In the midst of all the data / patron issues it became apparant some of our barcodes are badly outdated. Prior to Infocentre we'd always had issues with our 4 digit codes from Follett. We'd hoped that when the new system was installed these issues would disappear. Unfortunately things didn't rectify themselves.
After our initial install several types of barcodes didn't scan at all! After more days on the phone with Sagebrush it was apparant some software adjustments were necessary. Though we were able to get a couple hundred titles to scan we still had issues with the dreaded 4 digit codes. Shocking to me over 2,000 titles in my collection have 4 digit codes! The time it would take to re-label all these books would be tremendous! After much consultation and a test of a new scanner I've been able to conclude new hardware would be a more valuable purchase than the labor and time required to re-label. To boot many of the 4 digit titles are older books and have significant less circulation than those of the newer barcode labels. I hope to get new scanners ordered and installed prior to the end of school.
Friday, April 21, 2006
Patron Problems
Coming back to school from break we had more and more issues to deal with in regards to our new system. I spent one entire day cleaning up patron information. Several individuals were not in their proper designations.
Related to our data issues not all patron information was converted correctly. For example several patrons had books checked out and Infocentre didn't show them as checked out. Other issues were related to fines. Infocentre in some cases wasn't able to correctly show fines for patrons who owed them. Adjustments to loan periods helped rectify several of these situations however our data corruption from Athena threw a major money wrench in the works!
As a result of the inconsistencies we've been checking books in using both Athena and Infocentre at the same time. After spending several consecutive days on the phone with Sagebrush it was apparant the only way to work around the data issues was to run parallel systems. To date we've yet to receive all remaining Athena books. As we've continued to check out with Infocentre the system has worked flawlessly.
Related to our data issues not all patron information was converted correctly. For example several patrons had books checked out and Infocentre didn't show them as checked out. Other issues were related to fines. Infocentre in some cases wasn't able to correctly show fines for patrons who owed them. Adjustments to loan periods helped rectify several of these situations however our data corruption from Athena threw a major money wrench in the works!
As a result of the inconsistencies we've been checking books in using both Athena and Infocentre at the same time. After spending several consecutive days on the phone with Sagebrush it was apparant the only way to work around the data issues was to run parallel systems. To date we've yet to receive all remaining Athena books. As we've continued to check out with Infocentre the system has worked flawlessly.
Data Problems
The high school was the third building in the corporation to undergo the system upgrade. The Friday before spring break our tech department started our upgrade. I was looking forward to the new fresh software and all the capabilities it would provide us. The data conversion commenced around 11:00 am that morning. The conversion process didn't finish until late in the evening that night. Longer than we expected.
Monday morning, during Spring Break, I met with technology to discuss the next stage of our conversion. Of the 10,000 some titles in my collection the conversion only gathered 1063 titles. Consequently we were forced to re-run the conversion. After a failed second attempt technology was forced to export my data to Sagebrush for support.
By Thursday of vacation the data was evaluated and imported into our network for Infocentre's initial trial. All said and done I lost 48 items from the collection due to data corruption from Athena! To make matters worse neither Sagebrush or my technology folks could pinpoint what 48 items I had lost records of!! Needless to say I spent the remainder of vacation looking into the records trying to make sense of the confusion. The only good that came from this was I learned the ins & outs of the new software attempting to make sense of things.
Monday morning, during Spring Break, I met with technology to discuss the next stage of our conversion. Of the 10,000 some titles in my collection the conversion only gathered 1063 titles. Consequently we were forced to re-run the conversion. After a failed second attempt technology was forced to export my data to Sagebrush for support.
By Thursday of vacation the data was evaluated and imported into our network for Infocentre's initial trial. All said and done I lost 48 items from the collection due to data corruption from Athena! To make matters worse neither Sagebrush or my technology folks could pinpoint what 48 items I had lost records of!! Needless to say I spent the remainder of vacation looking into the records trying to make sense of the confusion. The only good that came from this was I learned the ins & outs of the new software attempting to make sense of things.
Automation Upgrade
Corporation Media Specialists have been consulting different systems over the past several months. The goal being unifying all PCSC buildings under one automation system. The following companies and products have been under consideration.
Follett - Destiny
Sagebrush - Infocentre
All buildings but one have been using Sagebrush's existing product Athena. The Sagebrush corporation has built a completely new software, Infocentre. The goal with Infocentre was to compete with the much larger used Follett product. Sagebrush has combined all their previously supported packages' best features to create Infocentre.
As media specialists we felt the familiarity with Sagebrush's Athena and the upgrade cost per building warranted the purchase of Infocentre. The cost per building was literally thousands of dollars less, each, due to our current customer status with Sagebrush.
Follett - Destiny
Sagebrush - Infocentre
All buildings but one have been using Sagebrush's existing product Athena. The Sagebrush corporation has built a completely new software, Infocentre. The goal with Infocentre was to compete with the much larger used Follett product. Sagebrush has combined all their previously supported packages' best features to create Infocentre.
As media specialists we felt the familiarity with Sagebrush's Athena and the upgrade cost per building warranted the purchase of Infocentre. The cost per building was literally thousands of dollars less, each, due to our current customer status with Sagebrush.
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