Two Visits

After we notified SirsiDynix that we planned on migrating to a new system, we had a visit on July 6 from David Noll, our SirsiDynix Field Sales Consultant. Dave wanted to know why we intended on leaving Symphony. We discussed our current issues ... and the main problem was the cost of the product and how frustrated we are that the prices continue to climb. Dave informed us that 30% of the libraries that left SirsiDynix for open source software ended up with SirsiDynix again. He wanted us to know that they would welcome us back again if our project didn't work out. He said that they would try to help us if we had any concerns.

On July 26, Cathi and I attended an InfoPeople workshop on Koha for System Administrators. This workshop was held at our Library so it was very convenient. Too bad there were so few participants but it gave us time with the instructor, Brendan Gallagher, from ByWater Solutions. We were given a "hands on" view of Koha.

After the workshop we talked about training here for our Library. It looks like Brendan will be handling our training and that we will be using version 3.2 if Koha. We talked about dates for the training, and "potentially" settled on October 4,5,6. On Monday,October 4, we will discuss System Administration, Reporting and some Linux administration. Tuesday, October 5, will be focused on Technical Services--Cataloging, Acquisitions and Serials. On Wednesday, October 6, the sessions will cover Circulation & the OPAC.

Some of our Library staff are concerned about having the training so early... no time really to practice since they need to keep up with the steady stream of material arriving. However, Brendan advised that staff persons need to practice, use the new system and become familiar with it before going live so the transition will be more successful. After the training, weekly or bi-weekly calls from ByWater Solutions would be made to answer questions that arise. And, if there aren't questions then it was assumed that no one is using the test system...in that case then assignments will be passed out.

Jackie and Cathi

We're On Our Way

Good News! We just signed our contract with ByWater Solutions for the migration, installation, training, and maintenance of our new Integrated Library System--Koha. But... Wait! Wait! Perhaps I need to tell you a bit about our Library first.

Arcadia Public Library is a small city library in the San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles County. At this time, we have 161,145 bibliographic records, 200,216 item records, and our annual circulation for 2009-10 was 729,000. We have 61, 025 borrowers, and a staff of 27 full-time and 16 part-time employees.

We have had three different ILS systems in the past 20+ years. We started with Inlex, migrated to DRA's Taos in 2000, and then migrated in 2002 to SirsiDynix's Unicorn. Our current version of Unicorn is Symphony 3.3.0. Our needs for an ILS are minimal. We are a one building library, so no branches. We have only the basic modules...cataloging, circulation, reports, OPAC, and collections. We had considered adding more modules (acquisitions and serials) but never could afford them and, in fact, we felt since we were so small we could do without them.

The past two years have been financially tough for public libraries; Arcadia Public Library is no exception. We had been asked by the City to either hold the line in costs or to reduce as much as feasible. We ended up freezing a couple of positions. Costs for our ILS maintenance, hardware, and content enhancement continued to climb, even though we pleaded poverty to SD. In 2008-09 that we started investigating open source software.

Our intention in writing this blog is to document our project, from the decision to go with Koha and every step along the way to our goal of "going live"...and perhaps beyond.

There will be at least two contributors to this blog, Jackie Faust-Moreno, Library Services Manager, and Cathi Wiggins, Information Systems Specialist. There maybe additional bloggers as we go along. Each blogger will give their name at the end of the blog so you know their perspective. Enjoy the story of our journey...

Jackie and Cathi