Friends,
Thank you all for your input. Here are the responses that I received:
I used Spectrum at my old school. I now use
Alexandria...It is a lot more friendly!!! The reports print like they should, you
can customize them, etc. Also
Alexandria support is the most knowledgable group of
people I have dealt with as far as support.
I would definitely pick
Alexandria over Spectrum!
We went to
Alexandria 5 years ago, have had no problems, needed no formal training, have had
quick and reliable email tech support when we had a question--we'd recommend it!
(We run it on a Macintosh network, which was a problem on our former Mandarin
software.)
Just get Alex. You will be very happy. I've been with them since 1999 and
appreciate the personal touch they give to each customer. They are working on an
overhaul of the OPAC and librarian station interface right now. You are welcome to
visit my catalog online. Web pageaddress is below my signature. Barb
I've used
Alexandria for all 7 years that I've been in a library and find it very easy to
use. My district is Mac-based so having the Mac-native Alex is great.
Installation is a breeze and most reports are
fairly easy to use. My student aides handle check out and check in with almost no
problems. The Mac OS is very stable as is Alex. I haven't dealt much with
customer support, but pricing has been very
stable.
My only minus is the lack of flexibility in the reports. I have occasionally
exported datain order to manipulate it the way I want.
Here's a reponse I wrote to a similar request"Compared both (Alex and Follett) and
suggested ouradministration buy
Alexandria. Alex..has varous web sites (ask the salesrep for them) so you can see
the search mechanism and do real searches (of some set library), same with getting
MARC records.
Very pleased with service. We are a tiny school yet I got prompt emails and phone
calls.
Price difference is enormous. We have only 180 kids.
Library has Macs, for Destiny you need a PC server which would have beenanother
cost.
I read many reviews of Alex.on LM_NET and feel confident with our choice. Now it's
on the principal's desk.
Do get the web addresses for actual hand on searching and MARC record work, also
the powerpoint on their web site is very helpful!
Please post a HIT when you get responses. We currently run Spectrum and like
everyone else, will need to make the change since Follett won't be supporting this
product forever. We are looking into:
Alexandria, Atriuum, Destiny, and Surpass. We made this same switch last summer,
with very mixed results. We are running it in a PC - Novell network and that may
bethe problem. The tech
support is nowhere near what they claim. The program itself is not too friendly,
especially switching from Spectrum. The jargon is so different and it doesn't
produce some of the reports we came to depend on.
Warning! Take great care with the choices you make when doing your data conversion.
To be frank, they (Mitinet?) did a horrible job on our records, very sloppy. To fix
it has required a lot of one record at a time correction, not too efficient.
There are things I like about the program, but if I had a choice I would have
stayed with Spectrum.
I currently use
Alexandria. I cannot compare it to anything else. I am being forced to change mid
year. I love
Alexandria for the most part. Easy to learn and use for you and students. Nice
interface screen where all transactions appear in order. I don't like some others I
have seen where you bounce back and forth between check in and check out screens
and cannot see a running tally of what has occurred today. It changes as the patron
and/or event changes. They are very friendly and helpful. It is easy to get through
to customer service and tech help. The upgrades are FREE.
One thing I don't like is there are a few reports that I can't seem to tweak to my
liking. I don't know if that would be better or worse with any other system. Also,
no spelling help is provided on student version but from what I have seen of other
systems they don't really do well here either.
We use it in
Cecil
County
MD. Very easy to use. Very reliable. Tech support is fantastic. I highly
recommend it.
Survey other schools around you for
Alexandria and visit one if possible. That's how we chose. It is so helpful to see
it in action!
We are so happy with it - but, I'm not familiar withSpectrum as a comparison. I
just know I never have to ask anyone for help, rarely have to contact tech support
and feel so empowered to take care of all my own utilities, reports cataloging,
etc. Every Friday I stick a 2g flash drive in the server and do a back up incase we
ever had a fire.
I love having the student photos on my screen, the ability to override the due date
just by pressing the "." and the new date! We can do whatever we want and it keeps
track of it for us!
We had Mandarin before.
Howard Strey
hstrey@stpeterschools.org
100 Lincoln Drive
St. Peter, MN. 56082
507-934-4210 ext 411
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