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Hi Netters!

Well, we managed to get through our first working day after Unison
Conversion. Thanks to all of you folks who greeted me on Monday morning with
words of wisdom, encouragement, advice, etc. I did forward a copy of my
message on to Follett Tech support e-mail (fscinfo@cedar.cic.net). I will
speak about the results of that in a minute.

First of all, let me tell you that tech support has greatly improved since
the beginning of the school year. With so many people converting to Unison at
that time Follett just couldn't handle the volume. Now, however, the support
is terrific. I called first thing this morning and got a real person on the
first try (8 am Pacific). Don was able to help me get my barwand working.
Apparently my IDE combo card was the problem. Unison didn't like the game
card portion. Fortunately I had an individual game-only card there and put it
in and now the barwand works. (The game card portion of the combo card had to
be disabled.)

Later, as a result of my e-mail, Tim from tech support called me.
Unfortunately he is not fully trained on Unison yet, so when he realized that
he couldn't help me with the overdue list problem he promised to have a
trained Unison tech support call me back. Well, within 20 minutes Peggy
called!!! She explained how to get the overdue list I want (it has to be done
through Patron Maintenance!!!) I expressed my horror at having to leave Circ+
to run this report...she said many others had also complained but she didn't
know if this was being fixed in the upgrade coming  in Jan or Feb (or Mar or
April??) Anyway, she helped me walk through loan/fine setup, too, which
apparently is quite important in the whole picture.

After lunch I got another phone call from Follett. "Is anyone from Follett
reading this?" the voice on the other end of the phone asked??? I laughed
when I realized that this was my Washington/Oregon sales rep, a former
practicing librarian and a friend of mine!!! Apparently someone had somehow
sent her/given her a copy of my e-mail, also!!! So, Bev and I had a great
chat and I told her that I had things under control (at least for the
time-being!) She also informed me that she thought the upgrade was coming in
January and thought it would correct this problem with printing
overdue/transaction lists.

So, folks, Follett DOES want to help us, but as it is in our own libraries,
there are more customers (patrons) than there are tech support (librarians).
 I guess I don't really mind being on the (b)leading edge of
somethings...someone has to ... Anyway, what I have seen in improvements
seems to overall outweigh the problems. Granted, it is kind of hunnt and peck
to find somethings, and as I think someone eluded to previously the indexes
are not at all useful in the manuals. (Bev told me earlier that this was due
to the editing program they used for the indexing. When a change was made, it
had a tendency to delete the whole section!!!) I have found it easier to use
the table of contents for now.

I will keep you posted as we explore other portions of Unison: Alliance,
Cataloging, PHD, etc.

Barb Baker
John Campbell School
Selah, WA

BarbBkr@aol.com


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