Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Moving to Alexandria From Follett Destiny
After a careful consideration of alternatives we have decided to move from the Follett Destiny library and textbook management software for our five rural elementary school libraries to the Alexandria library and texbook management software. The transition will begin on May 26th, 2010.
Prior to 2006, we used Follett Circulation Plus and Catalog Plus library management software running on our own server. That product, no longer supported by Follett, was outstanding and inexpensive. After 2006, using EdTech K-12 Grant funds, we moved to using Follett Destiny running on a server outside our district at a local high school (SIRNET) and were part of a consortium of school libraries using Follett Destiny at the Tehama County Department of Education (TCDE). Follett library and textbook management software is very powerful, web based, fast, full-featured, and a superior product with great support.
We had some serious questions in 2008-2009 about our share of consortium pricing for TCDE-Destiny and other SIRNET services. Unfortunately, we were unable to resolve the problems to our District's satisfaction in 2009-2010.
Moving to Alexandria allows us to again run the library and textbook management software on our own local server, cut costs by 62% over the past TCDE-Destiny consortium pricing, and maintain relatively full functionality. Many of the special features of Follett Destiny were little used by our teachers, students, or community members, so they will not be missed.
The interviews with existing Alexandria users that I spoke to indicate a high degree of satisfaction. Our library clerks were impressed with the speed and functionality of Alexandria. Alexandria sales staff and technical support staff have been excellent thus far.
We also moved from SIRNET email to Google Email Educational Applications in March, 2010. We are also considering moving from the featureless SIRNET web hosting of our flat .html websites to independent commercial web hosting primarily to take advantage of Web 2.0 open source software (e.g., Drupal, Moodle, Wikis, polls, image galleries, email lists, etc.), as well as for reducing costs. Our online searchable Accelerated Reader quiz database is hosted at Quiz List Interactive.
Changes, changes, changes ... Hopefully, the changes will work out for the best in the new school year.
Prior to 2006, we used Follett Circulation Plus and Catalog Plus library management software running on our own server. That product, no longer supported by Follett, was outstanding and inexpensive. After 2006, using EdTech K-12 Grant funds, we moved to using Follett Destiny running on a server outside our district at a local high school (SIRNET) and were part of a consortium of school libraries using Follett Destiny at the Tehama County Department of Education (TCDE). Follett library and textbook management software is very powerful, web based, fast, full-featured, and a superior product with great support.
We had some serious questions in 2008-2009 about our share of consortium pricing for TCDE-Destiny and other SIRNET services. Unfortunately, we were unable to resolve the problems to our District's satisfaction in 2009-2010.
Moving to Alexandria allows us to again run the library and textbook management software on our own local server, cut costs by 62% over the past TCDE-Destiny consortium pricing, and maintain relatively full functionality. Many of the special features of Follett Destiny were little used by our teachers, students, or community members, so they will not be missed.
The interviews with existing Alexandria users that I spoke to indicate a high degree of satisfaction. Our library clerks were impressed with the speed and functionality of Alexandria. Alexandria sales staff and technical support staff have been excellent thus far.
We also moved from SIRNET email to Google Email Educational Applications in March, 2010. We are also considering moving from the featureless SIRNET web hosting of our flat .html websites to independent commercial web hosting primarily to take advantage of Web 2.0 open source software (e.g., Drupal, Moodle, Wikis, polls, image galleries, email lists, etc.), as well as for reducing costs. Our online searchable Accelerated Reader quiz database is hosted at Quiz List Interactive.
Changes, changes, changes ... Hopefully, the changes will work out for the best in the new school year.
Labels: Alexandria, Libraries, Software, Technology, Web2
