Hit:Follett Unison 1.5

[West Branch High School <wbhs@NETINS.NET>]

Thanks to all who responded promptly. As requested by others I am posting a
hit.
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We are using Follett's Unison 1.5 and have windows. I didn't notice any
problems until....one day the first week after everything was reestablished
(we were down this summer) I tried to use the barwand to check out a book
and there was no response. I could enter the number by keying it in, but
wasn't thrilled with that prospect for eternity. When I called Follett's
line the first thing they asked was did I have Windows running. Apparently
the barwand is too slow to use with Windows. They suggested purchasing
another barcode reader-- I think it is the laser one that sits on the desk.
That was around $600. They also mentioned the Ph scanner might have
problems; that would need to be sent in for an upgrade for about $300. I
talked with another media specialist in the area and she said they never
have had problems with the scanner and they do use Windows.
  Otherwise the program runs great for what we've done. I haven't run
overdues, etc. yet.
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I am presently using 1.5 with WIN95.  I have not had too many problems--just
small quirky ones that may have little or nothing to do with using the two
together.  For instance, I have lost my PRINT SCREEN capability.  Once in
awhile, when trying to edit a record, the system will not allow me to make
changes.  By shutting down it seems to take care of itself. so I cannot
really complain about it.
_____
We're using Follett 1.5 on our Novell LAN with Win95 workstations and haven't
had any problems (nor did we last year with 1.22)
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I can't get into the technicalities of Follett Unison using Windows 95,
but we've done it in our school with absolutely no problems.
_____
We just did it this school year!  It really wasn't difficult at all.
Follett was terrific in helping me and I love the upgrade!  It took me
about two weeks to get the hang of it.  One of the other librarians did it
after school started and it has taken her a little longer.  I came in to
school two weeks before school started and that was helpful.
______
I use unison stand alone, circulation only. We use a dos version
(although my computer is win 3.1) I had an awful time with the upgrade.
I was no longer able to backup to my floppy drive, I had to back up to
the C drive. After hours (about 10 altogether) on the phone with tech
support, many hours spent with them trying to convince me it was a
hardware problem- I even pulled an a drive out of another computer and
installed it in mine- finally I reinstalled version 1.22 and every thing
is back to where I was before. The last senior analyst I spoke with told
me their software guys are looking at the problem and they'll get back
to me eventually. Needless to say I am NOT enthusiastic about version
1.5.
______
We have version 1.5 installed at more than five schools that are using WIN
NT Server and WIN NT Workstation and plain old WIN 95.  Some of the systems
are networks and some are stand-alones.  You will have to boost up your
RAM--probably as high as you can get it--to maintain speed.

Never had a compatibility problem, in fact I often have Unison open along
with two or three other ap's at the same time on my computer which operates
with WIN 95.
______
We switched to Unison and are on Windows 95.  No problem with that at
all ; however when we did inventory of 29,000 items somehow all books that
are in are out.   so that when you get a book on the student screen it says
it is out when it is in stacks.  This is a problem we are correcting now by
checking all the books on the  shelves back in with our PHD wand.  This is a
glitch in either the way we did inventory or Follett software and they know
about it.

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