Re: [LM_NET] HIT: More Questions about Destiny - LONG

[Paula Yohe <paula_yohe@YAHOO.COM>]

It is sad
Wer are supposed to be providing more access to students and parents
and I read about people who want to turn off the ability to let students and/or 
parents reserve books from home --
Lack of time is understood as everyone's lack of time these but -- that is another 
thing that makes media specialists look like they don't want to offer services to 
parents and kids

I was a Winnebago user then Sagebrush for many years and moved to Follett Destiny --
It is a good program -- it needs more features not less

Stop and think -- we just were pursuing this discussion on the future of libraries 
--

Be a bridge not the barrier to change --




Paula Yohe
Director Of Technology/Library Media Center
Dillon School District Two
405 West Washington Street
Dillon, SC 29536
Phone: 843-841-3604 Fax:843-774-1214
paula_yohe@yahoo.com


--- On Thu, 11/13/08, Sara Robisch <smrobisch@YAHOO.COM> wrote:

> From: Sara Robisch <smrobisch@YAHOO.COM>
> Subject: [LM_NET] HIT: More Questions about Destiny - LONG
> To: LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
> Date: Thursday, November 13, 2008, 8:09 PM
> 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.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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