Target: What kind of Union Catalog to choose?

[Karen McIntyre <kjmcinty@tenet.edu>]

As we look toward moving to windows based library software, our
technical people  have requested that we think far enough ahead to
specify how our union catalog will be managed.  Option 1-- We currently
have a union catalog which is updated once a year.  It is used to simply
tell what titles are at various sites.  2) A union catalog which, upon
being searched, goes out and queries each of the 58 school libraries to
see if the item is in and available. 3) Total central processing of
circulation.  We are hoping to put whichever of these options we choose
on the web for student searching.  Our current thinking is that it is
too costly to have a web server for each independent site, but if you
have gone through this process--I know you will have lots of experience
and caveats.

If you made this decision recently--please inform us on what basis you
made it, and also if we are looking at central processing--are any of
the smaller systems really sufficient to the task  (Alexandria, Athena,
Follett, Winnebago)

Karen McIntyre, Librarian
Ramirez & Guadalupe Elementary Schools
702 Ave. T -- Lubbock, TX  79401 806-766-2261

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"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart.  Try to love
the questions themselves.  Do not now seek the answers which cannot
be given because you would not be able to live them.  And the point
is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then
gradually without noticing it, live along some distant day into the
answers."                  -- Maria Rilke "Letters to a Young Poet"

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