GEN: Follett Automation programs and Mitinet

[John and Cathy Conway <conway@LISCO.NET>]

Hello--
        I am currently running Follett's Unison 1.2 on DOS at out high school. Our
district's elementary buildings and middle school have newly automated with
Winnebago Specturm, all on Mac. I also manage the middle school, so am
familiar with Specturm. (And I have to say that I am not particularly
thrilled with it.) The high school will be updated next year. When we began
this building-by-building conversion, the plan was for us all to be
eventually on Spectrum. But I am having second thoughts, and am seriously
considering just updating my Follett program to the new Windows version,
and saving myself alot of extra work and money.
        <Will I regret not installing the same program at my high school as I now
have at the middle school?> If I go Spectrum, I will have to re-barcode and
the software is <much> more expensive than the Follett update. My Follett
program has always worked fine, and I like the new Windows version (that I
have seen on demo) better than Spectrum. Our district is about 1200
students. I wanted to have students in the Middle School and High school be
able to search either catalog over the Internet and request materials, but
now find that that capability will cost a great deal extra with either
Spectrum or Follett, and I don't see the money for that coming anytime
soon. I imagine that I will just continue to carry materials back and forth
when needed, as I do now.
        And, has anyone used the Mitinet program than Follett offers? I have seen
a demo, and see that it would make creating MARC records easier. But does
it really help "clean up" punctuation and subject headings in existing MARC
records through global editing? Is it easy to use? Worth the price? Thanks
for any advice...

Cathy Conway
Mid-Prairie High School
Wellman, Iowa 52356



Cathy Conway

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