Collier County Public Schools in Naples, Florida purchased Destiny, a =
Follett product this past year and this is in response to some concerns =
that readers have expressed about the web-based product. Destiny, as many =
of you may know, is a centralized library management solution that is =
installed at the district and accessed by schools over our wide area =
network. =20
We selected Destiny for several reasons: better access to resources by =
students, parents, and staff; ease of maintenance; lower total cost of =
ownership; and a strategic plan to move to browser-based applications.
Planning and implementation required extensive coordination and communicati=
on with many users. Below are some issues that we experienced and how we =
are resolving them:
* The network response times and performance concerns that were =
reported have been traced to network saturation on Collier's wide area =
network and were not related to performance issues with Destiny. The =
district has a plan in place to address the network issues.
* Destiny includes circulation, cataloging, searching, and reporting.=
In addition, Follett offers add-on products for advanced searching (like =
the Find-It-All mentioned in the message). We elected, as a district, not =
to purchase these add-ons at this time. =20
* Implementation began on January 13 and all schools were up and =
running in January.
* Follett has several training options, and we selected the option =
that best suited our needs. From January 26 to January 28 training was =
provided by Follett for 6 Media Specialists who volunteered to be core =
contacts for the other Media Specialists in the District. Our schools =
started to use the program even before formal training was provided. =20
* During implementation and data conversion, Follett technical =
specialists worked closely with our district to address unexpected issues =
that arose regarding a high volume of statistics records, our hardware =
setup and improper fields in our patron records, which impacted the =
conversion process. =20
Before, during and after implementation of Destiny, Follett has been =
helpful and attentive to our issues, and continues to assist our 6 core =
trainers by telephone when contacted. Our trainers provided an initial =
in-service to the other media specialists in the district and are =
continuing to work with the media specialists in their assigned schools =
offering small group trainings and assisting over the telephone and by =
email as needed.
Randi Zwicker
Director of Instructional Technology/Media Services
Collier County Public Schools=20
Naples, Florida
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