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By Karen McIntyre
Just as a second romance is different from the first blush of adolescent love, so migrating from one library program to another is very different from an initial automation project. As with attention given by a "First Love," a particular company introduces automation to the librarians, holds their hands through the conversion, and helps them when they run into real difficulties. Users form personal ties to those who help them to work through their initial automation experience. There is a natural emotional investment in a company with which a long, amicable relationship exists, so it is good to anticipate some emotion in the change process.
Librarians who work in libraries that are already automated are familiar with library automation in general. They are more discerning and skeptical consumers than those who are just beginning the automation process. This is confusing to vendors accustomed to dazzling librarians with promises of the bliss that awaits them after automation. Those who have been automated know that their mate (first automation program) has warts; and as they look around for a potential second mate, they know enough to ask the questions that will expose those warts.
The Process
In our district, the "second time around" process began with several librarians who were considering the purchase of the cataloging module of our old DOS program. They had experienced a Windowsor graphical user interface (GUI)library program in another district and did not want to invest money in a program that was outdated. As is often the case in school districts, the amount of money available drove the process. A new library coordinator also facilitated the process and encouraged our technology activities.
Until this year, we had thought that libraries should keep the DOS program because it could run on older equipment which was being discarded (or "handed down") as more sophisticated programs were being installed on networks throughout the schools. We reasoned that these older machines could be installed in libraries as networks for the library program.
On a collision course with this idea was the recognition that the libraries would be the hub of each school's network, and librarians were being encouraged by our technology director to take a more active role in technology growth and networking. With a favorable economic climate, an awareness that old equipment was short-lived, a better appreciation of the librarian's expanding role, and an acknowledgment of possible benefits of a new program, decision makers found it harder to argue for the discarded equipment theory.
Technology representatives, administrators, and interested librarians attended an initial investigative meeting. The technology team asked why we wanted to migrate. In addition to the reasons given in the preceding paragraph is the productivity issue: Windows programs allow several functions to be open at the same time. This means a librarian can catalog, and, with the click of a mouse, move to check out a book, then return to cataloging with another click. Finally, Windows programs are easier for students who have grown accustomed to GUI from using other programs. Several librarians expressed the belief that a Windows program would also address some of the shortcomings of the currently installed programs. On the other hand, several of the librarians openly challenged the idea that we needed to change systems.
In addition to this discussion, we reviewed a list of characteristics which we compiled from several profiles we had received over the Internet from districts who had migrated. After some investigation it was determined that these lists had originally come from vendors. They were useful, but vendor specific. After wading through six pages of specifications, we concluded that most of the current automation programs perform similar functions, and we opted for a less formal approach for our decision making. One of the recommendations was that we should decide what we needed first. The obvious problem is that until a librarian experiences what some of the newer programs can do, she really does not know what questions to ask or what she might want. Some of the people helping to make the decision may not understand the advantages that the newer programs provide because they have not actually used them.
For librarians it was probably more important to compare how the programs performed the functions that seemed most obvious. How are searches performed? Could we use the non-MARC cataloging form in good faith? How would inventory compare? Could we continue to generate the same reports as before? Our solution was to obtain copies of the four programs we were considering and load them on machines located next to one another. We added about three hundred of our own records to the systems, allowing us to search the same items in each program, making comparison easier.
Our district coordinator
scheduled two days of vendor presentations. Each vendor had three hours for
presentation and questions, which was both helpful and frustrating. Some vendors
were so focused on scripted presentations that some librarians' questions went
unanswered.
We also discovered that it is was difficult to communicate clearly our questions
and concerns. Sometimes the salesperson, eager to answer, spoke without complete
understanding, thus confusing the issue. These are some of the dangers in buying
solely on the basis of vendor presentations. Also, the promises made by salespeople
in the blush of "first love" often prove less satisfying in the long
run. It is important to note that for the technology team, the presentation meeting
was an important opportunity to ask technical questions of the software representatives.
The Criteria
A week after the vendor presentation, we met and set the actual criteria we would use to wade through the information collected. We wanted to look at ten specific areas of interest:
1.
Is the system "mature." How long has the company in question been
producing a Windows product?
2.
Are students able to create and print a bibliography? How does the system create
bibliographies? Does it allow a user to add a new search to an old bibliography
and then eliminate some of the titles so that the researcher can actually create
a custom bibliography? Does it allow the user to save the bibliography to a
disk or file as well as to print a hard copy?
3.
Is the program "user friendly" for both librarians and students? How
does the system search? For example, if a system indexes each word in a title,
does the user have to type all the words in order to pull up the title? We used
an example title: Black Americans: a history in their own words. In one system
if "Black Americans in their own words" were typed, no matches were
found. In the another system the title appeared with as well as a second possible
choice. A sophisticated searcher would turn to a keyword search and perhaps
find the book, but we felt that the optimum would be to find it on the first
try.
4..
Do cataloging templates allow USMARC records to be created with correct punctuation,
even by those who are not USMARC experts? We discovered that in the DOS program
we had been using, when we cataloged in anything less than full USMARC, we ran
the risk of having the incorrect tags. We wanted better authority control and
an assurance that records were actually exportable.
5.
Is the price of the program and continuing technical support feasible? We compared
initial costs as well as on-going fees.
6.
Will the program accept our current barcode symbology, and are our newer scanners
compatible with the new system?
7..
Will the company's technical support and research and development fill our needs
adequately? We wanted to know if degreed librarians were employed in tech support
and if CNEs (certified network engineers) were a part of the process. We often
need more than just the a software expert. We frequently need someone who understands
network issues. A secondary concern was how responsive the company is to requests
for changes in the program to accommodate users. We wanted to be able to make
suggestions that the vendor would seriously consider in each update. We also
wanted to know that no matter what our problem, technical support people would
stay with us until we had a solution.
8.
What kinds of Web connections does the company provide? Could we download USMARC
records from other Z39.50-compliant institutions, and could we launch to the
Web from the catalog itself?
9.
What reports does the system provide, and how flexible are they? Could we tailor
the reports to fit our needs?
10.
How committed is the company to library solutions? How stable are they? Who
is the parent company?
Our technologists also questioned how the new system could serve as a union catalog. Among their questions was, "Do you want or need central data processing for circulation, and if the answer is yes, what kind of response time will such changes cause for your system?" Another issue about which the technology team was concerned was whether the vendor would allow the district to alter a report program if the vendor could be convinced that a district has someone on board who is capable of making such changes.
During this project we reviewed the archives on LM_NET (Library Media Network, an online discussion group of over 10,000 school library media people worldwide), posted a current query, and contacted other districts of similar size that had recently migrated. We also read journal and periodical articles that contained discussions of specific products. These were all made available to everyone on the committee, but not everyone used these resources or even tried all of the programs. Those who voted, however, had at least attended the vendor presentations and the meetings as a minimum requirement for having a say in the selection.
The Caveats
Words have different meanings in different contexts. In our meetings, when librarians used the words "centralized processing," we meant cataloging the book, affixing spine and barcode labels, adding it to the library system, and then sending it out to the various campuses. To the technology team, this meant central data processing! They thought we were talking about a union catalog in which circulation was being processed centrally! A real-time union catalog may be the ultimate goal, but we decided that at present each campus will continue independently.
Advice to the Reader
As you research different systems, remember that the people you are talking to have different levels of sophistication that can result in more than just the opportunity for confusion over words. For example, if you talk to staff at a site where they are happy with their program, be sure to find out what they had in the past. If they did not have any other program and moved to Windows in the same company, are they a good source for comparative information? Perhaps not, but they might be an excellent source for a discussion of technical support issues. If they have only had a DOS program, they may not have the depth of experience to be very helpful in selecting a graphical program.
Be aware that sales people
tend to answer without full understanding of your questions. They are eager
to make a sale, and they may promise far more than the company
can deliver.
Because of time constraints, we ultimately voted rather than working toward consensus; but consensus would have been the optimal approach. It would also have been helpful for the committee to have visited several sites and to have talked to the librarians who actually use the programs. It would have been extremely helpful to have had several months for the total process, sometimes in our case deadlines dictated our methods.
A Serendipitous Benefit
Migration can allow a district to review some time-honored practices and determine if they are "cutting off the butt of the ham to fit a pan that is no longer in use!" (This references the story of the family of women who had, for several generations, cut the end from the ham without ever knowing why. Finally, someone asked the grandmother why she always cut off the end of the ham. She said she cut the end off to make the ham fit her pan!) Perhaps the migration process will help those involved to re-examine habits and traditions that may need to change.
Conclusion
The foregoing were our experiences as we migrated to another automation program in our efforts to stay technologically current, and they do not reflect an extensive review of the literature. However, when we began the process, we found very little information available about migration for schools. Most of what had been written was for large systems, universities, and special libraries. We hope our experience will be helpful to others. This kind of monumental change can help sharpen our understanding, clarify our goals, liberate us from old unneeded tasks, and create excitement about the library's program.