I recently asked two questions regarding Destiny, and thanks to the wonderful
LM_NET community, I have probably saved our school $400!
I asked whether Destiny users upgraded their scanners at the time of
implementation, and the consensus was that my existing scanner (3400) will probably
work just fine. Interesting to note that Follett can send me a page of barcodes
that will reveal compatibility or not. Or I can buy a scanner elsewhere cheaper.
I also asked whether other schools paid for Follett to clean up their database
prior to conversion. The fact that we are only one campus and have records in
fairly decent shape make it seem from comments received that I can probably do it
myself, although since I may not be forced to get a scanner right away, I may
utilize this service.
Thanks to all, and a hit is posted below.
I believe mine (scanner) is a 3400 which I had for several years before Destiny and
it works just fine. I have some extra money this year so I may buy a new one but
will keep the old one for inventory.
I'm not at work to check our scanner, but when we switched, the one we used with
Follett worked fine. I'm pretty sure it was a 3400. Also, I purchased an extra
scanner for another desk (not bought from Follett) which I was able to program to
use with Destiny, Follett's prices are terrible.
When I had the same concern, I called Follett before I purchased Destiny, and they
sent me a page of barcodes. If my scanner read them, they assured me it would work
with the program.
As far as your scanner question, $400 isn't much when you think of all the problems
a bad scanner can cause. I'd buy a new one--but you don't have to buy it from
Follett. Search the LM Net archives--I recall someone recently came up with the
name of a company that sells scanners that are compatible with Destiny, and they
were much cheaper than $400 BTW, it takes a little getting used to, but you'll love
Destiny!
Re: Using Follett’s Data Enhancement and Cleaning prior to conversion to Destiny:
I know I did a recon before we merged...we are only 5 buildings and we had to do a
lot of manual merging because a couple of the buildings had terrible records (which
we didn't realize until after the merge) but it was one of our secondary librarians
who have more discretionary time who did it. I think it took her a year to merge
duplicate records and clean up the mess. If you have access to Alliance then do it
yourself. If you have mostly good records then you are probably ok. Are you just a
single library? Are you getting the Alliance access? I'm not sure what Follett's
service entails or how much it costs.
I'm in the process of cleaning up mine now after installing Destiny. I was not
aware of the Follett Data Enhancement...It is taking along time to do it, so maybe
you would be better off. Good Luck
In my opinion, data cleanup and enhancement depends on the size of your district.
Are you a single school converting to Destiny (and it's union catalog capability),
or do you have a number of schools switching over. We did the switch last
spring--about 20 different school libraries went over, and I felt we HAD to cleanup
and enhance the data. If it's just one school, then do an autorecon under Cat
Plus. That will do a very good job of enhancing any incomplete MARC records.
I just finished a conversion from Spectrum to Destiny, and the data transfer went
well once they gave me complete instructions. However, I did call tech support for
both products several times to get the help I needed.
Gail Brubaker, Librarian
srvca.library@comcast.net
San Ramon Valley Christian Academy
Danville, CA - www.srvca.org
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