Thank you to everyone who responded!! Below are the hits I got. I'd
really love to hear from more of you if you have time, particularly with
regard to financial and educational reasons for purchase. Thank you
again for sharing your collective wisdom!
Anne
Financially:
1. It will work on any computer with internet access, Mac or PC. No
need to continually upgrade computers.
2. Time and effort saved when upgrades happen--no need to load on
individual computers.
3. Can be accessed outside of school district if district decides to
do that, make resources more accessible
4. Libraries can easily see what is available in other schools for ILL
and resource sharing.
5. Prior to moving to Destiny 6 years ago, we paid Follett techs to
come out to our many schools (about 250 at the time) to install the
upgrades to Circ+/Cat+ in all our schools--big bucks! With Destiny, no
more tech fees, no more installations of software at our 315 schools.
Strengths:
1. Very appealing to our "digital native" students which means more
usage.
2. The transition from Circ+/Cat+ is not a major deal.
3. Can be programmed to automatically bring in student records and
teacher schedules from your student data management program (we are
using SASI) which saves HOURS of entry time.
4. Textbook Manager has many features that TextLink doesn't.
5. Student circ records stay with them as they move about the
district, making it easier to recover materials.
6. We've been with Destiny for a while now, and with each upgrade,
more and more features are integrated. Our district is responsible for
several. Destiny just gets better and better.
Perks:
· Destiny Quest!! Definitely! That's what the kids like. It's
"Googlish" and more visually appealing.
· Title Peek!! Definitely!! That's what gives the covers of the
books in the record. Kids like to see the covers and the added info
about the books.
· Alliance+!! Absolutely!! Provides millions of MARC records.
· WebPath Express!! Absolutely!! Makes web searches so much more
manageable for the younger kids, and keeps the older kids "honest".
· State Standards. We could live without it. It's hard to get the
teachers to use it, so I don't think we are getting our money's worth
here.
We converted from Winnebago CIRC/CAT a little over a year ago. Two of
the selling points for us were the fact that we could pay Destiny to
host our data on THEIR server and that you really don't need an IT
person to work with this system. We're on our 4th IT person in a 5 year
period so that really was a strong feature for us.
In general we love 99% of Destiny and are still learning some of it's
little tricks. I have no regrets making the change and would highly
recommend the product
We switched last year mainly because the kids could have access to the
catalog at home via internet. I can work on the catalog from home, too.
We did purchase Titlepeek this year as well.
When my old district changed over a few years ago, the Director of
Media was able to justify it simply on cost savings. Add up licensing
fees from each of your 13 schools and compare that to the district
license for Destiny. Unless they've jacked things up in the last few
years, you should save some money there. The other main selling point
is the union catalog capability and Internet access--students and
teachers can get into the system from any computer with Internet
access.
I'd have to say the biggest seller I'd use is Webpath Express. It's an
extra cost, but huge benefits for the money. It links over 500,000
editor reviewed websites to your catalog - evaluated by 3 grade levels -
K-5, 6-8, 9-12. You can limit what sites your clients can see, i.e. not
allow 9-12 sites. It's so valuable - I greatly encourage both students
and teachers to start searching here, as the selection team has, as I
tell my students, "selected out the whacko fringe!"
I think Destiny is so much better than Circ/Cat. It has all sorts of
benefits and features:
You can put all your library links on the front page of your Destiny.
We have TitlePeek, which kids and teachers love--visual plus more info
when you click on the tite. We also have WebPathExpress, which means
students can "bypass" Google for reputable websites that are leveled.
Students can set up individual accounts and then submit reviews, which
is a combined library/English project this year with our middle school.
Interface is much more flexible and user-friendly. Reports are really
easy! Overdues can be sent out automatically by email. Some students
really "get into" using Destiny Quest and the option for both the more
traditional interface and Destiny Quest is great.
I'm sure I could think of more, but I am so glad we made the switch!
Best of luck. I was actually able to sell it to our administration
through our IT coordinator, who wanted it for our computer resources,
so we also bought Asset Manager. It is now also used by our music
department for checking out instruments for the school year.
We are switching to Destiny at the beginning of January, after spending
about 13 years with Athena (cureently at 9.2). When my principal asked
me for justifications, I asked him if he knew of any other computer
software on campus that was as old as that. When this was chosen,
teachers wrote grades in gradbooks by hand, and many of the teachers
were not using computers - at all! Even though Athena has been
satisfactory, it's become "Athenasaurus."
Anne Lee
District Librarian
Berryessa Union School District
San Jose, CA
anne.lee@berryessa.k12.ca.us
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