[LM_NET] HIT: More Questions about Destiny - LONG

[Sara Robisch <smrobisch@YAHOO.COM>]

Thank you to everyone who responded to my original question about Destiny. It was 
nice to know that you don’t have to use all the features. I will probably end up 
going to Destiny in the future so I am glad to hear that people like it. Right now, 
I am happy with Circ Plus and am not convinced that I need to spend the extra money 
right now. Here is my original question with the responses I received. 

Thank you again,

Sara Robisch
District Librarian
Rib Lake School District
srobisch@riblake.k12.wi.us

Follett has really been pressuring my district to go move up to Destiny from Circ 
Plus. They have even got a hold of my tech guy and have him convinced. I have a few 
concerns, though, and was wondering if any of you could help.

We are a small school district (about 550 students in 3 schools)and our libraries 
are very understaffed. I am only 60% library and while I have aids in the three 
libraries, none of the libraries are staffed for more than half the day. The High 
School library is open most of the day, but is staffed most of the day by Study 
Hall teachers. The Middle School only has coverage for about 2 hours, and the 
Elementary School is open from about 12:00 until 3:00. 

My concerns are with all the new features like allowing students and parents to 
reserve books from home, and the ILL feature. We barely have time to shelve and 
catalog books as it is, there is no way we could do a reserve list or ILLs. If I 
don't plan on using features like that, is it worth purchasing? Are any of you 
working in a smaller district that uses Destiny? Would you be willing to share your 
opinions on it, especially the newer features?

**************************************************************************************************************

We also use Circ Plus.  I am not pushing for an upgrade to Destiny, but
my question -- one that I should have asked my Follett rep already -- is
how much longer Follett will continue to support Circ Plus.  The answer
to that question will determine at what point I will plan for the
upgrade.

You have the option of allowing only the features you want available.
We switched to Destiny and I am very pleased with the ease of use.  We
do not allow reserves and do not do ILL.  It is all in how you and the
tech person set up the accounts.  We are also a small district, 900
students k-12.  Cataloging is very user friendly and probably takes less
than a minute per book.  Destiny training was very useful, and you learn
using your own equipment and data.  Our tech person chose to have
Follett host the server for our Destiny.  It is a little more expensive,
but worth not having to purchase a server just for library use.  

Hope this helps. 

I thought I might be able to overcome my dislike for Destiny,or more precisely the 
way it is being pushed, and not reply to this question, but I can't. 

Just the name, Destiny, pushes up my blood pressure!   My biggest peeve is the way 
they are pushing this on districts who like Follett's automation system...and we 
do.   

Destiny is a whole other story.....and the library piece is just a small part.... 

I can see its value to a very large district, such Miami-Dade (I think they have it 
... or at least that's what the Follett rep. said awhile back.)  Absences, textbook 
management, grades....all important but do not have anything to do with library 
programs. 

My impression is that they have a big investment in this program and will flog it 
anywhere and everywhere to anyone who will listen. 

There!  I feel better now!

We have been using the Destiny program for approximately 3 years now -- we love it. 
 As to your question about allowing student to reserve books from home, I am the 
only building in my district (of approximately 2000 kids) that allows the students 
to do this.  You can turn this feature on or off, depending on your needs, etc.

Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.
Thanks,

When Follett bought Sagebrush products, we knew that the days of Athena were 
numbered, so we started looking for a replacement. Destiny was one of the six that 
we looked at. It is, indeed, a very impressive system. Unfortunately, even with the 
current customer discount it was still by FAR the most expensive program we looked 
at. We eliminated it from further consideration on that basis. We also eliminated 
the one that was FAR cheaper than the others. That left us with four programs that, 
over a ten-year-period, had very similar costs. We figured that on the basis of the 
initial purchase price plus any conversion costs plus any mandatory training costs 
plus the tech support out 10 years (based on current price).

We ended up looking most closely at Alexandria and Koha. I'd suggest you look at 
Koha, since they will do the hosting for you, which means that they handle all the 
backups and upgrades. That will take quite a load off of your IT person.

This is year 2 for me - it is wonderful-so versatile -easy to customize- go
for it!!


It sounds as though you need more staff, rather than an upgraded library system!
good luck!
we have Destiny but are a much larger system. There is a definite learning curve 
with it--lots of bells & whistles--but then if you already have circ + it might not 
be such a leap for you. 


Individual features like holds, ILLs and even home access can be turned on
or off to suite your needs.  Personally, I think Destiny has enough other
great features when accessing on-site (especially for the media staff) that
it is still worth the switch.
I'd normally be highly opposed to any change that I felt was pressured into
by a company, but our large district (41,000 students in ~50 schools)
campaigned hard for Destiny and finally made the switch about a year ago.
Good luck in your decision.

I personally know someone in management at Follett.  Last year when I asked
they were not talking about cutting off support to Circ Plus.  But I have
been using computers and Circ Plus since 1990 and I can tell you that Web
based is the wave of the future.  The day is coming when we will have to go
to Destiny.  The question you should be asking is not if you want to go to
Destiny, but when can you afford to do that.  I have seen circ Plus go from
MSDOS to Windows.  FSC has given good service.  They gave us warning that
after Destiny came out they would not be doing regular updates.  They did
one for Daylight Savings Time. FSC will continue to get the bugs out of
Destiny.

We are switching to  Destiny in January (from Circ. Plus- which I hate) - but it is 
so much more user friendly - I'm sure there is a way to turn off the ability for 
parents and students to reserve books from home.  There are tons of different 
settings in one of the menus (sorry, I can't be more specific - I've had the 
training, but not the actual program yet.)
Hope this helps - I think you’ll like it.
In our large district, students do not actually have a personal log in, they just 
see the catalog.  If they want to reserve a book that is out, they have to ask us 
to do that for them at the circ desk.  They do not have access to ILL screens.
We love Destiny.  It's intuitive and easy to use.  I don't have any experience with 
circ plus, so I can't do a recommendation there.
We are an independent school, well-staffed but small. We moved to Destiny and it's 
a great improvement on circ plus.
We don't use the reserve and ILL features, just turn them off. The major plus is 
how flexible it is. You can access it from anywhere: work from home (a mixed 
blessing, but useful), check out from any classroom, etc.
Also, the new catalog is really different, challenging and great for kids. 
I would definitely recommend it.
Good luck,
We just switched to Destiny this year and are a district of 6 schools.It is 
interesting that you noted that your tech person has been contacted by the company 
and are sold on the product. The same thing happened here!  

All of our schools are staffed with full time librarians & aides. We are choosing 
not to do ILL & not allowing students or parents to place holds. Our main problem 
is that our internet is very slow so checking out & checking in has become 
cumbersome at times. 

They will tell you that when internet goes down, you can still check in/out books 
with Follett Remote. That is true, but you will not have access to the catalog 
during those outages.

To be honest, I was against switching to Destiny from Spectrum. I just don't think 
that we always need the 'cadillac" of everything. However, I will say that it has 
been an easier switch than I anticipated. You do need to know that it is necessary 
that you do an inventory ASAP  once you start the program. They will tell you that 
you can wait to do one, but I recommend that you do it ASAP so that the barcode 
filters can be removed.

If you have any specific questions, feel free to email me. I felt your pain all 
summer and dreaded starting a new program!
Those options are choices that are made by the administrator of the system.
You can assign different levels of access. So, my parapro (1 hour per day)
can take care of fines, place holds, etc, but my library science students
can not. I would say that you may not use all of the features to begin with,
but the ease of the system may encourage more use especially if you are not
full time. I love my Destiny system. Hope this helps.
I am in a large district and patrons can't ILL or reserve since they don't have a 
Destiny log-in. Only people given log-ins (IE Staff) can perform those functions, 
so it's a non-issue for us. :)
Yes it has all those features but you don't have to use them.  We do not
allow students to place holds.  They can not see the catalog at home (at
this point.  I'd like them to be able to see it not use it.).

We only ILL by calling the perspective library and asking them to check
the book out to us and then sending it via interdepartmental mail.  This
is rare.

You can shut off what you don't want and add it as you feel comfortable.

Good luck and look at Alexandria (they have had an offer of 50% off to
match Follett's upgrade price).
We switched to Destiny 2 years ago and I love it.  You can decide what
'privileges' are allowed and not allowed by the type of user.  I must say
however that what sold me was the cataloging feature.  With your situation,
I'd ask for it yesterday!  You get access to Alliance Plus and other catalogs
which makes cataloging ten times faster.  It does take a little time to learn
and the things that you only do once or twice a year (inventory, calendar,
some reports) need to be relearned, it has been a definite improvement.
You can turn off any or all of the extra features, or make them
available only to certain types of users (such as teachers).  I am in a
school of 420, and I have found that very few kids and teachers have
used the review or hold feature (this is only our first year).  It is
definitely worth switching, if you can afford it.
We are only 1 school (elementary and high school) and we have Destiny.  We
don't use either of those features that you spoke of.  It takes a little
getting used to, but I really like it.
I like Destiny. You as the site administrator can limit what a patron can do.  If 
you don’t want them to place holds (and I don’t), don’t give them permission 
to do that.  The way it’s set up in this district, each site administrator (vs. 
the district administrator) sets up the policies and access levels for her own 
site.  We try to keep them uniform across grade levels—for example, all elem. 
policies are the same, etc.
Your tech dept needs to really understand Destiny.  If you purchase it, discuss how 
often the patron database will be updated (add the new students).  One problem is a 
union database.  If everyone catalogs, you can get into a real mess.
I just got Destiny, bit I believe you can choose not to enable such features. In 
fact, I don't think our staff and students can do that yet because we don't know 
how to set that up with the SIS yet. I can, but others can't. We purchased ours as 
part of a consortium, but we have access to Alliance Plus Online and z-server 
lists, which makes cataloging a new title so fast and easy, which may be a huge 
help to you since you are short-staffed. Today, I cataloged a new Spanish dvd in 
about 2 minutes, something I used to dread because it was so time-consuming and 
difficult to find records. Plus, you can work on the catalog at home, which I like.
you don't have to have the hold feature turned on.
you can really customize the site to function at various levels for
administrators, clerk/staff, students, faculty, guests, etc.




      

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please note: All LM_NET postings are protected by copyright law.
  You can prevent most e-mail filters from deleting LM_NET postings
  by adding LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU to your e-mail address book.
To change your LM_NET status, e-mail to: listserv@listserv.syr.edu
In the message write EITHER: 1) SIGNOFF LM_NET  2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL
 3) SET LM_NET MAIL  4) SET LM_NET DIGEST  * Allow for confirmation.
 * LM_NET Help & Information: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/
 * LM_NET Archive: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/archive/
 * EL-Announce with LM_NET Select: http://lm-net.info/
 * LM_NET Supporters: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/ven.html
 * LM_NET Wiki: http://lmnet.wikispaces.com/
--------------------------------------------------------------------