[LM_NET] HIT: Pros/Cons upgrading to Follett Destiny

[Andrea Moreau <andreaemoreau@YAHOO.COM>]

Thank you, thank you to the 3 who responded.  Your info was very interesting and 
helpful! And I'll still take more pluses/minuses about Follett Destiny.  Bunches 
requested a HIT posting so here ya go!

We have had Destiny in my district in Abilene, Texas, for 2-3 years or
so.  I have really enjoyed it.  I actually like being able to do things
from home.  I don't really do cataloging from home because I don't want
to lug the books home!  However, I do other administrative type stuff
from hom; i.e., setting up student log ins for the circulation system. 
This allows them to check their own account to see if they have overdue
books and to post reviews about the books they have read.  Neat!

I
don't think that too many of our students and parents use it from home,
and we still do ILLs the old fashioned way:  we e-mail each other!  The
automated version in Destiny just doesn't work for us.  I will also say
that cataloging became MUCH easier.  I almost always find a record in
their system.
 
*    *    *    *    *    *
2 years ago this coming Feb. our district migrated from Circ Plus (can
you say Dark Ages??) to Destiny.  In short, do it! It was so easy, they
do a very thorough training for all of you, and the support is very
good.  You'll probably get lots of responses so here's just a few that
I can think of. You shouldn't have to go to bid because you are just
upgrading your existing Follett software. By the way, I'm a fan. I've
used TLS & Dynix in school libraries, and Destiny is by far my
favorite.
Destiny is web-based so your technology dept. doesn't have to work so hard at 
keeping your updates done.  
Ours links to Pentamation, so every night the patron database is upgraded 
automatically.
Your patrons will have 24/7 access to your catalog.
Your
district will now become a district library system, not islands in the
stream because you'll have a Union Catalog.  Interlibrary Loan will
become very popular and will give your students equitable access to
your collections.
You'll have access to several cataloging services
through Destiny, so processing will be easy! (I'm not a cataloger, so I
really appreciate this part.)
Students and teachers are empowered by
using Destiny because they can do self-checkout, make resource lists of
materials, add book reviews to title records, and see what they have
checked out, overdue, etc.
You won't have to barcode every item
because Destiny ( I have no idea how, but it worked!) recognizes
duplicate barcodes between schools and will prompt you to decide what
item you are dealing with if you should encounter a duplicate.
Adding MARC records from book jobbers couldn't be any easier.
Destiny
Quest interface is hugely popular with the kids. It's graphical look is
very cool, and you can choose an elementary, middle or high school
"look".
If you can afford it, I highly recommend adding to the basic
package Standards Search (teachers can find materials and websites that
match their curricular standards), Titlepeek (kid says "I never checked
that out", but when you show them the image of the book cover, "Oh,
yeah, that's in my desk.), Webpath Express if you don't already have
Nettrekker, and OneSearch which searches all your databases at the same
time.

When you make your proposal, Follett has some great
literature and case studies you can cite.  They've pretty much done all
the work for you.

*    *    *    *    *    *
Overall, I love Destiny. While I am not part of a district, I have used
it for grades 1-12. It is very easy to teach any age to access titles
and put books on hold. I offer parent workshops on using the resources
from home and have had some parents go through the catalog with their
children and put books on hold together. I like the resource lists
which can be used by teachers or just by me, setting up lists for every
unit. My last school was over 2,000 students, and our tech department
imported all the student information from PowerSchool into Destiny. I
think this was rather challenging, but they had high praise for the
tech support from Follett. 

The statistics pages are easy to use and so is the cataloging. Since we
don't have MARC Wizard, I just use Follett's Alliance Plus and some Z
sources as well. I do wish they would redo their "Destiny Quest" page. 




 
Andrea E. Moreau
Library Media Specialist


 andreaemoreau@yahoo.com
amoreau@hancock.k12.ms.us


East Hancock Elementary
Hancock County School District
www.hancock.k12.ms.us
4221 Kiln-Delisle Rd.
Kiln, MS 39556
 
228-255-6637
228-342-3240 (cell)




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