Chancery Library Pro 2.0(long)

["Courtney M. Laurie" <booknut8@MICROWORLD.NET>]

I would like to thank all of you who responded to my questions about
Library Pro 2.0--Chancery.

Here are some of the responses

My school is currently using Library Pro and we have been informed
> that Caspr has purchased Chancery Software.  Library Pro 2.o is a new
> library management system co-developed by Caspr and Chancery.  This
> new version is set for release in June.
> *********************************************************************I I would 
>NEVER recommend Chancery products.  I could spend the next
thirty
minutes telling you why, but I will give just one recent example:
When ver. 1.1.3 came out there was a bug that caused the data to corrupt
every time you deleted anything.  Chancery didn't know and they didn't
inform their users when they found out.  They have since issued 1.1.4
and
1.1.5 which suppposedly fixed the bug, ONLY it didn't.  Again they did
not
tell their users. So with each update we thought we could delete and
again
we got corrupted data.  We just finished inventory at one of our
schools.
Out of 7000 books we have two full to the top cart loads of books that
the
software "lost."  Just was on the phone with Chancery last week and the
latest info. is that 2.0 will fix all this.  If you believe that I have
some lovely desert property here in the Big Horn Basin for sale!
************************************************************************Up
to this year we used Caspr's LibraryWorks.  We were very disappointed
with their most recent upgrade and technical support was poor.  We
switched to Alexandria's Companion this year and are very happy.
Debby
************************************************************************I
have mixed feelings about Library Pro and MacSchool Lib which was its
predecessor.  However, the only other computerized circulation system
that I have experience with is BookTrak (about 10 years ago), so I can't
say if it's any better or worse than any other system.  We're locked
into Chancery because our District Resource Centre liked the ability of
that program to place reserves on items and also because the same
program (Mac School) could be used in school offices for records and
attendance. When our district was paying for the support, only a few
individuals in our district had the right to contact them to ask for
help.  This led to frustrations as we had to pass messages through the
designated persons, wait till they made contact, etc., et., etc!
Currently, I feel more comfortable with it because I now know what to do
(usually) when a glitch occurs.  It's important to have a good back-up
system. We use a Zip drive and back- up at the end of each school day.
It's important to do frequent re-sorts, especially after adding a lot of
new data.

The software is user friendly and I like the password system which
allows different levels of users.  I wish that it kept a record of who
has had a book out so we could check back when damage has occurred to a
book but I don't know if any of the circulation systems has that
capability.  That's all I can think of for now but if you do decide to
"go" for Chancery, keep  in touch and maybe we can help each other over
the rough spots.
--
Bonnie Lehmann
Teacher-Librarian
South Peace Secondary School

10808 15th Street
Dawson Creek, BC  V1G 4E7
(250) 782-5585

************************************************************************

--
Courtney M. Laurie, LMS
Atchison, Elementary School
Atchison, KS  66002
booknut8@microworld.net