HIT: Alexandria pt. 1

[beth kapp <beth_kapp@acsd.k12.pa.us>]

Thanks to everyone who responded to my query about Alexandria software.
Several people asked for a HIT.  It is long so I need to send this in
parts.  It already got bumped back to me once for length so I'll try
again.

We use Alexandria and have been for about 6 or 7 years (one loses track
of
time).  I am mostly very pleased with it.  Cataloging is a dream, and
there are lots of reports. One thing I do not like is the lack of cross
references.  I really miss that.
---------
 We had Alexandria on Appletalk then last summer, moved to Ethernet on a
bldg-wide network.
     We are a grade 5-8 school with 1017 students in a growing suburb of
Des
Moines, IA, and are in our 5th year with Alex.  I really like the patron
catalog window set-up, except for the default answer "Yes" to the
question
"Do you want to do a Sounds-like Search?" that comes up automatically
when a
search finds no info.  I've been meaning to call tech support and see if
I
can change that.  The other thing I wish were different is that I can't
always generate the kinds of circulation reports I'd like, such as which
books are circulated the most heavily.  The company has been great at
adding
features that LMS's ask for so these things may be remedied someday.  In
fact, it could be on the new version which I have not yet installed.  I
did
not install this system and had used the circulation portion only of
Follett,
but after using Alex for 2 years, I would recommend it highly and feel
that
the tech support is exceptional.
-------------
I really love Alexandria but it's the only system I've ever used. The
tech
support is wonderful and I find it pretty user-friendly, although there
are lots of little tricks that I would not think of on my own. They have
talked about a list-serv type deal, which would be a good idea.
----------
I have been using Alexandria for over 2 years in a Macintosh district.
Overall I have been pleased with it.  There are some drawbacks, such as
when it gives a list of books in author order it only alphabetizes by the
first 3 letters of the authors name (the call number, basically) and then
arranges the books by title within those 3 letters.  As a result, it's
impossible to check the correct order of books by the listing.

The rest of the area here standardized on Mandarin so it was a big
decision
for us to buck the trend.  I haven't been sorry.  It's much easier to
manage and is very user-friendly.  It's easy to teach searching, easy for
our 7-12 kids to use, and is used at our K-6 school as well.  Reports are
"canned", but there's just about everything you could want, so you don't
need to re-invent the wheel.
----------


Beth Kapp, Librarian
Annville-Cleona High School
Annville, PA 17003
beth_kapp@acsd.k12.pa.us