I dislike budget planning. First, it always coincides with my review and I have too much paperwork to do with that. Also, I'm always worried that a bad performance review will equal less resources for the library. Finally, I just have too much data in my head to keep it sorted.
This year is especially trying since we are looking at a new ILS. I've read through and heard your comments through the blog and various conversations.
One thing is crystal clear: what we use now is no longer meeting our needs. As solo librarians at your campus, you need an interface that is efficient for all services. You need clean reports for the purposes of assessment and development. You need a product that will interface with our vendors and with partner software (i.e., CLASS). And you need an OPAC that students will come as close to enjoying as anyone would doing research.
Not many of you rooted for Polaris. I'm not sure that I am surprised: we didn't have very long meetings with the Polaris folks, and the OPAC isn't shiny. For what it's worth, I think that their cataloging and circulation interfaces would work fine for us. My primary concern is their customer service - who are you going to call if you need help?
Most of you seemed to like TLC for one reason or another. While cataloging seemed complex, I don't think that it was much more so than Polaris (he just went into quite a bit of detail). Serials would be nice to have but not crucial to our service. Acquisitions may also be a nice bonus but I don't think it's something we could use this year (or even next). I liked their Authority Control, the high level of support, and the flexibility to work with B&T, CLASS, etc. Of course, it's also the cheaper option, which is not so bad.
So I guess it comes down to WHICH OPAC in TLC you like more - AquaBrowser or Indigo? Indigo is pretty but it isn't finished - and he never directly answered the question if it would integrate with WebFeat. AquaBrowser ALREADY integrates with WebFeat. Indigo has nice tagging features that AquaBrowser will not have. However, I'm not sure we could set our homepages to Indigo - so the book river, while beautiful, may not be functional for us.
I'd like to make a decision for budgeting purposes by Friday. What's your final choice? TLC Aquabrowser, TLC Indigo, or Polaris - and why?
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18 comments:
I loved Indigo at PLA, but after the demonstration/webinar last month, I vote for Aquabrowser. I love the mapping on the left side.
I must say, I am SO excited for this change! I have the Sam Cooke song "A Change Is Gonna Come" stuck in my head.
Although I am concerned that Indigo is not quite ready, I prefer Indigo over Aquabrowser. I think the page in Indigo is cleaner; the mapping in Aquabrowser clutters the page and reduces the space available for search results.
I really liked Aquabrowser--with the cloud--I think our students could get alot more out of their searches with related keywords provided (kinda like in EBSCO when it gives you other subject headings to the side when it pulls the results). Indigo is pretty but still in Beta (shades of Aleph when it first came--all the 'fixes' that were going to be done that should have been corrected before it rolled out and not in the next version/s). I also like the idea of having tech support that anyone can call--with the way our system is,over multiple states, different levels of expertise with IT, and beginning librarians to come on board, as new campuses are rolled out, I feel this would be a better bet and a better fit and will save us time, training and money.
I also liked the Aquabrowser cloud and how it provides other search terms for the user to consider.
Here is a link to an article from Library Journal 2008. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6542440.html
Below is the excerpt from the article about TLC.
Does this make any difference?
Oops, forgot excerpt... Here it is.
AquaBrowser pioneered the replacement interface genre. Beginning in 2004, developer Medialab struck a deal with The Library Corporation (TLC) to market its product in the United States and Canada, and, in 2005, TLC became its exclusive distributor. By June 2007, TLC sold AquaBrowser to more than 120 libraries. With Bowker's acquisition of AquaBrowser, TLC lost its exclusive deal, prompting the development of its own next-generation public library interface, Indigo, a graphically attractive interface dubbed “library positioning software.”
Hard to say. They both have nice interfaces. I think it is a matter of preference. Can we look at a few more sites that have Indigo in use now?
Here is a link to some demos of Aquabrowser in use.
http://www.serialssolution.com/aquabrowser/demos.html
I like AquaBrowser & TLC for the above mentioned reasons. While I agree with Chandra that Inidigo looks cleaner, I think the clouds will help navigate our students to more effectively to what they really are looking for (hopefully).
From the staff end, I think we would be able to utilize either product but again prefer TLC. And, it seems as if they would offer more comprehensive customer service. Gerry certainly highlighted that in his presentation. Of course, some things you don't know until you use them! (I may be able to get further info on that before Friday)
My vote is to Aquabrowser. One reason why I liked Indigo was because of the purty book cover. However, because of everything that was previously noted (not yet completed, possible homepage issues, etc), I think Aquabrowser would be a better pick for our students.
One thing we could do to duplicate the book cover pictures is to integrate those into the LibGuides. That would be very useful for students and faculty!
I vote for TLC AquaBrowser.
I believe that this will be the best fit for our students and that was my #1 requirement.
TLC also gets my vote due to the better pricing and the great tech service.
If we purchase AquaBrowser, what are the possibilities for updating to Indigo, (if it ever gets done), in the future?
I tend to agree with most of the above comments. Initially, I also preferred Indigo - I LOVE the "river" of book covers. However, I am leary about how new it is, and any unforeseen glitches or other issues w/ it.
I agree with Pat.. I think our best bet is to start w/ Aquabrowser - see how it goes - and then decide at a later date on whether or not to switch to Indigo. I'm sure if we are a current TLC customer they would go out of their way to help us w/ the transition and maybe even cut us some financial breaks.
On the other hand, is anyone concerned that Indigo will go over EXTREMELY well and eventually they will phase out Aquabrowser? If Indigio is the most technologically advanced and "forward thinking" ILS, perhaps we should give some more thought to it.
In response to Kate's question - I don't think any of us can look into the crystal ball and predict where Indigo will go and whether it will ultimately out perform Aquabrowser.
We need to make the best decision with the information we have today. It's not easy, but I know we'll be ok with whichever decision we go with, and I know our patrons will be happy with anything other than silly Aleph...
I really wish there were more demos available for Indigo; the current demo (if you can call it that) is kind of creepy. I'd like to see it in action again. I agree with Chandra and think that Indigo looks a little cleaner than Aquabrowser, which I think students will appreciate. However, I guess I am leaning towards Aquabrowser due to all of the unknowns w/ Indigo.
Ok, I was able to get some feedback from someone who's system has switched to TLC (CarlRX not Solutions, and AquaBrowser). As to customer service, they are good but of course have to prioritize projects with the large number of customers. There were some bugs, but again this was CarlRX. They like AquaBrowser.
The person indicated that the Cataloging module was well liked (and I trust that person's opinion- they had not done cat for some time but have a background in it). Serials is not as great as they'd like, but as Emily indicated we may or may not use it (this year or ever). Acq is "ok".
I lied... it's Carl X not RX
http://www.tlcdelivers.com/tlc/whatwedo/automation.asp
I prefer Aquabrowser, many of our students need those extra subject terms and keywords to get going in their research. The tech support would be great,after struggling so long with ALEPH.
I was not able to join all of you when TLC presented as I was in a classroom working with students finding resources. Then when I left I ended up helping the many nursing students in the library. From what I have read though it looks like many of you loved Aquabrowser. The cloud tags sound like something that would be helpful to our students.
Since I wasn't able to see the presentation, I can only offer an opinion as a user without the knowledge of the backbone of each option.
These both look great but it's hard to tell the usability of Indigo since there aren't many examples out there.
I agree with Chandra that it is a bit crowded. I wonder if it's possible to have the tag cloud window done in such a way that a user could close it if they didn't want to look at it. I suspect it's probably not possible but that would be a handy feature.
-Krista
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