curriculum and keywords which are
        reaching beyond the limits of a subject authority
        file.  As to the Mystery and Detective stories,
        you picked a good example of how wonderful it is
        to have global editing.  We are changing to LC headings
        and it was much easier just to type it the new way
        at each of the entries and have all records change
        throughout the system -- in a couple of seconds.
        Sure beats typing and filing and trying to catch
        all of the mistakes one by one.

        As to global editing, I know that MultiLis has it
        (along with an authority file) and I think Dynix
        Scholar also has it.  I have it in Winnebago --
        one of the reasons I chose it over Follett at the time
        we purchased our software.  Maybe that has changed (?)
        If I could afford it, I would probably have Dynix
        or maybe even better, see a school, stand alone vers.
        of Innovative which is used by OHIOLINK (the Ohio
        University catalogs on line).  There are so many wonderful
        features as far as the user is concerned --don't know
        about tech services end, but I was impressed by a brief
        tech demo of Innovative.  How about Mandarin?  Anybody
        out there know?

        Marianne   (haase_m@hcca.oech.ohio.gov)