Hit: Follett Phd's

["Sands, Michele" <MSands@ECFS.ORG>]

Thanks for all the replies about the Follett Personal Hand Held Devices.
We spoke to the customer service person today.
Michele

Michele Sands
Media Technology Librarian
Ethical Culture Fieldston School
New York, N.Y.
msands@ecfs.org
> We need to educate our children for their future, not our past.
> Arthur C.
> Clarke
>

We use it for PreSchool circulation (because the little ones tend to get
trampled by big kids at the Circ Desk) but I never would want to use it
exclusively.  It is very dependable, but you can't access information
like - how many other books are checked out, or if there are holds -
lots of information that can be accessed quickly at the circ desk
computers.

        I use a PHD for inventory.  Works Great!  We have not used it
for
remote circulation, but I'm sure it would be fine.

     I've used one for several years and it's great...easy, rarely
problems
     here.

Hi Michele  We just got our follett system up and running.  We have not
used the phd for circulation yet, but we have used it to change the circ
type for our AV and reference collections.  What a delight!  When our
record were converted somehting having to do with the incompatability of
our last system and Follett prevented our reference books from showing
up
so they had different circ parameters.  We just scanned each with the
phd,
downloaded (VERY simple) and soon they were all designated for overnight
to faculty only, according to the way we set our parameters.  the
scanning
is a one person (volunteer, student worker) job and goes very quickly.
I
did over 1000 items in 35 minutes (took 20 minutes to download, but that
didn't involve any people time.)  Hope this helps!

Yes, I used one for the first time last year.  After 3 days of
struggling,
I finally got everything to work & it worked great!  Online instructions
were very helpful, ("Inventory steps in the Unison Design"...can't
remember
website, probably www.follett.com) as was a LM_NET posting by Susan
Aroldi
from 5/30/98, "Inventory hints".
--Anne

 I have used a Follett PHD plus for years - it worked well when I was on
circ + but only does inventory now that we are on Unison.  I do believe
that
I will be able to exchange it for one which works for everything once we
get
our new Unison for Windows.  I have loved it - it has always worked well
and
Follett repaired it for me two or three times at a minimum cost as long
as I
had a service agreement.
    I am interested in the answers you get and hope that I can find
something a little less expensive that works with Unison.  Good luck

While I don't use our PHD for circ, I do use it all day long for
attendance--we treat the patrons as "inventory" (only for the PHD, I
promise!)--and download it to provide a list--every 41 minutes, all day
long!
We find it very useful.

I used it for inventory at the end of last year and it was very
efficient.  Only problem is that it only takes about 1,000 entries
before
it needs to be downloaded to the computer. (I wouldn't recommend any
more
than 800 really if you are worried up a glich problem and loosing all
that data.)  So, if your school is really busy, this might pose a
concern.  Personally, I like having the circ desk because it is a place
of authority and a place to deposit items (repair, missing, paperwork,
etc.) while you are helping out the students.  You can't keep popping
out
to a workroom with kids in the library, esp. if you are the only
supervisor there.

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